Michael Kiske (born 24 January 1968) is a German singer who is the co-lead vocalist for the power metal band Helloween. Kiske has also released four solo albums, two albums with the hard rock band Unisonic, has participated on various metal and rock related projects such as Avantasia, Place Vendome and Kiske/Somerville, and has performed with numerous bands as a guest vocalist.
Biography Early life Prior to joining Helloween, Kiske sang with the German band Ill Prophecy at the age of 17. The band recorded a demo, but it was never released commercially.
Personal life
According to Kiske "Usually I do a lot of reading, I like to watch American Sitcoms, I like Comedy, I like Science Fiction movies. When it comes to books I'm reading a lot of serious stuff. Maybe this is the balancing. When you read serious stuff, you also need to have fun that brings you down." "I'm very sensitive and I take betrayal very, very heavy. I don't wanna sound stupid, but I think I'm a good friend. If I call someone a friend, he's my friend, and it stays that way, and I don't betray...After the split with Helloween, I kind of locked myself up and was basically just living in books for a number of years. I had some amazing years just being like spiritual. Just being, thinking, learning and trying to understand life. The musician's life is very often very superficial. Everything happens as a big party, so the years after Helloween were the total opposite of that. I didn't have much happening on the outside, everything happened on the inside."
Helloween (1986–1993, 2017–present)
At the age of eighteen, Kiske was asked to join the German power metal band Helloween, which was fronted by singer/guitarist Kai Hansen. Hansen had some difficulties being both the lead guitarist and lead vocalist, and it was decided that a new vocalist would be needed. According to Kiske "I started very early as a singer, I got my school band and when I just barely got out of high school Markus from Helloween showed up in the rehearsal room telling me they were looking for a singer." Kiske rejected Helloween's first offer, because he disliked the sound of the band's Walls of Jericho album, but accepted the second and joined Helloween in late 1986. Kiske's first album with the band was 1987's Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part I, widely considered to be one of Helloween's best albums and a milestone in the creation of the power metal genre. Helloween went on to release Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part II in 1988, which went gold in Germany and brought even more success than its predecessor. The Keeper of the Seven Keys albums proved to be highly influential and aided in the formation of a new wave of European power metal bands, such as Blind Guardian, Stratovarius, HammerFall and Edguy. The album's worldwide success enabled the band to embark on an extensive world tour and perform at famous festivals such as Monsters of Rock.
After the completion of the band's 1988 headlining tour, the album Live in the UK was released, while Kai Hansen left the band and was replaced by guitarist Roland Grapow.
Legal disputes with their record company prevented Helloween from releasing new material until 1991's Pink Bubbles Go Ape, which was followed by 1993's Chameleon. These two albums saw the band moving away from their power metal roots and experimenting with different sounds. Both Pink Bubbles Go Ape and Chameleon were commercial failures and resulted in Kiske leaving Helloween. Kiske was fired from the band in 1993, reportedly for personal reasons. He was replaced by Pink Cream 69's Andi Deris, who has remained with Helloween ever since.
In 2016 it was announced that Michael Kiske would join Helloween, together with Kai Hansen, for a reunion tour that would take place during 2017 and 2018. Kiske stated in 2018 that "For a long time, this was totally impossible for me, because I was hurt and full of anger and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. For a long time I didn't want anything to do with the metal scene. It went very deep. But in the last couple of years before the reunion, without me noticing, things changed somehow, and I realized something is different when I ran into Michael Weikath. It was a festival and suddenly I was standing in front of him and he said something like, 'Michael, what have I done that you can't forgive me?', which I thought was a great line. Then I just said, 'You know what? I think I have forgiven you a long time ago.' That was just how I felt. There was no anger — I was totally relaxed." It took another year until he agreed to take part in the reunion tour, as he asserted during a 2017 interview: "We'd just played some shows in Spain with Unisonic. We were getting changed backstage, getting out of our clothes, and Kai said: 'If we don't ever do anything under the name of Helloween again, we're just idiots.' And I said: 'You know what? I'm open.'" "Helloween was the mother ship and this tour somehow sums it up to me. It is almost like a circle that gets to the starting point. I got off the band, I have been through a lot of experiences and I don't want to miss any of it, because I know how important it was to go through all this. I am not angry anymore and I can forgive and forget."
The Pumpkins United World Tour started in October 2017 in South America and continued in Europe with concerts lasting close to three hours. On 8 December 2017 the single Pumpkins United, featuring the reunited line-up, was released. The reunion tour continued throughout 2018 in Japan, Russia, Ukraine and Europe in general, North America, Canada and Latin America. The Pumpkins United World Tour was the biggest one in the band's history as it comprised 69 shows and lasted for 14 months. A live DVD/Blu-ray entitled United Alive and the live album United Alive in Madrid were released on 4 October 2019.
