"Lust For Live" (Anniversary Edition) will be released on May 06th, 2016 on earMUSIC.

25 years of Gamma Ray – 25 years of heavy metal from Hamburg: what started out in spring 1990 with the release of their debut album “Heading For Tomorrow” has achieved international fame a quarter of a century later. Tours around the globe with sold-out shows in the US, Canada, South America, Asia and the whole of Europe plus appearances at the most renowned festivals worldwide – vocalist/guitarist Kai Hansen’s band has long taken the world by storm.
In view of this impressive stocktaking on the occasion of their anniversary, there’s a special reason to rejoice for their international fan community: the band’s full back catalogue will be rereleased over the course of a year. All albums will be available as premium-quality digipaks including newly designed cover artwork.

To cut a long story short: Gamma Ray are celebrating their anniversary in style, and all their fans are invited!

When Gamma Ray took to the stage at the Hamburg Docks on 25 September 1993 to record the show for their scheduled live video “Lust For Live” (at that time available only on VHS cassette), the musicians Kai Hansen, Ralf Scheepers, Dirk Schlächter, Jan Rubach and Thomas Nack immediately enthralled their fans with their furioso performance. The Docks saw them unleash the primeval energy which had built up during the lavish studio production of their third studio album “Insanity And Genius”. The opener ´Tribute To The Past` immediately proved why Gamma Ray’s shows have been considered a Mecca for metal fans worldwide since the group was launched in spring 1989: as powerful and haunting as the band may sound on their studio albums – live on stage, Gamma Ray have always surpassed their studio performances.

Naturally, for Gamma Ray the Hamburg show in September 1993 was special in every respect. Not only because it took place in the group’s home city but also because the band presented their new line-up to their fans for the first time. On top of all that, the set list that night was impressive: along with brand-new numbers such as ´Tribute To The Past`, ´Insanity And Genius` ´Last Before The Storm` and their back then current single release ´Future Madhouse`, Hansen, Scheepers, Schlächter and new additions Rubach and Nack also delivered a breathtaking Helloween medley featuring the songs ´I Want Out`, ´Future World` and ´Ride The Sky`. In addition, Kai Hansen performed ´Heal Me` as a vocal duet with Ralf Scheepers, already hinting at the personnel change which was to follow a few months later.

What nobody anticipated that night at the Docks: this was to be the band’s last official recording featuring Scheepers. A few months later, Gamma Ray parted ways with their frontman from the south of Germany, Hansen doubling as vocalist ever since and the show at the Docks being the first time since his 1985 Helloween debut album “Walls Of Jericho” that he simultaneously played the guitar and sang lead vocals in a band.  

“Looking back more than 20 years, you can’t help but smile,” Hansen confesses. “We were like things possessed, playing almost every song either too fast or too hard, some of them both. We sounded like some kind of metal tornado. There was pure euphoria among the band members at that time.”

"Insanity & Genius" (Anniversary Edition) will be released on May 06th, 2016 on earMUSIC.

25 years of Gamma Ray – 25 years of heavy metal from Hamburg: what started out in spring 1990 with the release of their debut album “Heading For Tomorrow” has achieved international fame a quarter of a century later. Tours around the globe with sold-out shows in the US, Canada, South America, Asia and the whole of Europe plus appearances at the most renowned festivals worldwide – vocalist/guitarist Kai Hansen’s band has long taken the world by storm.
In view of this impressive stocktaking on the occasion of their anniversary, there’s a special reason to rejoice for their international fan community: the band’s full back catalogue will be rereleased over the course of a year. All albums will be available as premium-quality digipaks including newly designed cover artwork.

To cut a long story short: Gamma Ray are celebrating their anniversary in style, and all their fans are invited!

Their third studio album “Insanity & Genius”, which arrived at the stores in late summer 1993, presented Gamma Ray from an even tougher and more experimental side than their 1991 predecessor release “Sigh No More” had done.
On top of that, an incisive line-up change had taken place in the Gamma Ray camp during the run-up to the production: drummer Uli Kusch and bassist Uwe Wessel had left due to personal differences and were replaced by Jan Rubach (bass) and Thomas Nack (drums), formerly of Lübeck band Anesthesia.

Bassist Jan Rubach immediately contributed compositional inspiration and his remarkable songwriting skills, penning the title track and sections of the opener ´Tribute To The Past`, among others. Thomas Nack’s powerful drum style brought a fresh feel to Gamma Ray’s material, taking the band to occasionally almost brutal levels of hardness on “Insanity And Genius”.

”Insanity And Genius” was a commercial success particularly in the Far East and the top-selling Gammy Ray album in Japan with almost 100,000 copies sold, missing a gold award by a hair’s breadth. It was also the final studio recording featuring singer Ralf Scheepers, who left in 1994 to launch Primal Fear, Kai Hansen going on to replace him as the group’s lead vocalist.

...to be part of the BEST OF THE BEST 25th ANNIVERSARY PARTY - choose Your favorite Songs out of 25 Years and 11 GammaRay Albums and win one of 25 SuperVIP Packages - join the Soundcheck - Meet and greet with the Band - Photos and signings - laminated VIP Ticket - present bag from the Band and more. To participate just choose your favorite 2 Songs out of every GammaRay Album and also choose your favorite 2 GammaRay Albums - sign in and be a winner!!! Your favorite Songs will be played on the BEST OF THE BEST 25th ANNIVERSARY PARTY TOUR 2015.

Link: HTTPS://gammaray.org/fans/survey

Registered (Website) users please log-in!

Deadline for your votes: September, 20th 2015.

The band has decided to further on work with two singers for several good reasons.

So from now on the vocals there will be Mr. Kai Hansen as usual plus and welcome please Mr. Frank Beck with whom the band has done already a good amount of shows in the past. We found out that Frank is not only a great singer that very much fits into the band from his voice and from his temper of the voice and his kind of singing but as well as a very very good human being that is fit to live up to the extreme expectations that we as a band have for people joining.

Mainly this guy cannot only sing, he can party, too and that’s very important. So that was reason one.

Another good reason was that Kai just felt that it’s time for him to cut a bit shorter on singing because he found out that his long touring especially headline shows after a while always tends to fuck up the voice and end up with something that is not a hundred percent. So sharing the vocals makes things much easier and much more pleasurable.

It will not only give the band a new dimension soundwise or vocalwise but it will as well – and here is reason number three – give Kai the freedom to move around on stage a lot and plus create a bit more action on the live performances and be more free to play the guitar which actually he does like a lot.

So ladies and gentleman please welcome the new GammaRay and please welcome Mr. Frank Beck.