Kai Hansen

Kai Hansen is a German guitarist, singer and songwriter, and one of the architects of power metal as a genre. He co-founded Helloween in Hamburg in 1984 and sang on the band's earliest work — Walls of Jericho and the first EPs — before they recruited Michael Kiske. Much of the writing on Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part I (1987) is his: the record that set the template the genre would follow for decades, with speed metal's velocity, wide choruses and harmonised twin guitars. He left Helloween in 1989, worn out by touring life, and founded Gamma Ray the same year, taking up guitar full-time and, from 1995, lead vocals as well. At the head of Gamma Ray he built a long and coherent discography, with Land of the Free (1995) among the most celebrated records in European power metal. In 2009 he joined Unisonic alongside Michael Kiske, a reunion many had thought unlikely, and in 2016 returned to Helloween for the Pumpkins United line-up, which put three singers on the same stage and became the band's permanent phase. Few musicians can say they founded two decisive bands within the same genre.