The band embarked on a Brazilian tour in September 2019, which started at Rockfest (São Paulo) and ended with their performance at the Rock In Rio Festival.
A new album with Kiske and Hansen was released on 18 June 2021. The self titled album reached top ten positions in several international music charts.
On December 13, 2024 Helloween released the live album, DVD/Blu-ray Live at Budokan. The album featured the recording of the band's September 16, 2023 performance at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan during the 2022-2023 world tour.
The second album featuring the reunited line-up was released on 28 August 2025 under the title Giants & Monsters.
Solo work (1996–2008) On 16 August 1996, three years after leaving Helloween, Kiske released his first solo album, Instant Clarity. The album featured guest appearances by Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden, Kai Hansen and Ciriaco Taraxes and contained songs in a wide variety of styles. A music video for the ballad "Always", dedicated to deceased Helloween drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg, was filmed and produced in New York City.
During the same time he also wrote a book, Kunst Und Materialismus, (in English: Art and Materialism.) which is only available in German. Kiske said in 2003: "First of all, I wrote this book for myself. First I had to collect and define myself. This was a very good personality enhancement story. I then printed a few thousand in self-publishing. It is very difficult to translate as I have quoted many quotes from thinkers from the good old days in Germany."
His second solo album, Readiness to Sacrifice, was first only released in Japan on the Victor Label in April 1999, and later reissued in Europe 2001 by Noise Records. The music on the album featured Kiske moving completely away from his heavy metal roots towards a smoother AOR sound. Kiske also sang on two symphonic orchestral songs with The Bremer Weser Quartett on strings.
Kiske stated in 2003: "After I left Helloween I was insecure about myself. The situation with Helloween created such an inner conflict inside me, that I needed those albums to rediscover myself. I was disappointed in everything and everyone. I was angry at some people, but most of all of the metal-industry."
In 2003, out of desire to make rock music again, Kiske formed a band with studio musicians, named SupaRed. They released a self-titled album in January 2003 on Noise Records. This album had a modern rock sound and a song structure, distinct from both his solo albums and the heavy metal sound of Helloween. The project was under promoted, unsuccessful and because of some personal reasons Kiske dissolved the band. "It didn't work", he said in an interview.
In 2006, Kiske released his third full-length solo album under the name of Kiske. This was his first solo album released by the Italian Frontiers Records. The album contained songs in a mellow, acoustic singer-songwriter style and was a step away from the sound of his previous solo albums. According to Kiske:"It's a healthy-careless and musically free album. I am very proud of this record because it is a true statement from myself". Instant Clarity was also reissued in 2006 with the addition of 4 newly recorded bonus tracks. Kiske sees his solo albums as "the best I could do in those days. I see those years after Helloween as a learning phase. I was learning so much...Even the process of setting up the microphones, mastering, mixing."
In 2008, Kiske released his fourth solo work, entitled Past in Different Ways. The album contained acoustic re-arrangements of his old Helloween material and one new song. According to Kiske the album "on one hand shows that I don't reject my past just because I'm a different person today, and on the other hand it can maybe give people who were part of that past a different view at those songs".
In an interview with Spanish Metal Journal, in May 2021, Kiske said that he was recording a new acoustic solo album. The album will contain new songs and various cover versions.
Avantasia (since 2000)
In 2000, Tobias Sammet (vocalist of the band Edguy) asked Kiske to participate in the rock opera project Avantasia. Kiske agreed to sing on the project, in the role of Lugaid Vandroiy, but only under the nickname of Ernie. The nickname was printed on the back of the first Avantasia release, The Metal Opera, but not on the sequel, The Metal Opera Part II, where he was featured under his real name. As Kiske recalls "In the '90s, I didn't even think that I would ever go on stage again or anything like that. I was frustrated and disappointed, and didn't want to have anything to do with it...it started with Toby [Tobias Sammet] talking me into laying vocals down on some of his songs that sounded very Helloween-like. In the beginning I was even saying; 'no, I don't want to do stuff like that anymore'; I was very anti-everything in that direction! But he's the kind of guy that doesn't give up that easily, so he was calling me up and he was really talking me into doing it, and I did it just for him because I liked him. That's why I'm called Ernie on that record [The Metal Opera, 2001]; that was my way of dealing with everybody." He had a main role in the concept of the Metal Opera albums and performed on the songs "Reach Out for the Light", "Breaking Away", "Farewell", "Avantasia", "The Tower", "The Seven Angels" and "No Return".
During 2007, he recorded guest vocals for two Avantasia tracks; "Promised Land" and "Lost in Space [Extended Version]", both of which appeared on the Lost in Space Part I & II compilation album ("Promised Land" was also featured on the EP Lost in Space Part II).
In 2008, Kiske took part in the Avantasia album The Scarecrow, singing lead on the track "Shelter From The Rain" and backing on the title track and on "What Kind of Love".