Written by Editor-in-chief
Translated by Pied Piper

(This biography was made basing on all the materials about Gamma Ray discovered by us in public sources, including unchecked ones. If you found deliberately false or erroneous information about the band's history, please notify the site's editors)

To be in Gamma Ray is a need for me,
it's not a sacrifice to write music for me,
because I'm always having new ideas,
thinking about different stuff.

Kai Hansen.

In general the Gamma Ray's nature is a paradox. On the one hand Gamma Ray cannot be called just a solo project of Kai Hansen, Helloween's ex-guitarist. It is a full-fledged band with more than ten years history, and it's one of the leaders of this genre. On the other hand it is the band of Kai Hansen, and no one doubts that Gamma Ray couldn't have any chances to exist without him. Gamma Ray still remains the same band with the easily recognized touch in spite of the line-up turnovers and the style changes. These changes could have become catastrophic for some other band. Not for Gamma Ray. All of this stuff changes influenced on Gamma Ray in a good way. It brings a variety and moves the band forward. It was thus and it will be so till a basis of the band (Kai Hansen himself) exists.

History of Gamma Ray started on a moment Hansen left Helloween (the details of that period of his work and of the motives of him leaving the band see on Kai Hansen's page of our site). Kai has got or more precisely wrested from the fortune a chance to start everything from the beginning. Initially, he had no serious intention to create a real band. However, Hansen once had chosen a musical career and he decided to go on in a same way. He had all the conditions for that, including a contract with Noise Records a company which worked with Helloween before. Till now Gamma Ray works with it. (Noise Records is a part of Sanctuary Records Group now). The first edition of the Gamma Ray debut album came out under a double name "Hansen / Gamma Ray". That was because a name of Kai was of course incomparably more known than a name of his new band.

The first who joined the new project of Hansen was his old friend, vocalist of Tyran' Pace (that band was already broken at that moment) Ralf Scheepers. In the past Ralf had a chance to become the voice of Helloween after singing several shows but finally he didn't joined the band. Who knows, might be if Scheepers not Kiske became Helloween's vocalist, the history of European metal would have gone the other way. The musical journalists wouldn't have washed tons of dirty laundry, and we would never have had two wonderful bands Helloween and Gamma Ray at once. Or more precisely, Gamma Ray and Helloween…

Hansen found the drummer Mathias Burchardt with the help of the common friends. But Mathias left the band very soon, actually right after the recording of the first album "Heading For Tomorrow" because the musician had his own masterclass and couldn't go on tours. He was replaced by little known Uli Kusch.

Also during a three-week "Study course for popular music" at the Music High School in Hamburg Hansen had found the bass-guitarist Dirk Schlachter. Although that position in Gamma Ray was already taken by Uwe Wessel Dirk appeared on the band's debut album exactly as a bass-guitarist of the songs "Money" (bass) and "The Silence" (additional bass). Meantime the position of the second guitarist besides Hansen was vacant, so Dirk trained and became a real member of the team. Also Schlachter performed the piano parties before he went back to bass-guitar. As time goes by he became the only one constant member of Gamma Ray (except Hansen himself, of course!). Moreover, he turned into co-author, co-producer and faithful fellow of Hansen. Apart from working together in Gamma Ray these two help the beginners to make their own way in the heavy metal music for many years already.

The recording of the first album "Heading For Tomorrow" took a long time: five months while normally for Hansen & Co it takes three months. A big part of the ideas for this album was taken from the musicians' archives. That's why the result was unusual, experimental, eclectic and in any case terribly interesting. From rumors, one of the all-time Gamma Ray hits "The Silence" was written in 80's but it wasn't included in the Helloween's repertoire because of piano in it (in those years metal musicians kept their brutal image definitely, but with time the music began to change itself, and it seems Hansen wasn't against experiments at that time at all). The base of the title track was written at the time of one of Helloween's predecessor the band Second Hell and was taken from the old funds. "Free Time" was written by Scheepers during Tyran' Pace period. Also the prototype of the first track "Lust For Life" existed from 1984 ...

The recording was done in Horus Sound Studio in Hannover with the help of Tommy Newton who worked with Helloween albums and an old friend of Hansen, Piet Sielck, who took the role of a second sound engineer. Both of them sang on back-vocals and played several instrumental parts. Hansen produced the album himself. After that Newton and Sielck and Tommy Hansen - another old friend of Kai from Helloween times helped him to record the second album "Sigh No More", in Karo Studios.

"Heading For Tomorrow" was released 26 February 1990 and get to the charts in Germany and Japan. The band went on tour over Europe, and then Latin America and Japan. The Heading For The East video (done during the Japanese tour and re-released in 1998 on video and in 2003 on DVD) is an evidence of how much Hansen enjoyed the concerts .

Few songs "Lonesome Stranger", "Mr. Outlaw", "Who Do You Think You Are?", "Sail On" and the remixed title track were included in a mini-album "Heaven Can Wait".

By the way, mini-albums are a rather curious page of Gamma Ray history. The band approaches their release with some invention. On the "small" albums of Gamma Ray often you can find very interesting tracks, waste products of studio work, so to speak. For example, the instrumental "sing along" version of "Heading For Tomorrow" (Who Do You Think You Are? single), long versions of Gamma Ray and Dream Healer (both from the single "Future Madhouse"). "The Silence" with Hansen on vocals, "Miracle" - a ballad version of a… live "killer" "Man On A Mission" (blues, funk, jazz and even reggae(!!!) versions of this composition remained in the archives), one of the best samples of Hansen vocals "A While in Dreamland" (all from the single "Silent Miracles"). And much more.