Generation Steel
I Cannot Imagine Stopping to Play Music

06.10.2026

Guitarist Thilo Hermann was a familiar face on the German metal scene of the 80s and 90s. He rose to fame with Risk, did stints with Holy Moses and Glenmore, then joined Running Wild for albums like “Black Hand Inn” (1994) and “Masquerade” (1995), their last classic full-lengths. In the 2000s he went on to play with Grave Digger, but that intriguing alliance unfortunately ended after just one album, “Ballads Of A Hangman” (2009). After that nothing was heard of Thilo for more than a decade, but now those into classic German heavy metal can rejoice – he is back with not just one, but two bands. With Argentina-based Feanor, he trades leads with E.V. Martel (ex-Manowar), as you can hear on “Hellhammer”, released in 2025. And Thilo’s latest band is Generation Steel, an up-and-coming five-piece from Germany led by mysterious guitarist named Jack The Riffer. Generation Steel already released two full-lengths before recruiting Thilo, but their third album aptly titled “Steelmachine” seems to me making a lot of waves for the five-peace and has secured them an opening slot on the high-profile European tour with Iron Savior and Mystic Prophecy. We caught up with Thilo shortly before the release of “Steelmachine”, but as discussing his whole music history is not a task that can be achieved in just 40 minutes, we mostly focused on the upcoming Generation Steel album and on his past with Risk, which is sadly not much covered or remembered on the present-day metal scene…

How did you become a member of Generation Steel? Did you know Jack The Riffer and his music before he asked you to join?

I didn’t know this band before. I saw a message on Facebook… My youngest son – I have three sons – I told him, “There’s a guy who writes me, ‘Do you want to join the band?’, let’s listen to it”. Luis told me, “Yes, daddy, let’s have a look”. I like this kind of music, the style, the German heavy metal style, and I decided to contact Jack. We had a phone call, then I think one week later Jack came to visit me, and then we went to the studio and he presented me the preproduction they had already done. That’s how the whole thing started.

How did the rest of the current line-up come together? As far as we understand, you were the first to join, and singer Micke Stark and bass player Fabian Watermann came onboard later…

Yeah! I did two shows with the old line-up of Generation Steel. By the way, on tour they had a guest guitar player and also a guest singer who finished the last confirmed shows they played last year. Then I joined the band, I played two shows with them, and we decided to search for a new singer. But this was very difficult, because in Germany it’s hard to find a good singer that also fits in a band as a person. We were searching and searching, we had a lot of interviews with singers, and then I said, “Let’s try Mike”, because I had made the last Feanor album together with him. We met for the first time in Sweden two years ago, when I was on vacation in Stockholm. We saw each other, and we felt we were like brothers - we have the same blood. (laughs) He was here in my studio to record some vocals for the Feanor album, and he was very professional. He’s a very good singer, he is a really good friend and a brother, and I felt very comfortable when we decided to ask Mike if he wanted to join Generation Steel. God bless Mike agreed, and so Mike ended up in the band.

I must explain: Jack presented me the complete preproduction of songs that were already existing, and I heard that there would be a lot to do. In my turn, I sent Jack my songs that I had recorded over decades. I have something like 500-800 ideas, some finished songs, and to make a long story short, we decided to choose my songs for the album. Then I started to bring them into shape. There were some songs, for example, “Witches Cross”, which was already completely finished, so we could record it for the album. 

In the beginning of the preproduction, bass player Andy (Drommershausen) quit the band, and we ended up in a new situation where we had to find a new bass player. The preproduction and final recording for the album had already started, and we found, God bless, Fabian. He is also a bass player of Mad Max, I think they are from Hannover, and they have a singer from England, but I don’t know exactly. Fabian also fits very well, he’s a very good bass player and a nice guy, and we have a lot of fun together. That’s how the new line-up came together.

How much did producer Piet Sielck contribute to the album? As far as we understand, he also played on the song “Rise Up”…

He sang on “Rise Up”. Well, I prepared the album nearly to the finish. Then Piet took care of some arrangements, some vocals, let’s say, he gave the album the last kick. And he made a very good sound, a very good production. He’s a very good musician, he knows a lot of arrangement, drum arrangement and all this. In my opinion, he really did a perfect job for this album. 

The first three songs on the album are also the first three singles from it. Can you comment on this choice of singles?

