Drums

Played in Helloween from 1994 till 2001


At first Uli Kusch was invited to Helloween as a session drummer to record Master of the Rings album. But things turned out better than anybody expected and he stayed in the band for a very long while. Thanks to his energy, professional skills and stylistical variety (before Helloween he played drums for such bands as Holy Moses, Mekong Delta and.... Gamma Ray!) the band made it through a serious crisis and regained the main characteristics of its own style - high-tempo songs with powerful, virtuoso drums. A few years after joining Helloween Uli began to demonstrate good composing skills. He authored and co-authored such hits as Wake Up The Mountain, Revelation, The Departed. However, the musical direction that he and Roland Grapow chose in 2000 caused many conflicts within the band. As a result he and Roland had to leave Helloween and create their own band, Masterplan.

"Well, I always work on things. When i'm not on tour i'm in my studio to check out new equipement and get inspired."

"You have five different characters to get along with for a few years. Sometimes it is not easy but everybody knows what it's about."

Career timeline:

date	event
march 11th, 1967	Uli Kusch was born in Aachen (Germany)
march 11th, 1981	Uli bought himself a guitar and started to learn to play
1981	Uli's carpenting teacher found out he's good behind the drums and sold him a drumkit. Uli decided to switch to drums and began to play in a school cover-band
beginning of 80s	Uli was studying carpentry but never started working, choosing a career in music instead
1983	Kusch created his own school band, Violent Kids
1986	Violent Kids broke apart as they despaired to get a record contract
1987	Uli came to Holy Moses
1988	Under the pseudonym Patrick Duval Uli recorded "The Gnome" track for an album of Mekong Delta
1990	Kusch left Holy Moses due to diffenences in musical taste and future plans
beginning of 1991	Uli joined Gamma Ray
1991	Uli Kusch toured over Japan with Gamma Ray. Later he recorded drums for Sigh No More album
1992	Uli left Gamma Ray, felling unsatisfied with the amount of creative input he had in the band
1993-1994	Kusch recorded drum parts for such bands as Axe La Chapelle and Die Skeptiker (German punk-band). Also he helped a jazz fusion band, JK Special and a Swiss band, Transit, to play live
1994	Helloween hired Uli Kusch as a session drummer (for further info, see Helloween timeline)
1997	Kusch did the drums for Roland Grapow's solo album, The Four Seasons of Life
1998	Kusch did the drums for Markus Grosskopf's solo album, Shockmachine
1999	Uli released Catch The Rainbow - A Tribute to Rainbow album featuring a lot of his friends and all his colleagues
1999-2000	Kusch temporarily joined Mat Sinner's band and recorded The End Of Sanctuary album with them
august 22nd, 2001	It was officially announced that Uli Kusch and Roland Grapow were out of Helloween
2002	Uli Kusch, Roland Grapow, Jorn Lande, Jan S. Eckert and Axel Mackenrott formed Masterplan band
january 2003	AFM Records released the debut, self-titled album of Masterplan
january 2005	Masterplan's second album, Aeronautics, was released

Discography:

Holy Moses (Finished With The Dogs, The New Machine Of Lichtenstein, World Chaos, Too Drunk to Fuck EP)

Gamma Ray (Sigh No More)

Axe La Chapelle (Grab What You Can)

Sinner (The End of Sanctuary)

Helloween (Master of the Rings, The Time of the Oath, Better Than Raw, Metal Jukebox, Dark Ride)

Masterplan (Materplan, Aeronautics)


Guest appearances:

Mekong Delta (Classics)

Die Skeptiker (Schwarze Boten)

Transit (Heardcore)

Ferdy Doernberg (Just a Piano and a Handful of Dreams)

Roland Grapow (The Four Seasons of Life)

Shockmachine (Shockmachine)


Solo-projects:

Catch the Rainbow (A Tribute to Rainbow)


Websites dedicated to Uli Kusch:

Uli Kusch's official website


Interview links collection:

Roland Grapow, Uli Kusch, Markus Grosskopf, interview for Metal Head magazine - Date: 08.1996

Interview for Rock Brazil magazine - Date: 28.11.2004

Michael Weikath, Roland Grapow, Uli Kusch, interview for Intermission magazine - Date: 1994