Helloween

Background

Helloween formed in 1984 in Hamburg from Iron Fist, a quartet with singer–guitarist Kai Hansen, bassist Markus Grosskopf, drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg, and guitarist Michael Weikath.

Hansen took six months of classical guitar lessons and formed his first band with two schoolmates. He formed Gentry in 1978 with guitarist Piet Sielck, whose early bandmates included bassist Christian Haveland and drummer Michael Lott. The group played Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep covers at schools and youth clubs, and won an amateur band contest in Hamburg. Sielck recorded the musicians in three basement rooms at the family home.

Hansen attended an AC/DC concert with Sielck on the final tour with singer Bon Scott, where Judas Priest played the support set. Sielck bought Unleashed in the East and wrote his first speed-metal song under the influence of “Exciter.” Gentry played originals that included “Murderer” and “Metal Invaders.”

Schwichtenberg learned clarinet in school folk ensembles and switched at fifteen to drums. Hansen recruited the teenage neighbor around 1980 for Gentry. Grosskopf joined about six months later, around 1981, from Traumschiss, a punk group that played Sex Pistols and Ramones covers. Gentry changed names to Second Hell and then Iron Fist. Sielck grew dissatisfied with club audiences who requested cover songs; he quit when a church caretaker expelled the musicians from their rehearsal room.

Weikath learned classical guitar from age twelve and formed Powerfool around 1978 in Hamburg. Powerfool used a Hammond organ, and Weikath wrote “Oernst of Life” for the group. Hansen met Weikath at a party and briefly joined Powerfool. Another member objected to the two-part guitar passages that Hansen proposed with Weikath. Hansen left to revive Iron Fist and invited Weikath into the group with Schwichtenberg. Grosskopf, who previously played with Weikath in a school band, returned when he learned that Weikath would join the quartet. Iron Fist rehearsed at an army barracks in Hamburg, where Hansen served in the army.

Weikath wanted to replace the name Iron Fist because Motörhead released an album with that title. Schwichtenberg proposed Halloween from the horror film; the musicians changed the spelling to Helloween. The quartet taped a rehearsal with a stereo microphone, and Hansen added vocals through a mixer onto a second cassette. Manager Limb Schnoor introduced the quartet to Noise Records, the Berlin metal label founded by Karl-Ulrich Walterbach.

Noise included “Oernst of Life” and “Metal Invaders” on the 1984 compilation Death Metal, alongside Running Wild, Hellhammer, and Dark Avenger. Helloween signed with Noise and began sessions in January–February 1985 at Musiclab Studio in Berlin with engineer Harris Johns for the self-titled debut mini-LP.