Blistering.com: You would know better than anyone, but how does Dani compare to Ingo?
Weikath: The thing is, you want to know the difference between Ingo, Uli, and Dani?
Blistering.com: Sure, why not?
Weikath: Dani is all drums. That’s what he learned. He was born as a drummer. He started drumming when he was four years-old. He didn’t attend a high school. On the contrary, he went to a drum university where they were taught drum history, drum versatility, this and that. They didn’t even teach German, just drumming. What he would have as a job, would be a drum builder or manufacturer. When he got to Helloween, he didn’t need that job anymore.
Ingo, he was a guy that Kai Hansen [ex-Helloween guitarist/vocalist] met at a subway station and said, “Guy, you look good, you have the body, I want you to be the drummer in my band.” He had to learn from scratch. Of course, it was decided he had to be a drummer in a metal band, so he had no means of following anything or rulebooks. There couldn’t be a more crass difference between Ingo and Dani. They’re true opposites.
Blistering.com: You recently put out the video for “Are You Metal?” so I wanted to know how you felt about doing videos. It’s pretty well-done.
Weikath: There was a time when we thought investing money into a video was useless. MTV wouldn’t play it, so whatever there is now, Youtube and that stuff, it’s worth it again. You just do it for the fans. Whoever wants to watch it, can. It’s on the website and we don’t need to shitty MTV for it [laughs]. I don’t know…you gotta know because I don’t know – are there many people still watching it?
Blistering.com: In the states, MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore. It’s all reality shows.
Weikath: Oh really? What about Headbanger’s Ball?
Blistering.com: They cut it down to an hour and play it at 2 in the morning.
Weikath: Oh wow. I’m really happy with how it [“Are You Metal?”] turned out. It was also great to have our “best” fans to make their way there. I didn’t know if they’d be into being recorded in an artificial way since it wasn’t a real concert. We played the track very loud through the monitor systems. It was so damn loud, but they were happy, we were happy, and I watched the recording of the crowd from the side and it was pretty impressive. They were spot-on.
Blistering.com: Speaking of videos, the video for “I Want Out” has a lot of hits. What do you remember about shooting it?
Weikath: You must not forget that Storm Thorgerson did that video, and he did the artwork for Pink Bubbles Go Ape and people who are not in the “in the know,” but he was the one who did all of the classic covers for the Scorpions, UFO, Led Zeppelin, and the likes. Nowadays, he’s working for Muse, and the like. He’s the guy behind it. He got slagged for the artwork behind Pink Bubblesbecause our fans wouldn’t know who he is or what he is. We wanted to offer something great to our fans, but got back the criticism, “This is strange, we don’t like it. This is not Helloween.” So we skipped working with him. But he did that video, and it was a great honor to work with him. He scouted those locations, too. He’s extremely funny and he’s a master of what he’s doing. That was extra special. The other big thing is possibly do is shoot with Scorcese or something.
Blistering.com: I remember the scene where you and Kai are walking around [ex-singer Michael] Kiske and you are trying not to smile.
Weikath: It was a hard day because we had to go to that desert in Pamplona. Michael was a bit…pissed off that day. He didn’t want to stick his out of the driving car
[laughs] and get filmed in slow-mo. He didn’t want to get in that chest, the dirty one. Storm said, “That’s fine. You don’t want to get into the chest? We can all go home then.” And we were like, “What?” And he said, “Yeah, we can all go home.” Then Kiske was like, “Uh, I’m going into the chest.”