Roland Grapow

Roland Grapow was born on 30 August 1959 in Hamburg, Germany. He is a guitarist known for having played in the band Helloween, but he is also a neoclassical guitarist. He first played in the band Rampage from 1980 to 1982, with which he recorded two albums. It was in 1988 that Roland Grapow joined the band Helloween mid-tour, having just been left by its founder Kai Hansen. He would take part in six albums with this band. During this period he would release two solo albums: The Four Seasons Of Life in 1997 and Kaleidoscope in 1999. Even though he wrote them while he was still in Helloween, these two albums bear no resemblance to his work with that band and are neoclassically oriented, showing the influence of Yngwie Malmsteen as well as classical composers such as Niccolò Paganini.