Heading for Tommorow

undefined

It was with great surprise that in 1988 Kai Hansen decided to leave Helloween: the band he co-founded and that reached a very high level of success in a very few years, ending up infl uencing and challenging the bands that were once the original inspiration for a group of talented and gifted young rock musicians from Hamburg. Kai Hansen and Helloween quickly moved from the rehearsal room to the most prestigious metal festivals and got used to the feeling of being in the charts all over the world. Hansen left Halloween just when the band had fi nally reached international stardom and after having won the appreciation of metal giants such as Iron Maiden who often publicly championed the German band. Hansen and Halloween are now very good friends, often sharing the stage, but back then the divorce was a proper rock and roll acrimonious one: a true shock for the metal scene. The reasons that brought Kai Hansen to leave the band are still the subject of interviews and fans debate. Many years later, it is very obvious that as much as Kai Hansen and Halloween had left a mark with seminal albums, his destiny was to lead his own band. 25 years after the official debut, Gamma Ray and earMUSIC have started a monumental work to re-release the entire production by Gamma Ray in deluxe double CDs. The original albums will be re-presented in new shining, remastered version on the fi rst disc (with the inclusions of all B-sides) while the second CD will be dedicated to old live s, demos digitalised for the fi rst time from the original tapes saved by all members of the band, alternative versions and recent studio and live s. Initially released as a Kai Hansen solo album, Heading For Tomorrow revealed its intention after extracting the LP out of its sleeve (it was still the days of LP, or is it again?): A second cover was hidden inside the LP, revealing the name of the newborn band: Gamma Ray. A band that was destined to stay and to conquer a loyal fanbase all over the world. After the global critical success of Empire Of The Undead , Kai Hansen has decided to continue the collaboration with the production team made of Eike Freese and Alex Dietz (Heaven Shall Burn). Together with Kai, the duo has been working on digitalising and remastering hundreds of tapes, alternative versions and ideas that were so far hidden in Gamma Ray private archive.