Usually it should be the job of the singer to explain his lyrics. (laughs) “Wings Of Fire” is about war, and “Witches Cross” is about abuse of power - people who have the power to lie and to cheat, and finally they win. “Steelmachine” is the title song, but I don’t have the lyrics in my head, sorry.

But why are these particular songs chosen as singles?

It’s because we like them the most. And we also presented them to our label manager Wossi (Michael Wosgien) from Fireflash, and he, with his experience, decided that these were the best songs to be presented. You know, if you are a musician, sometimes you have a song that you like much more, and then the fans decide that there’s another song that you maybe don’t like so much, but they like it better. So it’s important to have an opinion that is not biased like that of a musician. So the label decided together with the band which songs would be presented as singe.

Can you also say a few words about the album’s final and longest track, “Island Of Tragedy”? What is it about?

It’s about the Epstein files. We all know that there was a lot of crime on his island. This song was made to be the last one, and it’s also planned to be a studio only song. 

Who is responsible for the visual aspect of the album? Who did the artwork for “Steelmachine” and singles? We can’t find the name of the artist anywhere…

To be honest, I don’t know. We have divided a little bit the things we have to do in the band. I am responsible for the music, for the composition, for the studio stuff, preproduction, recording and all this. This was really a lot to do, sometimes I worked until one or two o’clock at night each day for weeks and months. I didn’t visit any events, and my girlfriend was asked if she was single now. (laughs) I was always in the studio! And all the organization is done by Jack, he’s our big organization man, he organizes the cover art and everything that needs to be done to run a band.

You are going on tour with Iron Savior and Mystic Prophecy in November. What songs are going to be in your setlist? Will you play anything from earlier Generation Steel albums?

Yes, of course! The band has released two very good albums, “The Eagle Will Rise” and “Lionheart”, there are also very good songs on them, and we have to play them. I don’t know exactly, we are the opener on this tour, and we will play about nine songs - five from the new album, and four from the older ones, the best ones.

Generation Steel seems to change labels with every album. The first one was on Pure Steel, the second one on No Remorse, and now the band is with Fireflash Records. How do you like working with this label so far?

The label changed, I know it from an interview with Jack that I have seen, because Generation Steel was not so famous when it started. They started as a newcomer band, and it’s usual to have a contract for only one album. The market for music is hard. Then Jack knew Wossi from Fireflash and he organized that we would have a deal. Wossi was working for Nuclear Blast before he opened his new label Fireflash, and it works very good, it’s all really professional, and all the people around the band - the promo, the label - are working very well. For example, I get an email with an interview proposal, all the data is there, everything is perfect, nothing has been going wrong. We will have a lot of promotion before the tour, which is important to be visible in the scene, so that people could read and see that there’s a band called Generation Steel, there’s a tour with Iron Savior and Mystic Prophecy - it’s important for us to get more popular. Our target is next year hopefully to play some nice festivals and play our songs on stage.

Both you and Mike Stark are members of Feanor. What is currently happening with this band?

Feanor for me started a few years ago. At first it was the same story - I got contacted via messenger by Gustavo (Acosta), who is the founder and the bass player and the organizer of Feanor. He told me David Shankle was also playing there, and I had met David Shankle on the Manowar tour, I think it was 1989 when I was playing with Risk, and we were on a month-long European tour, so I asked him to send my greetings to David. (laughs) That’s how we came in contact. Then he asked me if I wanted to play a solo on this and that song, and finally I was a member. Then David quit the band, and Gustavo got E. V. Martel, who was also a guitar player of Manowar for a few years, he’s from Brazil. Just like with Generation Steel, I wrote songs, I think I wrote four songs for this album (“Hellhammer”, 2025), I did preproduction, I arranged them and recorded all the guitars and stuff. Finally there was an album, and we made a video, but nothing has happened since then. I think it’s difficult to run a band where the singer is from Sweden, the guitar player is from Germany, the drummer and the bass player are from Argentina, and the other guitar player is from Brazil. You can imagine how high transportation costs you will have to bring this band together and how much money we need to cover just the costs. 

Does it mean that you only communicate via the Internet, or have you ever met Gustavo and Emiliano (Wachs, drummer) in person?

We have a chat group in Whatsapp, but since the album was finished, we have had no posts there. There was nothing to discuss because the album was finished, and we were waiting for what would happen. There hasn’t been much action after the album was done. There has been talk about a festival in Greece in March. We will see what will happen, but nothing else is planned at the moment.

