Helloween's predecessor bands were:
Gentry (with Kai Hansen and Piet Sielck on guitars), Second Hell and Ironfist (besides the former with Markus Grosskopf on bass and Ingo Schwichtenberg on drums).
After Sielck left, guitarist Michael Weikath came from the band Powerfool.
The band has now been renamed Helloween.
The first two Helloween songs were released on the Noise Records label distributed sampler Death Metal.
Oernst of Life and Metal Invaders got such good reviews that in 1984 this label decided to
to sign Helloween.
In 1985, the band released a mini-LP bearing the band's name, containing five songs.
In the same year they released Walls of Jericho, an album that brought them their first commercial success with titles such as Ride the Sky, Guardians and How Many Tears.
On the subsequent tour there were first problems in the band.
Hansen felt overwhelmed by the double burden of being a guitarist and singer, so they considered hiring an additional singer for the Judas short tour in 1986.
So the then 18-year-old Michael Kiske, who was employed at the time by the little-known band Ill Prophecy, was engaged.