Name: Michael Kiske
Birthday: January 24,1968
Birthplace: Hamburg
Instrument: Vocals, Some Guitars
Former Bands: Ill Prophecy, Helloween
Current Band: SUPARED
Guest Appearences: Gamma Ray, Avantasia, Timo Tolkki


Michael Kiske's career began when he was the singer of a small and unknown band called I'll Phophecy. Meanwhile another german band, Helloween, was looking for a new singer since Kai Hansen, who was the lead singer and guitarist, couldn't stand the responsibility of singing and playing guitar at the same time, so they decided to call a new singer, the young 18 years old guy called Michael Kiske who had an incredible voice. Together in Helloween, they recorded the second album of the band, called "Keeper of the Seven Keys part I", released in 1988., which is considered one of the masterpieces of the band. After the success of the part one, the next record, "Keeper of the Seven Keys part II" released in 1988, had the same success of their previous record. But the dream ended when, after some personal conflicts, Kai Hansen decided to leave the band to start a solo career with his friends.
After that, Helloween's story started to change... They had serious problems with their record label and there were also personal problems between the band members. All that facts together changed the band style. They released "The Best, the Rest, the Rare", one "the best of" album out in 1989 just to have a new record on the world market. Kai Hansen was substituted by Roland Grapow, who came from a band called Rampage. Then Helloween recorded their new album "Pink Bubbles Go Ape", released in 1991 which was considered a bad record for most of the old fans of the band. Meanwhile, conflicts between Michael Kiske and the other band members started to grow. Even with those conflicts, they started to record their next album, called "Chameleon", released in 1993 and considered by the fans the worst Helloween album ever done, concerning creativity and musical quality, it was one of the best so far! Unfortunately most of the fans didn't like the record, so the crisis got to its limit...
So Michael Kiske left the band together with Ingo Schwichtenberg (in memory) who suffered with mental problems and wasn't able to play drums anymore. After the band split, Michael Kiske started to prepare its solo album, by that time, he appeared as a guest musician on Gamma Ray's record "Land of the Free", the new band of the former Helloween singer, guitarist and friend, Kai Hansen.
In 1996, three years after having left Helloween, Michael Kiske released his first solo record called "Instant Clarity", which has Kai Hansen and and Adrian Smith's special appearance. A few months after, "The Calling (EP)" was released. The single has 2 unreleased songs.
Now, Michael Kiske's new record is out. Its name is R.T.S. (Readiness to Sacrifice), and it is the best he did so far, acording to him. It has an unique style that can't be rotuled. With amazing classical, rock and pop influence, mixed with the magic of his voice, what would be expected? A great record, of course!
This was taken from the Michael Kiske Website.