Helloween

Helloween is a German power metal band founded in 1984 in Hamburg by members of the bands Iron Fist, Gentry, Second Hell, and Powerfool. Helloween has at times been called one of the most influential European heavy metal bands of the 1980s.

Helloween's original line-up consisted of singer and guitarist Kai Hansen, bassist Markus Grosskopf, guitarist Michael Weikath and drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg. Its first line-up change took place in 1986, when Michael Kiske took over as lead vocalist. Hansen left in 1989 to form Gamma Ray and was replaced by Roland Grapow, and Schwichtenberg and Kiske had both parted ways in 1993, leaving Grosskopf and Weikath as the only two remaining original members. For the next 23 years, Helloween had undergone several more personnel changes that included vocalist Andi Deris (who replaced Kiske in 1994), guitarist Sascha Gerstner (who replaced Grapow in 2002) and drummers Uli Kusch, Mark Cross, Stefan Schwarzmann and Daniel Löble. The band settled on its current line-up in 2016, which features all of the surviving members of the Keeper of the Seven Keys line-up (Schwichtenberg had died in 1995), in addition to the remaining members from the Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy-era (Deris, Gerstner and Loble).

Since its inception, Helloween has released 17 studio albums, five live albums, three EPs and 31 singles. The band was honored with 14 gold and six platinum awards and has sold more than 10 million records worldwide.