KAI HANSEN: I Would Do A Reunion Tour With HELLOWEEN

Greece's Metalzone.gr recently conducted an interview with GAMMA RAY/ex-HELLOWEEN guitarist/vocalist Kai Hansen. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metalzone: Are you going to film any of the footage on your tour for an upcoming DVD?

Kai Hansen: "We have a plan [to film] something on this tour and producing a DVD. The thing is, we still have to [work] this out with the record company before the DVD is released because we have to see what the situation will be in the future for us. There's some things happening so I don't want to talk about it too much. So that's one thing that definitely [weill help us] decide if we do the DVD now or if we postpone it for later on."

Metalzone: But can't you record the footage now? Or will it be a problem if you used it later on under a different label?

Kai Hansen: "If we record the footage, if you want to do it professionally, you have to hire a real good company for the filming and for the sound and so on, and that costs a lot of money, and normally that's gonna be paid by the record company. So if we do it now and there might be a change in the future, then we would be stuck releasing what we have now and that's maybe not a good move. So we keep that open and we have to negotiate some things."

Metalzone: Metal fans worship the albums you did with HELLOWEEN ("Keeper of the Seven Keys" and "The Walls of Jericho"). There have not been albums that have come close to being equal to those albums. How do you feel about that?

Kai Hansen: "It's a great honor and pleasure. We did some albums without knowing how big it would be one day. We just did what we liked and felt like [doing]; we didn't think about it too much. It's a great pleasure and honor for us. But of course, I don’t know if it would be possible to do something like this in these times. Because at that time we did these albums, the metal scene was pretty, in a way, small. And there was not too many German bands that got somewhere. So it was something special."

Metalzone: HELLOWEEN are releasing a "Keeper of the Seven Keys - The Legacy". How do you feel about that?

Kai Hansen: "Well, you know, whatever they want to do, it's fine with me, no problem. They can do whatever they want. My first thought was that I just wouldn't do it because it puts you so much on a basis to be compared to the old 'Keeper' [albums] and that can… 'Cause many fans are very nostalgic, and maybe I am too, to say that when I hear the title 'Keeper', I wanna hear Michael Kiske singing. If he doesn't sing, it isn't 'Keeper'. Whatever the songs are like and stuff like that. That is a brave move, so to say, 'cause it might be not so easy to accept."

Metalzone: It's always difficult to repeat a success as big as the "Keeper" [albums], in my opinion.

Kai Hansen: "Right, and that’s why I wouldn’t do it. It's like it was an era, it was a basis and I would prefer to go for something new, something different."

Metalzone: Would you consider reuniting with HELLOWEEN?

Kai Hansen: "Reunion with HELLOWEEN? Who's HELLOWEEN? If you're talking about Michael [Weikath], Markus [Grosskopf] and Michael [Kiske], I would do a tour with them and play the old stuff. That would be something I would really like to do — it would be very nice. And of course we would have to find a drummer that could carry the spirt of Ingo [late HELLOWEEN drummer Ingo Swichtenberg] somehow to the stage. But it would be a nice thing, because I think before we get too old we should do it. But it's not up to me, and of course I'm happy with GAMMA RAY and there's no problem. It really depends on the others."

Read the entire interview at Metalzone.gr. Download the audio of the 28-minute interview in MP3 format at this location.