HELLOWEEN Frontman Explains Why Band Chose To Revisit 'Keeper' Album Concept

HELLOWEEN frontman Andy Deris (ex-PINK CREAM 69) recently spoke to Metal Temple magazine's Orpheus Spiliotopoulos and Grigoris Chronis about the band's brand-new album, "Keeper of the Seven Keys - The Legacy", due on October 28 in Germany and on October 31 in the rest of Europe via SPV Records (the U.S. release will follow on November 8). An excerpt from the interview follows:

Metal Temple: Why did you choose to do a third "Keeper..." album (as a band)?

Andy Deris: "Several reasons. First of all, since I’ve been in the band for 12 years...even with 'Master Of The Rings' (1994),we put out 'Master Of The Rings', it was several times platinum, seven times gold all over the world and still you had people who’d sit there and go, 'Why don’t you do another 'Keeper...' album?' and I was like 'Fucking crazy people.' [Laughs] You release an album that just in its first year sells double as much as the 'Keepers' — nowadays, ten years later, the 'Keepers' still sell more because of the time — but still you have to imagine, you go triple platinum, seven times gold and people look at you and say, 'Well, when are you going to do another 'Keeper...' album?" [Laughs]

Metal Temple: Most of them though got into metal music after listening to the "Keeper..." albums.

Andy Deris: "Absolutely! Still, you look like a bus being hit by a starship... Because...just because! [all laugh] Even after 'The Time Of The Oath' (1996) album, a fucking successful album there’d be people everywhere going "will you do another 'Keeper...' album?" [Laughs] And 'The Time of the Oath' was, as a matter of fact, something like a 'Keeper...' album. It was not the 'Keeper...' but as a conception it was about Nostradamus..."

Metal Temple: Yeah and the front cover...

Andy Deris: "Yeah. But we were, you know, 'Guys, we don't wanna do another 'Keeper...' album these days,' and back then we didn't say why. But nowadays we can definitely say why. We did not have a guitar team and it's no secret, everybody knows Roland [Grapow] and Weiki [Michael Weikath] did not get along very good. So Weiki didn't like Roland, Roland didn't like Weiki....what can you do?"

Metal Temple: If there’s no chemistry within a band then you can't do anything as exceptional as the "Keeper..." albums...

Andy Deris: "Exactly. So at the end of the day they'd both be idiots."

Metal Temple: So, that kind of answers my other question I had about why particularly now.

Andy Deris: "Several reasons. Not only because there's a guitar team. Now, you have two guitarists who like each other, they even sit down on the sofa privately and play guitar together because they have fun playing together. Just incredible. I hadn't seen that in ten years. But they do. And there's another reason which I personally did not like to touch and that's the theme of the 'Keeper...' album. I strongly believed that it should be sung by Michael [Kiske] or at least parts of it, you know. But then the guys said, 'Look, first of all Michael Kiske said he hates metal so would you really like to have him on a metal album? That looks like selling out.' You know, because a lot of people will come and say, 'Yes, on one hand it's great you have Michael Kiske singing on the 'Keeper...' album, but why would you let a guy sing who says he hates metal? It sounds like a sellout.'"

Metal Temple: Michael Kiske is in more albums as a guest than I could count right now.

Andy Deris: "Yeah, which is OK, because on the other hand I always say, 'Look, he’s a fucking great singer, and it's a fucking hard job to sing the stuff that he did,' and 'Let him live.' I mean we all know that he's not very smart in the things he says but still he's a fucking great singer and he needs to live. So, when he sings on a metal album, why does he do that? Because maybe he needs some money which is fair enough."

Read the entire interview at Metal-Temple.com.