Helloween were in Paris when I phoned Markus Grosskopf, the band’s bass player, to chat about their upcoming Australian tour and their most recent release, Gambling with the Devil. They were performing two shows in a row, and it was just after their second show that I talked to Markus—needless to say, he was enthusiastic and excited. What made it better was that his wife was with him, and they were able to spend some time together.

The latest release from Helloween, Gambling with the Devil has received great reviews from critics around the world, and deservedly so. It is a typically anthemic album, but it has an interesting construction: it tapers in towards three tracks dead-centre (tracks seven through nine), and then moves outwards again. In the media information released with the album, it describes the existence of these three tracks as an ‘epos’, existing as the release’s focal point. They also focus on the theme of the release; the title of track seven, The Bells of the Seven Hells will sound familiar to fans of the band. Given this interesting construction, and the fact that it has gained a lot of attention, Grosskopf couldn’t really discuss it. He told me that the concept was created in the studio in Tenerife, while Andy was singing; not being in the studio at the time, he had no knowledge of the epos:

‘I first heard about it when I was doing an interview, they didn’t really tell me!’ he exclaimed with a laugh. ‘I wasn’t there, I didn’t really know what was going on. I have to get into it a bit more to tell you more about it. So far we’re touring and doing stuff, I always forget to ask!’

Everyone in the band, apart from Dani Loble (the drummer) wrote material for the album, usually at home: they record tracks onto CD at home and when they meet up they start to pull the work together.

‘Everybody has five or six tracks to choose from,’ commented Grosskopf. ‘It’s a lot, but when you start pulling them apart you can start making a picture out of them.’

Compared to The Legacy of the Seven Keys, the recording for this latest release was easier and much different. Grosskopf mentioned the struggle with writing an epic album:

‘For example, from Legacy we had long songs, we were forcing ourselves to do something really long and really epic, and this is totally different. We started thinking about epic, long song-type things. Coming from from this production is just like, “oh what can I do?” and you don’t need anything. It’s done in five minutes. Coming from fifteen to twenty minutes is not easy; but it was a bit more easy than writing two big epics!’

And then he told me about how recording Gambling with the Devil was completed using a different method. Instead of heading to the studio and recording there, Grosskopf did his work at home, and sent it to headquarters. Charlie Bauerfeind was at HQ, and started putting the tracks together as material came in.

‘It’s a very modern way of producing,’ commented Grosskopf. ‘After choosing songs and talking about what everyone was doing, we can work like this using very, very modern technologies, instead of sitting in the studio and watching them play one solo after another. I got better things to do with my spare time, you know?’

Unlike previous releases, this method was used for some of the guitars and vocal tracks. The method gained some criticism in the beginning; until it started to work. They key to it was strong communication.

‘Everybody is listening to what you do, and then they say just do it a little different, and then you do an alternative track. Then they can have a choice from what you did.’

Sounds pretty relaxing, right?

‘It was definitely more relaxing,’ he said. ‘We came from a very long tour. The Legacy tour was kind of a little torture,’ laughed Grosskopf. ‘Writing songs and spending time in the studio straight afterwards… it’s more relaxing if you don’t see each other. It’s good to see my wife from time to time instead of fifteen blokes in a tour bus all the time,’ he laughed.

With a band like Helloween, one of the benefits of using a really modern method of producing, such as this one, is that the band has been together for so long that each band member knows what the tracks are supposed to sound like.

‘We’ve been working with type of music for more than twenty years, and it’s good to know what the music is supposed to be like,’ Grosskopf commented. ‘You know exactly what the song needs, then you try something different, but mainly it’s working very good, you know? We’re not experimenting with style—this is actually quite clear—we are just experimenting with the sounds.’

Helloween seem like they have been around forever; and it is nearly forever for many of us, because it has been twenty years since the release of the band’s first full-length album. I asked Grosskopf whether it felt like a long time since the release of that album, and whether it’s been difficult to keep the band moving onwards over such a period of time.

‘It’s funny, it’s great, you know? Of course a lot of things happened, not always funny things, there was a lot of things happening in the past but we are still looking forward. Sometimes it’s like being a little bit nostalgic about it, you know, but I wouldn’t regret anything,’ he said.

In terms of keeping the band together, Grosskopf said that one of the key factors in Helloween’s longevity has been the ability to know when to make changes. He said that though it’s never easy to make lineup changes, you have to react if somebody has a different opinion and that opinion can’t be reconciled. In the end, the band has to come first.

‘You could always stick with the situation you don’t like, but that doesn’t bring you any further. You gotta keep an eye and ear open to prevent situations, but if some people want something different… Maybe that’s it—we don’t have any philosophy! It can be hard sometimes but it’s alright,’ he said.

The upcoming Helloween tour this February will be the first time that the band has been to Australia. Many fans might well ask why it has taken so long. The long and the short of it was both money and a lack of the right information.

‘If you come over from Europe it can be very, very expensive, and we don’t want to lose too much money, because losing too much money we did in the past. We had a helluva financial situation in the past and we don’t want to recreate that,’ Goldkopf emphasized. ‘We had to be clear about everything. It might be that we haven’t got any idea, never been there before, and if you don’t have the right person to tell you what to do… Some people who are experienced were telling us what to do; we had lots of people telling us to come over, that they’ll book ten shows, but we needed the right people saying the right things. We needed to wait to find those people.’

Grosskopf talked about the role that the band’s management have in making sure that everything fits together properly, before taking a proposition to the band.

‘If it makes sense, they come to us; we ask about the circumstances and they tell us. They wouldn’t tell us if they have deep shit on their desks, they would just put it in the bin, they wouldn’t even tell us about it. But if it makes sense, they tell us.’

Australian fans are going to miss out on the huge stageshow that Helloween are able to take with them throughout Europe, because of the amount of flying involved in getting to Australia. Rather than just do the whole twenty-two hours from Europe, they are coming here after the Asian leg of the tour, so the time to get to us feels a lot shorter—more like seven hours. The band are flying from Japan and through Taiwan, and then Korea and Indonesia before getting to us.

What can we therefore expect from the band when they finally hit our shores?

‘Gonna be great after we’ve been hang-overed and jet-lagged,’ laughed Grosskopf pessimistically.

But he is excited about coming to Australia and playing here for the first time.

‘I don’t know what to expect really, which is really interesting,’ he enthused. ‘We’ve been to a lot of places; but then coming to a place after all those years where you’ve never been before, is always really, really interesting. You go there and you play, and you wonder what the beer tastes like,’ Grosskopf said. ‘If I go to a city, I got to taste it: what is the food like and the beer. I go out and see what happens, you know?’

If you’re a fan of Helloween, and you’re dying to see them when they finally get out and hit our stages, Grosskopf would like you to know this:

‘Expect us to be very, very interesting. Find us looking out in dangerous corners!’

Helloween are playing on 28 Feb in Sydney at the Metro, and on 29 Feb in Melbourne at The Forum.

Helloween’s latest release Gambling with the Devil is out now on SPV/Riot.