Before you got together with Feanor you didn’t play on any albums for more than 10 years, since you parted ways with Grave Digger. We heard you were playing in a cover band, is that correct?

I have a classic rock show. It started as a 70s rock show, it was a joke. (laughs) I’ve been doing it for more than 13 years, I have some good musicians here and we play all the old songs that we loved when we were young. We play songs by Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Sweet, Slade, Led Zeppelin and so on. it’s a lot of fun. I was always playing in a band, but I was playing under the radar of the metal scene. But music is my life, I cannot imagine stopping to play music. You can see I have a studio here in my house, but only to work in the studio is boring because if you have no band, you cannot share your music with anybody else. So I decided to found a band to keep the ball rolling, to be in shape, to play shows and all this. 

Are you as a musician comfortable in the present-day environment with its digital studios, social media and so on?

You can imagine if the singer is in Sweden, it’s difficult to communicate by Whatsapp if you want to work in the studio. So we have a tool called Muse - it’s like you have Teams on your computer, so you can make a video conference, and in the same manner Muse enables me to hear everything that happens in Mike’s studio, and Mike can hear in the same quality what is coming out of my studio, and we can talk, and we can share stems, or in the worst case I can record Mike’s vocals when he’s singing in Sweden and I stay here in my own town, in my studio. The distance is no longer a matter that stops us from working together as musicians in the band. And regarding Facebook and all that you have, I think it’s good that you have presence on Facebook or an account on Instagram to promote your stuff and to inform your fans about what happens. This is good for musicians, and a lot depends on the quantity of followers.

A lot of German metal bands from the 80s have recently reformed and are playing shows or even recording albums - Gravestone, Stranger, MP, and so on. But the German metal band from the 80s we are missing is Risk. (Thilo laughs) What are the chances of this band coming together again?

The chances are not big. Jürgen Düsterloh, the drummer, has died, I think it was about 10 years ago. He was also my mentor when I joined Faithful Breath, and later we founded Risk. And Heimi (Mikus) the singer is now over 70 and he has had a heart attack. To be honest, I don’t know where Romme (Keymer, guitar) and Peter (Dell, bass) are, they are not on Facebook, and nobody knows where they live. 

Your albums with Risk have been out of print on CD for ages. And once again, it seems that pretty much every worthy album of German metal bands from the 80s has been re-released at least once these days. What is the problem with “Dirty Surfaces” (1990) and “Hell’s Animals” (1989)?

I don’t know. I think there is an issue with the label who has the rights. After I left the band, we never met. I did meet Jürgen on the Grave Digger tour the last time, but I have never seen Peter, Heimi or Roman again. I called Heimi a few years ago, we had a nice phone call, but I never met him in person. 

Could you say a few words about the “Ratman” EP (1989)? Who came up with Ratman the character? 

I’ll show you something. Can you see this mouse here? This cover was very famous, because it’s, in my opinion, the greatest cover I’ve ever had. Everybody loved this drunk rat on the street. Our manager Boggi (Kopec) came to us in the studio or on the street, I don’t remember - it was around the time when “Batman” the movie came out, and “Batman” was a real hype here in Germany and in Europe. We thought, “Batman has fans, so let’s make Ratman”. (everybody laughs) This was the idea, and then we wrote the song about it. 

(Roman) I happen to have the original “Ratman” T-shirt, and I sometimes put it on when I visit oldschool metal shows here in my hometown. It brings about two kind of reactions - people either have no idea what it is, or they do, and they go, “Wow, where did you get it from!? Can you sell it to me!? Name your price!”

(laughs) I don’t have any more T-shirts from that time, because I have worn them to death. I remember a story when I played with Grave Digger in New York, there came a fan, he went hundreds of miles to see the show, and he was also a Risk fan, and this was impressive for me.

Risk used to have fantastic cover artworks painted by Sebastian Kruger. But after you left, Sebastan’s covers were gone as well. Did Sebastian come up with all these ideas on his own, or did the band contribute to the artwork as well?

To be honest, I don’t know exactly. It was our manager Boggi Kopec, who first came in contact with Sebastian. I don’t know why they changed the cover artist. It was after my time with the band. I left the band, I went back to South Germany and I don’t know.

