In general the Gamma Ray's nature is a paradox. On the one hand Gamma Ray cannot be called just a solo project of Kai Hansen, Helloween's ex-guitarist. It is a full-fledged band with more than ten years history, and it's one of the leaders of this genre. On the other hand it is the band of Kai Hansen, and no one doubts that Gamma Ray couldn't have any chances to exist without him. Gamma Ray still remains the same band with the easily recognized touch in spite of the line-up turnovers and the style changes. These changes could have become catastrophic for some other band. Not for Gamma Ray. All of this stuff changes influenced on Gamma Ray in a good way. It brings a variety and moves the band forward. It was thus and it will be so till a basis of the band (Kai Hansen himself) exists.
The history of Gamma Ray started on a moment Hansen left Helloween (the details of that period of his work and of the motives of him leaving the band see on Kai Hansen's page of our site). Kai has got or more precisely wrested from the fortune a chance to start everything from the beginning. Initially, he had no serious intention to create a real band. However, Hansen once had chosen a musical career and he decided to go on in a same way. He had all the conditions for that, including a contract with Noise Records a company which worked with Helloween before. Till now Gamma Ray works with it. (Noise Records is a part of Sanctuary Records Group now). The first edition of the Gamma Ray debut album came out under a double name "Hansen / Gamma Ray". That was because a name of Kai was of course incomparably more known than a name of his new band.
The first who joined the new project of Hansen was his old friend, vocalist of Tyran' Pace (that band was already broken at that moment) Ralf Scheepers. In the past Ralf had a chance to become the voice of Helloween after singing several shows but finally he didn't joined the band. Who knows, might be if Scheepers not Kiske became Helloween's vocalist, the history of European metal would have gone the other way. The musical journalists wouldn't have washed tons of dirty laundry, and we would never have had two wonderful bands Helloween and Gamma Ray at once. Or more precisely, Gamma Ray and Helloween…
Hansen found the drummer Mathias Burchardt with the help of the common friends. But Mathias left the band very soon, actually right after the recording of the first album "Heading For Tomorrow" because the musician had his own masterclass and couldn't go on tours. He was replaced by little known Uli Kusch.
Also during a three-week "Study course for popular music" at the Music High School in Hamburg Hansen had found the bass-guitarist Dirk Schlachter. Although that position in Gamma Ray was already taken by Uwe Wessel Dirk appeared on the band's debut album exactly as a bass-guitarist of the songs "Money" (bass) and "The Silence" (additional bass). Meantime the position of the second guitarist besides Hansen was vacant, so Dirk trained and became a real member of the team. Also Schlachter performed the piano parties before he went back to bass-guitar. As time goes by he became the only one constant member of Gamma Ray (except Hansen himself, of course!). Moreover, he turned into co-author, co-producer and faithful fellow of Hansen. Apart from working together in Gamma Ray these two help the beginners to make their own way in the heavy metal music for many years already.
The recording of the first album "Heading For Tomorrow" took a long time: five months while normally for Hansen & Co it takes three months. A big part of the ideas for this album was taken from the musicians' archives. That's why the result was unusual, experimental, eclectic and in any case terribly interesting. From rumors, one of the all-time Gamma Ray hits "The Silence" was written in 80's but it wasn't included in the Helloween's repertoire because of piano in it (in those years metal musicians kept their brutal image definitely, but with time the music began to change itself, and it seems Hansen wasn't against experiments at that time at all). The base of the title track was written at the time of one of Helloween's predecessor the band Second Hell and was taken from the old funds. "Free Time" was written by Scheepers during Tyran' Pace period. Also the prototype of the first track "Lust For Life" existed from 1984 ...
The recording was done in Horus Sound Studio in Hannover with the help of Tommy Newton who worked with Helloween albums and an old friend of Hansen, Piet Sielck, who took the role of a second sound engineer. Both of them sang on back-vocals and played several instrumental parts. Hansen produced the album himself. After that Newton and Sielck and Tommy Hansen - another old friend of Kai from Helloween times helped him to record the second album "Sigh No More", in Karo Studios.
"Heading For Tomorrow" was released 26 February 1990 and get to the charts in Germany and Japan. The band went on tour over Europe, and then Latin America and Japan. The Heading For The East video (done during the Japanese tour and re-released in 1998 on video and in 2003 on DVD) is an evidence of how much Hansen enjoyed the concerts .
Few songs "Lonesome Stranger", "Mr. Outlaw", "Who Do You Think You Are?", "Sail On" and the remixed title track were included in a mini-album "Heaven Can Wait".
By the way, mini-albums are a rather curious page of Gamma Ray history. The band approaches their release with some invention. On the "small" albums of Gamma Ray often you can find very interesting tracks, waste products of studio work, so to speak. For example, the instrumental "sing along" version of "Heading For Tomorrow" (Who Do You Think You Are? single), long versions of Gamma Ray and Dream Healer (both from the single "Future Madhouse"). "The Silence" with Hansen on vocals, "Miracle" - a ballad version of a… live "killer" "Man On A Mission" (blues, funk, jazz and even reggae(!!!) versions of this composition remained in the archives), one of the best samples of Hansen vocals "A While in Dreamland" (all from the single "Silent Miracles"). And much more.
Back to 1990. Gamma Ray was acknowledged the discovery of the year and became a rather successful project to the envy of Helloween. The next album "Sigh No More" got excellent reviews in the press. However another line-up crisis trapped the band. There began conflicts with Wessel and Kusch, and it seems Hansen couldn't stand the conflicts after leaving Helloween. So the album "Insanity&Genius" in 1993 was created already with a new line-up. The position of a bass-guitarist took Jan Rubach, the position of a drummer - Thomas Nack. By the way, dismissed Kusch quickly found a new job in… Helloween.
