Kai Hansen (born 17 January 1963) is a guitarist and singer from Hamburg, Germany, and is considered one of the primary figures responsible for the creation of Power Metal, having been involved in multiple bands of the genre over a career which has spanned for 40+ years.
In 1983 alongside a fellow guitarist Michael Weikath he founded Helloween, with Kai also being the vocalist on their debut album Walls of Jericho. However he had some difficulties singing and playing guitar simultaneously on tour, and in 1986 he began focusing solely on guitar with Michael Kiske becoming the new singer. He recorded two more records with Helloween (The Keeper of the Seven Keys duology) before quitting in late 1988 for various still somewhat undisclosed reasons.
Kai continued to work in the music scene, guest-starring on Blind Guardian's early releases as singer and guitarist, and in 1989 he founded his own band Gamma Ray with the vocalist Ralf Scheepers. Gamma Ray quickly started making a name for itself in the metal scene, but in 1994 Ralf left since he was living on the other side of Germany than the rest of the band (and he was trying to become the new singer of Judas Priest). Encouraged by fans and friends Kai stepped up to the role of the vocalist once again, becoming both the lead singer and guitarist of Gamma Ray with the their fourth album Land of the Free and continuing to this day. In 1996 he formed Iron Savior with his long-time friend Peter Sielck, but only played on the first three albums before quitting right before the release of the third album Dark Assault due to commitment conflicts with Gamma Ray.
Alsongside his work on Gamma Ray, Kai has also guest starred on multiple other power metal bands' records, including but not limited to HammerFall, Avantasia, Angra and Stormwarrior. In 2011 he joined Unisonic, the band of his former Helloween bandmate Michael Kiske, and in 2016 both of them rejoined Helloween, with the self-titled album released in 2021, the first that Kai played on in 32 years. In 2016 he also released a solo album titled XXX – Three Decades in Metal.
Discography
Helloween
- Walls of Jericho (1985)
- Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt.1 (1987)
- Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt.2 (1988)
- Helloween (2021)
Gamma Ray
- Heading for Tomorrow (1990)
- Sigh No More (1991)
- Insanity and Genius (1993)
- Land of the Free (1995)
- Somewhere out in Space (1997)
- Power Plant (1999)
- No World Order (2001)
- Majestic (2005)
- Land of the Free II (2007)
- To the Metal! (2010)
- Empire of the Undead (2014)
Iron Savior
- Iron Savior (1997)
- Unification (1998)
- Dark Assault (2001)
Unisonic
- Unisonic (2012)
- Light of Dawn (2014)
Solo
- XXX - Three Decades in Metal (2016)
Tropes associated with his works:
- Author Tract: Kai really doesn't like record companies and doing things for the money. His solo album has several songs that can be summed up as him venting his frustrations about the industry and its money-hungry practices.
- Heavy Mithril: Being the "godfather of power metal", it's unsurprising that he has done a lot of these, with topics ranging from the Arthurian epic "Avalon" on Empire of the Undead to the sci-fi inspired lyrics in Somewhere Out in Space and the horror-fantasy "Halloween" on Keeper Pt.1. Notably averted in his solo record, whose lyrics are mostly self-confessional and about his personal life.
- Metal Scream: Despite his lower-pitched singing, Kai still has a talent to scream quite highly at points. Prominent examples include "Ride the Sky" from Walls of Jericho and "Rebellion in Dreamland" in Land of the Free.
- Precision F-Strike: While he pretty much avoids it in the lyrics of Gamma Ray and Helloween, his solo album has the chorus of "Burning Bridges":Run, Burn the Bridges down!Fuck the world and take your chances!Overcome the sky-high fences!
- Step Up to the Microphone:
- Although he was primarily a guitarist on Iron Savior's first three albums, he did sing one song on all of them; "Watcher in the Sky" on the debut (another version of which later ended up on Gamma Ray's Somewhere Out in Space), "Deadly Sleep" on Unification and "Solar Winds" on Dark Assault.
- Also when he took over as Gamma Ray's singer when Ralf Scheepers quit after the third album.
- Workaholic: At one point at the turn of Millenium Kai was in three bands at the same time (Gamma Ray, Iron Savior and Avantasia) all of whom released records at the same time.
