{"id":912047,"date":"2026-09-27T21:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T21:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/912047\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T21:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T21:32:13","slug":"helloweens-michael-weikath-rules-out-part-four-of-keeper-of-the-seven-keys-album-saga-that-would-be-very-repetitive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/912047\/","title":{"rendered":"HELLOWEEN&#8217;s MICHAEL WEIKATH Rules Out &#8216;Part Four&#8217; Of &#8216;Keeper Of The Seven Keys&#8217; Album Saga: &#8216;That Would Be Very Repetitive&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a new interview with Brazil&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XCME8mvLCvs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Ibagenscast<\/a>, HELLOWEEN guitarist Michael Weikath was asked if it&#8217;s true that he and his bandmates are already thinking about a follow-up to their latest album, &#8220;Giants &amp; Monsters&#8221;, which arrived in August 2025 via Reigning Phoenix Music (RPM). Michael said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): &#8220;Yeah, yeah. [We are] thinking about it, even though I won&#8217;t say anything. And there&#8217;s going to be a bit of more work going into it, surely. It&#8217;s not going to be finished just so. I mean, there&#8217;s lots of additional handy work necessary, yeah, absolutely. But that&#8217;s true \u2014 there&#8217;s lots of material, yeah.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Weikath was also asked about the possibility of a new chapter in the &#8220;Keeper Of The Seven Keys&#8221; saga, following the release of the two original albums, 1987&#8217;s &#8220;Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Part I&#8221; and 1988&#8217;s &#8220;Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Part II&#8221;, as well as 2005&#8217;s &#8220;Keeper Of The Seven Keys: The Legacy&#8221;, which was intended as a sequel to the originals. Michael said: &#8220;That would be possible, but even though I don&#8217;t really think so. There was one rumor going on some months ago that [HELLOWEEN singer] Andi [Deris] had said something about a &#8216;Keeper IV&#8217; that was just like a joke in the talk of the interview. And with the interviewer he was talking, they were having fun musing, like, &#8216;Okay, or we make the &#8216;Keeper IV&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Elaborating on why he thinks releasing a new chapter in the &#8220;Keeper Of The Seven Keys&#8221; saga would not be a good idea at this point in HELLOWEEN&#8217;s career, Weikath said: &#8220;That would be very repetitive, and I can also imagine it wouldn&#8217;t do much good on one part of the, of the critical fanhood or whatever. There would be many people going, like, &#8216;Ah, they&#8217;re out of ideas. They don&#8217;t know album titles&#8217; or whatever, and &#8216;Oh, &#8216;IV&#8217;? Oh, come on.&#8217; And I can imagine that not to be so positive, actually, if you&#8217;re showing, okay, you don&#8217;t really have any ideas for new album titles and whatever. And then I think the &#8216;Keeper IV&#8217; was already the &#8216;United&#8217; [self-titled HELLOWEEN] album [which came out in 2021]. And if you want it that way, even the &#8216;Giants &amp; Monsters&#8217; would be like a &#8216;Keeper IV&#8217; or &#8216;Keeper V&#8217;, right? It&#8217;s just not called that way. Because it&#8217;s also easily accessible, and the playing time is kind of limited in comparison to longer records we&#8217;ve done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Weikath continued: &#8220;I don&#8217;t really think that the &#8216;Keeper&#8217; saga is a feasible subject for the future. I&#8217;d rather come up with new album titles. Otherwise then you end up with, like, &#8216;Keeper VI&#8217;, &#8216;Keeper VII&#8217;, and whatever. And it doesn&#8217;t really change the originality of each track that&#8217;s being conceived for any new record. So I think new titles would be better. But we can make a poll and everybody says, &#8216;Hey, we want a number four&#8217;, and then that&#8217;s a different thing if everybody says so. I just don&#8217;t imagine that that way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Giants &amp; Monsters&#8221; was mixed at the legendary Wisseloord Studios (IRON MAIDEN, JUDAS PRIEST, DEF LEPPARD) in Hilversum, Netherlands.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Helloween&#8221; was the first HELLOWEEN album to feature the band&#8217;s expanded lineup, consisting of returning members, singer Michael Kiske and guitarist\/vocalist Kai Hansen, along with singer Andi Deris, guitarists Michael Weikath and Sascha Gerstner, bassist Markus Grosskopf and drummer Daniel L\u00f6ble.<\/p>\n<p>Upon its release in June 2021, &#8220;Helloween&#8221; landed in the Top 10 in more than 10 countries, including Germany, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Austria.<\/p>\n<p>HELLOWEEN released a live album, &#8220;Live At Budokan&#8221;, on December 13, 2024 via Reigning Phoenix Music (RPM). The effort immortalized HELLOWEEN&#8217;s September 16, 2023 performance at Tokyo&#8217;s legendary Nippon Budokan.<\/p>\n<p>The Hansen-led &#8220;Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Part I&#8221; was released in May 1987 to critical acclaim. &#8220;Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Part II&#8221;, featuring more of Weikath&#8217;s material, followed in August 1988 to an equally rapturous reception.<\/p>\n<p>HELLOWEEN is:<\/p>\n<p>Michael Kiske &#8211; vocals<br \/>Andi Deris &#8211; vocals<br \/>Kai Hansen &#8211; guitars, vocals<br \/>Michael Weikath &#8211; guitars<br \/>Sascha Gerstner &#8211; guitars<br \/>Markus Grosskopf &#8211; bass<br \/>Daniel L\u00f6ble &#8211; drums<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a new interview with Brazil&#8217;s Ibagenscast, HELLOWEEN guitarist Michael Weikath was asked if it&#8217;s true that he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-912047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}