HELLOWEEN Guitarist: 'We Don't Want To Be An Old-Fashioned Early Heavy Metal Band'

Justin Donnely of Australia's The Metal Forge recently conducted an interview with HELLOWEEN guitarist Michael Weikath. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On the group's new album, "Gambling With The Devil":

"The direction on 'Gambling With The Devil' is a very different step for us. When you look at 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy', it's essentially an album that is compatible with our past. Everything from the title right through to the sound was linked in some ways with our past, but also showing some move toward a modern sound. The album was really a link between our past and to where we are at in the present. 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy' was a lot of hard and intense work for us, but it was very worthwhile. We were very happy with the album. But after making an album like that and touring the world in support of it, we decided we had to do things a little differently. 'Gambling With The Devil' is us saying, 'OK, you have seen the band do something like 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy' where we had a new drummer and a young new guitarist in the band. Now see what we can do with this line-up now!' Before we went into the studio, we already had the title of the album 'Gambling With The Devil' in place. So having that gave us a subject to work towards, and something to consider when composing songs. Unlike 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy', working around the theme of 'Gambling With The Devil' gave us a lot more freedom, and I think that shows. This album is very different from 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy'. 'Gambling With The Devil' is a very modern HELLOWEEN album. It has nothing to do with 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy', or the past for that matter. This album is how HELLOWEEN sounds in 2007. We're very happy with the album, and so far there have been no real complaints yet! (Laughs)"

On the songwriting and recording process for "Gambling With The Devil":

"It was definitely a fast process. There was a schedule to be met. The record company told us they wanted what I call a quick shooter. I call it a quick shooter because the writing of all the songs and the recordings took place within a very short amount of time. It wasn't too short, but everything was very much bang, bang, bang, bang. Our label (SPV Records) told our management that there was a momentum established with the release of 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy', and they wanted to exploit that momentum, especially given the success of the tour we did after the release of that album. They told our management in no uncertain terms that if we wanted the album to sell this amount and do this well, they had to release the album around this time. So management approached us, and told us exactly where we stood, and that if we were to catch this momentum, it would be very good for the next tour. If the plan worked out like they had planned, it meant that we could do a whole lot of other things that worked in our favour in the future. When you get things explained to you in that way, you soon realize that there's a lot of people committed to working toward your career. You get the feeling that they really want to do something good for you. Everyone in the band could have complained and asked for another couple of months off or say that it didn't fit with what they had in mind after a hugely successful tour. That would have been foolish. Instead, we all agreed to follow their advice and immediately go into songwriting mode right after the tour, rather than relaxing in our own beds."

On "Gambling With The Devil" offering the return of aggression and heaviness that made 2000's "The Dark Ride" so uncharacteristic of HELLOWEEN's usual power metal fare at the time of its release:

"The heaviness on 'Gambling With The Devil' could have been something that we had in the back of our minds producing. But as I said before, there's no vintage HELLOWEEN present on this album. You have a young guitarist in Sascha Gerstner who wants to push the band forward, along with Dani Löble on the drums, who still wants to prove that he's a world class drummer, and who wants to bring the world to an end with the way he drums. Then you have Andi Deris, who wants to write modern songs because he has a young son that he wants to impress. But then you have me on the other guitar, who also doesn't want to appear too old. Then there's Markus Grosskopf, who is the master on the power bass anyway. As a conglomerate, we don't want to be an old-fashioned early heavy metal band that drifts off towards the grandpa way in the latter half of their career. You can bury yourself if you don't change and move with the times. We don't want to do that. But you can't force change either. It has to come naturally. Sometimes all you need is one new and young guitarist to achieve that change. It's easier to fulfill those expectations than if you had two old grandpa guitarists like me in the band! (Laughs) I'm always running after the sessions to try and play something that's going to live up to those expectations and compete with the rest of the band members contributions, and that helps push our sound forward. I don't want to be the one saying, 'When we were young, we used to play it like this!' That's why HELLOWEEN is always changing with every new album. We want to be around today, as well as the days that follow."

Read the entire interview at www.themetalforge.com.