Frank Beck

Frank Beck has been a singer in Gamma Ray since October 2015, when the band announced him as a second lead vocalist, sharing the role with Kai Hansen. The reason for the invitation was stated openly by the group, and it is the fact that defines his position: long touring schedules had been wearing down the voice of Hansen, who since 1997 had combined the duties of guitarist and singer. Hansen also wanted greater freedom of movement on stage — impossible for someone tied to the microphone for the whole show. Beck was not hired to replace anyone, but to make sustainable an arrangement that had stopped being so. On stage the two alternate: part of the historic repertoire, written and recorded by earlier singers such as Ralf Scheepers, gains in Beck a dedicated interpreter, while Hansen keeps the tracks most associated with his own voice and gains room to play. It is an unusual format in power metal, a genre where the singer is normally a single, central figure. Gamma Ray has not released a studio album since Empire of the Undead (2014), so Beck's contribution remains, so far, confined to the live work — which, in this band's case, is a good part of what it does.