Few bands get to the top and drop out so fast as Helloween. Their career is characterized by ups, downs, disappearances, new members and name changes. First of all we must make known that Helloween created "melodic power metal", a kind of metal that many later bands tried to adopt. The band started in end of '70's (1978 to be precise), when Kai Hansen and Piet Sielck formed a band named Gentry, with some guest musicians. Two years later, they decide to invite two new members in the band: Markus Grosskopf on bass and Ingo Schwichtenberg on drums. And along with the new members they changed their name to Second Hell. The band still wasn't satisfied with their new name, so in 1982 they changed it again to Iron Fist. At that time, Kai Hansen was trying to bring a new guitarist to his project. It was Michael Weikath, who came from a band named Powerfool. They then changed their name again and finally to Helloween. After two years full of rehearsals and a few gigs, they were finally invited to record two songs for a collection named "Death Metal", which in spite of the name it had nothing to do with the style. They recorded "Metal Invaders" (their first hit) and "Oernst of Life". The second one was in fact an old composition from Weikath's last band. Recently this music was re-released in a double CD named "12 years in Noise", from their first label, Noise Records. In their self named first mini LP, released in 1985, the vocals were done by Kai Hansen, who also sang in their first album, "Walls of Jericho". But Hansen couldn't sing and play guitar at the same time, so they invited Michael Kiske to join the band. As everybody knows, this was the perfect decision, because Kiske's amazing voice and charisma boosted Helloween to the top. With this formation, the band released their masterpieces, "Keeper of the seven keys Part 1" and "Keeper of the seven keys Part 2". But in the beginning of the 90s, they ran into some serious problems First of all, their guitarist/vocalist/mentor Kai Hansen left the band, alleging tours fatigue. Kai formed another band some months later, Gamma Ray. Then, Michael Kiske started a lot of misunderstanding with the other members. But surely the worst episode happened with drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg, who had some schizophrenic hereditary problems. Before a show in Japan, he dropped on the floor and started to cry compulsively. While touring, he used to become very depressed, and then this was compounded by euphoric moments caused by cocaine use. Everybody knows how this story ended: Ingo committed suicide. With all these problems, it becomes obvious why the next few albums, "Pink bubbles go ape" and "Chameleon" didn't have a good repercussion. The band started a fight with labels, and according to Weikath, Noise didn't pay them as they should. EMI fired them, and even nowadays there are rumors they're having problems with Castle. After overcoming all these problems, they invited Andi Deris to replace Michael Kiske and Uli Kusch (ex Gamma Ray) to the play the drums. And so, with the new formation ( Andi Deris, Uli Kusch, Michael Weikath, Markus Grosskopf and Roland Grapow) they released "Master of the Rings" and tried to get back to the top. In the last year, they released "The Time of the Oath" and a double live album named "High Live". Now, in 1998 they have released a new exceptional studio album named "Better than raw". This is a new record in the history of Helloween. Three studio and one live album in a row created by the same band members. Looks like the "pink bubbles go ape" - "chameleon" era is letting up and Helloween will pull through without Kai Hansen. Helloween are also into the "Tribute 2" business, by the release of their new album, "Metal Jukebox". The cute hippy pumpkin on the cover and the contents of the album, do not mean a change of scene, but a pleasant brake with edited versions of oldies but goldies that didn't have much to do with metal (until now). Well, its a new millennium, and Helloween are in the front line with those who will lead metal to the future. With a "darker" face and an album of power called "The Dark Ride", the band takes us on a journey to one of their best productions. The year is 2K2 and having finally forgotten how to change their band members more often than their clothes, Helloween award us with a "Treasure Chest" for our support in their work so far. For the older to remember and the younger to learn.