Roland Grapow is a professional guitarist and music producer. Grapow is best known for his time in the leading power metal band Helloween, who he played with for 12 years after replacing founding member Kai Hansen. He subsequently created the power metal bandMasterplan in 2001, which is still active today.
Biography
Grapow started playing guitar at age 12. His father bought him a guitar and had him to take guitar lessons, but Grapow couldn't stand the theory part and his teacher told his father that Grapow didn't have any talent for guitar playing. Prior to joining Helloween, Grapow was a member of the heavy metal band Rampage. He joined the band in roughly 1979, and played on two of their studio albums Victim Of Rock in 1980, and Love Lights UpThe Night in 1982. He left Rampage in roughly 1983. He was then fairly inactive musically, and made a living as a car mechanic until Michael Weikath called him to offer him a position in Helloween in 1989. According to Grapow in 2017, "If Weiki didn't call me at that time, I would still be a car mechanic and I'd be an old guy with heavy bones and pain, still working on cars, dreaming about my hobby I had a long time ago, being a musician." Grapow played on the Helloween albums Pink Bubbles Go Ape, Chameleon, Master of the Rings, The Time of the Oath, High Live, Better Than Raw, Metal Jukebox, and The Dark Ride. During his time with Helloween Grapow also formed a solo project. The first release, The Four Seasons of Life, featured members of Helloween playing backup, with Grapow trying his hand at singing in addition to guitar playing. On the second album, Kaleidoscope, current and former members of Yngwie Malmsteen's band were utilized. In 2001, Grapow and bandmate Uli Kusch were fired from Helloween due to musical and personal differences. In 2012, on an interview with Metal Shock Finland's Chief Editor, Mohsen Fayyazi, Grapow stated: Grapow and Kusch decided to go on with the side project they had been planning and formed the band Masterplan with former Ark and The Snakes singer Jørn Lande. After Kusch left the band in 2006, Grapow became the leader and main songwriter of Masterplan. Grapow is currently living in Zvolenská Slatina, Slovakia, where he works as a music producer at his own studio. In 2011 he mixedthe albumMotherland for the Italianprogressive metal band Daedalus and played the guitar solo on the song Underground. He also produced Czechmetalcore band X-Core on their album "In Hell" and also their latest "Life and stuff" record. Another Czech power metal band Eagleheart recorded their second album "Dreamtherapy" for Scarlet Records, with Grapow producing, mixing, mastering and guesting vocals and guitar solos. He also produced Slovaksymphonic metal band Anthology and their album "The Prophecy". His collaboration work on acclaimed solo album by guitarist Tony Hernando "Actual events" leads him to work on the albums by popular Spanish Metal band Saratoga, "Secretos y revelaciones" and "Nemesis". Roland Grapow continues collaborating as Co-Producer for the new band formed by Tony Hernando with new vocal sensation Ronnie Romero - Lords Of Black, with an acclaimed self titled debut album in 2014 and a new album "II" to be released by Frontier Music in 2016. In 2017, Grapow joined Czech band Kreyson as their guitar player. In 2019, he announced the departure from the band.
