In a new, 2-part interview with Sleaze Roxx Roland Grapow discusses his time in Helloween and Masterplan in detail, including each studio album that he did with each band. He also discusses Masterplan’s recent Keep Your Dream aLive release. An excerpt follows:

Q: So Keep Your Dream aLive is actually very heavy on the first Masterplan album, which I get because it is a very good album. How hard was it coming up with a setlist for the live CD/DVD?

A: “Well, that’s not easy because you know, especially we already have five albums out so then you can choose a lot. I just realized of course that most of the classic songs are on the first two albums with Jorn [Lande] and Uli [Kusch], and a lot of people wanted to hear that. With Rick [Altzi] in the band singing and [bassist] Jari [Kainulainen], they really like these old songs as well and that’s why we are choosing more or less 60 to 70% of the old stuff and just highlights of you know, singles or extra songs. We included MK II, Time To Be King and the new album so it’s more or less about making the fans happy. That’s the main thing you know? That’s why for the next album, we are planning a studio album next year where we will go back to the roots a little bit and want to get our old style of songwriting a little bit coming back.”

Q: Cool! That’s great! And when can we expect to have the next Masterplan studio album out?

A: We have a package deal that we signed with AFM [Records] that we signed. It’s like a new deal after ten to twelve years or something. We signed it at the beginning of last year. The first part was the DVD that we released. The second part, which we are just doing now — I am recording my guitars, re-recording my old Helloween songs with Masterplan. I feel like this will be something special because Helloween is totally ignoring my part of their career in the band. So they never play any songs of mine live. The same with Uli Kusch, which I don’t know… some stupid things. I just realized that over the years, these were just really strong powerful songs and at that time, I played the guitar with a slightly different sound but most of the stuff, if you analyze it, it’s very close to the Masterplan style.

“So we just want to make a fresh recording of these older songs and we want to put some parts of those songs in our live set. We already did “The Chance” in South America and the last European tour. That’s the kind of plan — just my back catalog more or less coming into the Masterplan section, which the fans in the future can also appreciate a little bit more. That’s the main thing because I feel ignored from the Helloween guys. There are no problems with the band or anything but I think that we just do not get any support from them anymore. The same for Uli Kusch. This will be released in October this year and the next studio album is coming very quick after that so it will be maybe February or March of next year.”

Read Part 1 of the interview at this location. Part 2 can be found here.

Masterplan unleashed their first ever live release on October 9th, 2015. Keep Your Dream aLive is available as DVD/CD and Bluray/CD sets, both including the entire  show from Masters Of Rock festival, recordings from Wacken Open Air, footage from the band's latest Asian tour and ProgPower USA, as well as all (five) official Masterplan video clips. The Masters Of Rock show is featured on the CD.

CD tracklisting:

“Enlighten Me”
“Spirit Never Die”
“Lost And Gone”
“Crystal Night”
“Betrayal”
“Crimson Rider”
“Back For My Life”
“Time To Be King”
“Keep Your Dream Alive”
“Heroes”
“Soulburn”
“Kind Hearted Light”
“Crawling From Hell”
“Black Night Of Magic”

DVD (Masters Of Rock show) tracklisting:

“Intro”
“Enlighten Me”
“Spirit Never Die”
“Lost And Gone”
“Crystal Night”
“Betrayal”
“Crimson Rider”
“Back For My Life”
“Time To Be King”
“Keep Your Dream Alive”
“Heroes”
“Soulburn”
“Kind Hearted Light"
“Crawling From Hell”

“Spirit Never Die”: