It is 19:45, I dial Markus Groskopf, one of the two remaining original members of legendary German band Helloween, a polite voice on the other side answers, and once I identify myself asks me to call in half an hour, since he's eating…oops…
I call again in half an hour, and start a conversation with Markus, a friendly, easy going guy, who took part in creating several of my all time favorite metal albums:
A: Hi Markus! Helloween recently left Nuclear Blast records and signed with SPV, why was that done?
M: Well, we just had a great offer from SPV Records, and we wanted to do some changes, we've also recently left our former management, Sanctuary, and it seemed like the best time to do both moves, in any case, our contract with Nuclear Blast ended, so it wasn't a problem.
A: Is the band working on a new album to be released through SPV?
M: Not right now, we've just returned from a long tour, which actually took a year and a half, and before that we did promotion for the prior album for something like six months.
We got to tour some great places, such as North America, where we haven’t been for something like 15 years, and places in South America we never did, and also such countries as Malaysia, so all of that kept us very busy.
Right now we are working on our own, each member is putting down parts and ideas, in October we plan on getting together, and actually making songs from the ideas we have, there will be some rehearsal time, and then we'll get in the studio, around November, and hopefully a new album will be out by the middle of 2005.
A: The band has been through some major changes these past few years, how are the new members fitting in, and do you feel there's a change in the music and in the attitude because of the new members?
M: This tour was the first time we really got to know our new members, Stephan, our new drummer didn’t even record the album with us, so it was great seeing him in a live show, and getting to know him,
A: Your former drummer used to write a lot of material, is Stephan that active as well?
M: I don’t know, he doesn’t play guitar as Uli, our former drummer did, but I don’t know, maybe he will or is writing material.
A: You are one of the two original members of the band; do you feel that the crowds, your fans, have changed through the years? Do you still attract young fans?
M: Well, the people that saw us 20 years ago now come to our shows with their kids, so its quite strange, but the audiences haven’t changed much, its still a typical metal crowd, actually, the feeling today really reminds me of the feeling we had 20 years ago, what DID change, is all the stuff that has to do with the records, such as the promotion, when we started out you only put out a record, no CDs then, and did some interviews, today there's the Internet, the interactive stuff, DVDs, so there's a lot more to do with the music then just making an album and doing shows.
A: The band has been through several changes in the music style, and in the over whole mood of the music, with The Dark Ride being darker, heavier, and the last album a return to the happier, faster style, where do you stand as of now, and what influenced you to do such style changes in your music?
M: I don’t know how the new album will sound, since there's no real album to talk about yet, but when we did the Dark Ride album, we were actually driven into doing it by the people around us, the management and such, they told us to make a heavier, darker album, and we just thought about it, and decided to go for it, it seemed like an experiment to me, to do something which we never did before,
It was a hard record to make, since usually, when we record, we just do what comes to us naturally, and put on the songs we want, this time the album was did with our heads, and not from our hearts, we took the ideas we had, and made them into The Dark Ride songs,
In the last album, we just did what came naturally, we wrote tracks, and just put them into the album, so it was quite a lot easier to make.
A: You and some band members are or were linked to other projects, you made an album with a group called Shockmachine, are you active in any other side projects?
M: I did an album with a blues band called Kick Hunter, you can download tracks in the site:
www.kickhunter.com
, it was originally some songs a friend of mine wanted to record in my drum studio, and then he asked me to play on them, and I found myself a part of the album, which I also produced!
A: Is it a soft blues album, or a rock blues one?
M: Its very hard rock, we did some shows and festivals with Deep Purple among others, I like the style a lot, bands such as Whitesnake, for instance, are very much blues influenced, so it’s a genre I like to listen to, one of many.
A: And what about Shockmachine, which was a metal group you did?
M: It was a one album thing, though I'd like to make a second album, but it very much depends on the amount of free time I have, and since we will work on a new Helloween album soon, I don’t see it being done now, in any case, Helloween is my top priority.
A: You also worked on the Avantasia Project, created by Edguy's vocalist, Tobias Sammet, how did that come about?
M: Toby wanted me for the project, and since Gamma Ray's guitarist, Henjo Richter played on his albums, and he is a friend of mine, he just asked him to contact me.
It was a very fast process, since all of the songs were already written by Tobias.
A: Another ex-member of Helloween participated in the albums, Michael Kiske, did you meet him when doing the album?
M: No, he worked in a different studio.
A: That leads me to my next question, what are your relationships with former band members, such as Michael, Roland and Uli?
M: Well, I haven’t met Michael since he left the band, we just don’t hang around in the same places, he is more into rock clubs, and we meet Kai every now and then, but Roland is a friend of mine, an we meet each other for a beer now and then,
A: What were the reasons for him leaving the band?
M: It’s a very long story, in a nutshell, you just have to make decisions from time to time, some of them are difficult, but they need to be done, and in the band we had some easier times, and some harder, and that was just something that needed to be done.
A: You did the Wacken festival again this year, how was it this time?
M: It was great, as always, this time Kai came up on stage with us, and we did two songs together, so yea, it was great.
A: I know that you guys record in Tenerife, where two band members live, why record there?
M: The studio there is very good, and I'm the only member still living in Hamburg, so it doesn’t matter if we record in Germany or in Tenerife, the last two albums were recorded there, and its no problem for me, its only four hours flight there.
A: Did you ever consider a return to the keeper of the seven keys formula, something like a third Keeper album?
M: Its something which makes some sense now, with our return to SPV, and we didn’t really think about yet, but I think it has to be natural, we can't just write such an album on purpose, the right songs have to be there, you can't just make an album and call it Keeper III, but I guess that if we have the proper songs, with the classical element, and the ideas, it’s a good idea,
A: You know that Queensryche are working on a Operation Mindcrime II album?
M: No, I didn’t know that, but what matters is if they create a good album, which will be able to reach me, something I'll listen to ten times a day, that's the real test of the quality of an album.
A: As you've mentioned, you've also changed management, and currently work with a company called Bottom Row, are you satisfied with them?
M: We’ve been working together for about 5 months now, and we are very pleased with them, its different, having a small company instead of a huge one like Sanctuary, you know who to talk to when you need something, its not 200 people all blaming another person for something!
A: I can only appreciate the work the guy from Bottom Row did in arranging this interview.
M: You mean Jan?
A: Yea.
M: Yes, these guys are all right, and we are very pleased with them.
A: Well. Thank you for talking to me, and have a nice evening!
Alon Miasnikov
