In a new inteview with Sleaze Roxx about Masterplan's new PumpKings album, featuring covers of Helloween songs written by guitarist Roland Grapow, he commented on being excluded from Helloween's upcoming Pumpkins United World Tour which sees original members Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske joining the band's current line-up. Following is an excerpt from the interview.

Grapow: "My first reaction wasn’t disappointment, but I felt a bit upset just like a boy that didn’t get the invitation to his classmate’s birthday party. But after a while, I realized that I would not like to do this. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with these people around. And I would have had to sacrifice many things, which are very important and valuable for me such as the Masterplan band, my studio work and free time with my family at home. I worked too hard just to skip it off."

Read the complete interview here.

PumpKings consists of songs originally featured on the Halloween albums Pink Bubbles Go Ape (1991), Chameleon (1993), Master Of The Rings (1994), The Time Of The Oath (1996) and The Dark Ride (2000). PumpKings will be released as a digipak and colored (of course orange) double vinyl in gatefold sleeve. Artwork and tracklisting below.

Check out the BraveWords review of PumpKings here.

The new version of “Mr. Ego”, originally on Master Of The Rings, is available for streaming below.

Tracklisting:

“The Chance”
“Someone's Crying”
“Mankind”
“Step Out Of Hell”
“Mr. Ego”
“Still We Go”
“Escalation 666”
“The Time Of The Oath”
“Music”
“The Dark Ride”

“Mr. Ego”:

“Escalation 666”:

“The Chance” lyric video: