Michael Ehré and Henjo Richter (both Gamma Ray) launch new band Debut album out in spring 2017

With their latest sensational signing, Hanover record imprint Steamhammer/SPV has set the course for more highlights in the coming year: UNITY, the new band founded by drummer Michael Ehré and guitarist Henjo Richter (both Gamma Ray), has signed a long-term contract and is currently busy working on their debut album. The eponymously titled recording has been scheduled for release in early 2017 and aficionados of powerful hard rock and technically accomplished melodic metal can expect to get more than their money’s worth.

Along with their two figureheads, Richter and Ehré, UNITY consists of Gianba Manenti (vocals), Stef E (guitar), Jogi Sweers (bass) and Sascha Onnen (keyboards), all of them musicians that many fans have been familiar with since Ehré’s band Love.Might.Kill arrived on the scene.

“During many gigs and countless hours in the rehearsal room, Michael and I discovered that we are on the same wavelength, on a personal as well as on a musical level. So we came up with the idea of focusing that part of our creativity that goes beyond Gamma Ray in another band,” Richter explains. “UNITY features the perfect line-up for that.”

Michael Ehré is equally enthusiastic: “We’re proud and more than happy to have found a strong partner in SPV/Steamhammer who enjoy an excellent reputation on a global level. The amazing experience and great passion with which Olly Hahn has helmed the label for many years are awesome. We’re really looking forward to our fruitful collaboration and will ensure together that UNITY gets off to a successful start.”

Olly Hahn, A&R at Steamhammer, places great hopes on his new signing: “The outstanding songwriting and great technical skill of everybody involved are unmistakable. For this reason, UNITY suits the Steamhammer team perfectly and we will continue to work flat out for our artists in 2017.”

A new agency is born - Nine Lives Entertainment GmbH comes to life

All Access Entertainment GmbH and Twisted Talent Concerts GbR proudly announce their joint force.

It is with the greatest of honor we announce that the German booking agencies All Access Entertainment GmbH (Hamburg) and Twisted Talent Concerts GbR (Dortmund), both looking back on a long and successful corporate history on their own, founded a new chapter at the end of the year 2016.

The roster of the new and world-wide operating agency Nine Lives Entertainment GmbH features renowned metal artists such as Avantasia, Hammerfall, Edguy, Stratovarius, Gamma Ray and many more as well as Asian super stars like B.A.P., mucc, girugämesh or Gackt.

Nine Lives Entertainment GmbH unites the professionalism, long-term experience and knowledge of the four shareholders Rüdiger „AC“ Dreffein, Frank „FD“ Dehn, Jörg Michael Musielak and Jörg Zaske, each of them being well known in the music scene with a dedicated staff.

Beside being a tour promoter and booking agency further working areas of the company include the local organisation of concerts, artist management as well as the realization of festivals and comparable mass events.

We are looking forward to many exciting new projects already now, although the journey has just started and invite all of our highly esteemed business partners and friends to hit the trail with us.

DROP EVERYTHING. DRUM ROLL.

Here comes the sensation for all HELLOWEEN fans: You believed in it for years and continued to ask for it – now is the time: In fall 2017, Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen will once again mount a HELLOWEEN stage together and resurrect the band’s legendary original line-up. Yes, it’s official: Weikath, Kiske, Hansen, Grosskopf are going to play HELLOWEEN classics live and on a joint tour. Massive news. Awesome. But you might want to sit down again, because that’s not all of it! Under the flag PUMPKINS UNITED all pumpkin heads will step up – meaning Andi & Michi on vocals, Kai & Weiki & Sascha on guitars, and Markus & Dani in the rhythm section.

PUMPKINS UNITED WORLD TOUR 2017/2018: GOOD. AS. IT. GETS.

KAI HANSEN TO RELEASE DEBUT SOLO ALBUM “XXX” IN AUGUST 2016 AND ANNOUNCES DONATION TO WACKEN FOUNDATION.

EXCLUSIVE PERFORMANCE AT WACKEN OPEN AIR FESTIVAL 2016.

KAI HANSEN, earMUSIC and WACKEN Foundation are happy to announce the release of "XXX", the first "solo project" album by Kai Hansen, one of the most influential guitarists and singers to emerge from Germany during the first part of the 80s. First with ground-breaking band HELLOWEEN (of which Hansen is one of the founding members) and later with GAMMA RAY, one of the bands that contributed to define the genre power metal, bringing it to generation of devoted fans worldwide since its first album.

"XXX" is, in pure Hansen tongue-in-cheek style, a reference to over 30 years of involvement in the world of heavy rock, as explained with the album's sub-title "Three Decades In Metal".

The album will be released in August 2016 on earMUSIC with further news to be shared soon.

"XXX" is a magical journey. It is the story of how powerful dreams can be.

Dreams and passions big enough to bring a teenager from Hamburg who is in love with rock music, glam rock and the first heavy metal sounds from the practicing space in his bedroom and rehearsal rooms to the biggest stages in the world practicing, and ending up influencing and sharing the stage with the very same bands he admired in the first place.

Not strictly autobiographical, "XXX" is without doubt the story of Kai Hansen but it could very well represent the story of anybody who is not afraid to believe in dreams, with passion and dedication. It is the story of the ups and downs that everybody faces at some point during the journey of life: the lost and found-again friends, the glory, the tragedies and the joys.

After the achievements enjoyed by Hansen lately with Unisonic and especially Gamma Ray's recent work "Empire Of The Undead", Kai Hansen has started working on the album with no precise commercial masterplan. Just playing music with the same spirit as in the very beginning.
This certainly was the reason for Hansen to communicate to his label the intention of donating the first advance payment he will receive for XXX - which in the meantime was shaping into a proper album - to the Wacken Foundation. A foundation which helps and supports young hard rock and heavy metal bands for over seven years now: Musicians full of hopes and dreams, exactly as Hansen had in the beginning of the 30 years story told on this album... in the hope that one day, somebody could tell another 30 years long magic story, also thanks to this album.

Together with Hansen, a stellar band of musicians gravitating around the Chameleon Studio in Hamburg has formed spontaneously: