Henjo Richter

Henjo Richter has been Gamma Ray's guitarist since 1997, joining in time to record Somewhere Out in Space and to form with Kai Hansen the guitar pairing that would define the band's best-known phase. Born in 1963, he arrived at a moment of rebuilding: the line-up had changed almost entirely, and it was from there that the group took on the identity it would keep for fifteen years. His role goes beyond the guitar. Richter also plays keyboards and is responsible for much of the orchestral layering and background arrangement that give Gamma Ray its breadth — a resource the band uses sparingly, but one that separates tracks like "Rebellion in Dreamland" and "Send Me a Sign" from dry-guitar power metal. As a soloist he has melodic phrasing and classical construction, a natural counterpoint to Hansen's more direct style. He recorded the whole output of the classic line-up: Somewhere Out in Space (1997), Power Plant (1999), No World Order (2001), Majestic (2005), Land of the Free II (2007), To the Metal! (2010) and Empire of the Undead (2014). He also took part in the early phases of Avantasia, Tobias Sammet's metal opera, a project that gathered much of the German power metal scene around a single concept.