A band name nowadays is extremely important, you see musicians going to court or becoming lifelong enemies over rights to their band name. Was it different when Faithful Breath changed its name to Risk back in 1986? Weren’t you and the other guys concerned that you might lose everything under a new name that no one would recognize?

When I joined Faithful Breath, I think I was 21. We played traditional heavy metal, but on the “Skol” tour Helloween were with us, and Helloween were touring in support of “Walls Of Jericho”. There were a lot of fans who loved this music, the faster stuff – at that time they could play faster than I could think. (everybody laughs) Then our label quit the business, and we had no record deal. At that time I decided to move from Southern Germany to Dortmund or Bochum to take care of my career, and then I was also involved in the songwriting, and I had the opportunity to give all my ideas to this band. I wrote the first album (“Daily Horror News”, 1988) together with the band, then I left the band because we had no record deal, and I was asked by Holy Moses, “Do you want to be our lead guitar player? We have a deal with WEA, and we will make an album with Alex Periales, who produced Megadeth and Anthrax”. I was young and hungry, and I joined Holy Moses, but I didn’t feel comfortable, so I left this band after the studio album (“The New Machine Of Liechtenstein”, 1989). It was a funny story – I was back home in Southern Germany, which is about 600 km away from Bochum, and I went to a club where we were always going to drink and to listen to heavy metal, and a tour bus was standing in front of it. We went into the club, and who played? – Risk, Rage and Sabbat. So we met again, and they told me, “Thilo, when we are back from the tour, let’s talk together”. We did talk, and I was back. We also got a new guitar player, Roman Keymer, as Heimi decided to stop playing guitar and changed to the lead singer role only, so Romme and I were the two guitar players. We did “Hell’s Animals”, “Ratman”, “Dirty Surfaces”... We got the record deal, and as I told you, by that time the oldschool heavy metal was done. There came bands like Kreator, Sodom, Rage, Running Wild, all the harder bands, and our manager Boggi had the booking agency and management called Drakkar Promotion, and he got all these bands under his management. We were often playing with Sodom, Kreator, Running Wild, we were playing festivals everywhere. That’s the story – the music got harder, and we also got harder, but not just to get a record deal, because it came from our hearts.  

What were your influences, the guitar players that inspired you when you were starting to play the guitar? 

I started to play guitar when I was eight. My influences were, of course, Ritchie Blackmore, and later Eddie Van Halen. I listened to everything – Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon, AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath and all that stuff. One guitar player who impressed me very much was Jake E Lee from the Ozzy Osbourne band – I loved this guy, I loved how he played, and I saw them live at Monsters of Rock in Karlsruhe in 1984. It was great, Gary Moore was also playing, Motley Crue opened, Accept was also there – of course, Accept, with “Balls To The Wall”, “Restless & Wild”… This was the music I grew up with.

Are there any younger guitarists that you find interesting these days?

Oh, there are a lot of very good guitar players around. One of the best guitar players who has a great technique and can play everything is for me Guthrie Gowan. In the earlier days there were Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, then the lead guitars of Vivian Campbell in Dio. And today… I don’t know the names of these guys. Today you see on Facebook little girls from China, eight years old, who play Yngwie Malmsteen… of course, Yngwie Malmsteen is also one of my favorite guitar players.

The list of the band that you have played with looks like “who’s who” in German metal – Risk, Running Wild, Grave Digger, Holy Moses, etc. But are you personally happy with the way your career in music has developed? 

I’m a father of three sons. My first son was born when I joined Running Wild. I know that in the music business everything is a little bit harder than normally, everything can change from today to tomorrow, and you end up with nothing, because somebody quits the band, or you get kicked out. I have a full-time job, for 30 years I have worked full-time, and everything I’ve done in music, I’ve done it in my free time - in the evening, at night, on weekends or on vacation. The reason is that I wanted to give my children a safe financial situation in their lives. This was also the reason why I quit Running Wild when my third son was on the way, I told Rolf about it, and he understood completely. I took care of my family and my job and of course, I also took care of music, I have never stopped playing music. Now my children are 24, 25 and 33, I can live like a single, and now I have time to come back to the heavy metal business.

Generation Steel on the Internet: http://www.generation-steel.de/ 

Special thanks to Markus Wosgien (Fireflash Records) for arranging this interview

Roman Patrashov, Natalia “Snakeheart” Patrashova
August 28, 2026
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