On Throwing Countless Songs Away

“When it comes to musical decisions, we do it all together,” he states, “then, there’s some business kind of stuff. We do it with Andy (Deris – long-time singer), Weikey (founding guitarist, Michael Weikath) and me.

“You have to have the guts to make some strong or sometimes, even cruel decisions, to keep the band rolling, just the way you want it to roll. We always tell, ‘all right, if things are going to be different, we’ve got to make different decisions’, but we never thought of giving up. It’s just like once you once start it, you keep up until the end of the days.”

With four band members individually writing songs, Helloween never seem short of material for their albums – they had more than 30 to choose from for this latest release, although Grosskopf says they don’t always insist on final say of which tracks get used.

“There’s no peace in that ‘picking a song’ thing,” he laughs. “We are very close to those songs. We cannot really, objectively say, ‘that song is going to be on the record because it’s good’. We can make recommendation, but being so close to it, working with our babies for more than a year, it’s very hard to decide, so we make a decision and then we give it to the management. We give it to the producer. We give it to the record company, but then they hear it for the very first time and we let them have the last word.

“It’s actually... we do it all together, but sometimes if they want to go crazy about one song, why not let the record company go for it, to promote it? If they feel like they can promote the record with that song better than with the other song, then why not give them the freedom to do so? At the end of the day, it’s all Helloween tracks.”

And, shockingly, he says the leftovers are discarded.

“They like to go into the bin!” he laughs, before responding to my dismay, “You cannot just record all of them because also, studio time is limited and you’ve got to give back the finished product at a certain date and then you cannot hang around in the studio for more than half a year. Those days are over. You… simply don’t have more time than recording 16 songs, which is still quite a lot. Remember those good old days when they was like in vinyl? You recorded eight tracks and then the vinyl was kind of packed.”

My God-Given Right sees a slight return to the band’s ‘80s metal roots, whilst holding on to the modern Helloween sound. It’s an approach that rewarded them with a Top 10 album in Germany and Finland, and the US hard rock charts and in the Top 20 or so throughout the rest of Europe.

“I like it a lot,” chuckles the bassist, “it feels good to be a Top 10-er!”

Agreeing that it would be a little sad if all he saw of the world when touring was the inside of planes, taxis and hotel rooms, Grosskopf says he prefers to kick back and meet the locals.

“A shopping mall is more or less a shopping mall. It doesn’t matter if it’s in Australia. It doesn’t matter if it’s in America or somewhere in Europe. You, of course, try to see some things, some sights. At the end of the day, I try to find a river where I can nicely sit down and talk and having a beer and just hang out and try to move a little instead of just hanging around at the hotel room.

“That’s what I do between soundchecks and shows, sometimes. I just go out and find my way through the city, do some pictures, do some stuff and maybe at night, we hang out somewhere at a club or a bar. I like that, you know? We’re definitely gonna do that.”

Originally published in X-Press Magazine