"Insanity&Genius" was recorded already in their own studio named simply and tastefully "Hansen Studios". A former bomb shelter became not only a place of permanent location of Gamma Ray but also a shelter for the young metal bands. (It is possible to see how the studio of Hansen looks inside and outside in the Lust For Live video).
There are other two voices besides Scheepers on "Insanity&Genius". First of all, after a long break (not counting additional vocals like villainous squawks in song Money in a role of a tempter demon and live performance of Ride The Sky), for the first time since Walls Of Jericho and Judas of Helloween it was the voice of Hansen himself on the album. It was initially planned that this song should be sung by Scheepers as usual. By that time Ralf lived in Stuttgart in 700 km from Hamburg where the band got a permanent registration since 1993. On the demo-versions and rehearsals Hansen sang himself. So the author of the music to the song "Heal Me" Dirk Schlachter was so enchanted by Kai's singing that he rejected all the attempts of Scheepers to perform it. Secondly, another of his songs "Your Turn Is Over" Schlachter sang himself.
Hansen finally took over the microphone during the recording of the next album, released in 1995 - "Land Of The Free". The matter of the album was partially influenced by the death of Helloween drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg, with whom Hansen kept in touch after leaving the band. Hansen got the tragic news when his band was already in a process of a studio working for the new album. The album even has a song - dedication to Ingo. It is the final track "Afterlife".
As to Hansen's singing… It is considered that the vocalist Ralf Scheepers left Gamma Ray because the rest of the band got bored of seeing him in the studio only on big holidays and because he dreamt of a position in Judas Priest and even applied for that vacancy (and by the way it wasn't accepted, so Scheepers created his own band - Primal Fear). But I suppose it would be absurd to think that Hansen started singing out of despair to find an adequate replacement for Scheepers. Probably Kai wanted to sing himself very much, despite the fact that his vocal doesn't coincide with the generally adopted viewpoint on what a good voice is.
The fans of the band dreamt to see on Ralf's place Michael Kiske (Michel was fired from Helloween), who did lead vocals on "Time To Break Free" and back vocals on "Land Of The Free" songs of the Gamma Ray album of 1995. (In his turn, Hansen took part in the recording of the first solo album of Kiske - "Instant Clarity", as a guest guitarist and composer). Luckily, it didn't happen and Hansen is even till now obliged to fight off fans and journalists, saying that Michael Kiske will never sing in Gamma Ray because his voice is too commercial.
And on the whole, the decision of Hansen to sing himself proved to be really successful. There are quite a lot of fans of Kai's vocals even of the first Helloween album, although there his style of singing is rather peculiar. But since those times Hansen has gone far ahead. And on the concerts he manages to deal with guitar, and with microphone, and with public at the same time.
Of course, live singing of Hansen is even further from exemplary than studio one, but the public likes it. Moreover, Hansen is a 100% frontman, a thing that cannot be said about Scheepers during his time in Gamma Ray. With all the virtues of the vocals of Scheepers, he "sang splendidly but it came not from the heart"… The present guitarist of Gamma Ray, Henjo Richter takes it calmly that Hansen on the concerts sometimes forgets his guitar, rushes about the scene, spurs the public to sing along, while he quietly holds all the guitar parts.
Henjo Richter came to the band as a session musician when Rubach left the band during the tour in Spain in 1996 (while Schlachter returned to the bass-guitar), but soon proved to fit really well and firmly took the vacancy permanently. Soon drummer Thomas Nack (a friend of Rubach) left the band as well. And Daniel Zimmermann took his place. Both musicians Richter and Zimmermann suited for the new style of the band ideally. By that time the band began a retrospective and nostalgic way to the classic speed-power-heavy metal roots, like old Helloween and Judas Priest. The playing of the new musicians full of power and drive flew into the later direction of Gamma Ray's music perfectly. In addition, it turned out that Henjo and Dan are very active songwriters, although the work of Gamma Ray can more likely be called team work: everyone comes to the studio with his own ideas which are then elaborated by all the bandmembers.
In this final line-up the albums "Somewhere Out In Space" (1997) were recorded. The choice of ideas for these albums was prompted by child's passion of Hansen for Star Trek series and science fiction, a reflection on the destinies of humanity in the style of Biblical prophecies, "No World Order" (2001) - about a conspiracy with a purpose to establish a new world order.
Today the band resides happily in a state of balance. The relations of the band and Hansen with former colleagues are stable as well. For example, Hansen helped Michael Kiske and Ralf Scheepers to release their first independent albums. During the course of the tour in support of No World Order the diseased Dirk Schlachter was temporarily replaced by a Helloweenie Markus Grosskopf. Also Kai actively communicates with guitarist Roland Grapow recently fired from Helloween . By the way, Grapow also went on the stage together with Gamma Ray.
The last small line-up shock happened in the spring of 2001, when Michael Weikath attempted to play a dirty trick with Hansen by unsuccessfully trying to lure away from Gamma Ray to Helloween Henjo Richter. Richter, despite the fact that he was a friend of Weikath for many years (just like Dan Zimmermann!), and that he took part in the cover artwork of Helloween's albums, probably thinking about his stable position in Gamma Ray, and remembering the abominable character of herr Weikath, politely refused the offer.
So, the band keeps playing in the same line-up, periodically, apart from regular touring, does retrospective projects like "Blast From The Past" (2000) with re-recorded by the present line-up Gamma Ray songs from different years, or the "Skeletons In The Closet tour" (2002). And in the beginning of 2004, as we continue to hope, they will produce a new studio album! We're waiting impatiently…
