Sascha was born the 2nd of April, 1977 in Stuttgart, Germany and was brought up in the Bavarian town Fuerth.

At the age of 6 he had his first adventures on his birthday given Bontempi-Organ and 7 years later, at the age of 13 he felt very inspired by his uncle Wolfgang Meinert and started playing electric guitar.

He was so fascinated by music, especially where everyone had long hair and played fat riffs. His uncle immediately supported him with vinyls and cd’s from Dokken, Pretty Maids, Michael Schenker, Pink Cream 69, Stryper, Victory, Queensryche and many more.
 
Sascha took music very serious and started to study and learn the songs he liked at 14.  His biggest idol was George Lynch, Dokken and Lynch Mob.

When he turned 15, he met Sven Amon, with whom he quickly became good friends and started several projects. Svens uncle Friedl Amon (Keyboarder of Revolver) recognized Sascha’s talent and invited him to play guitar on some of his recordings. When he was 18, for personal reasons Sascha placed his guitar for a while on the wall and dedicated exclusively his time into singing. He’d met a bunch of guys, who loved Dream Theater and became the singer of Dreamgate, a progressive metal band. But 1 ˝ year later they split and his guitar found a warm place in his heart once again.

He then founded with his uncle the Top 40 cover band Heat, but soon switched to the cover band Shine, who had more gigs and a much more creative attitude. 

A highlite at his age, because now he played among with local known musicians on a very professional level.
Sometime later he played in front of 2000 people when he was 20 and one day during a Shine show, he spotted out Christian Bay of Moon Doc and Daniel Zimmermann of Gamma Ray.

He asked himself what this could mean and his question should very soon be answered! Christian had met Sascha on a party years before and they already had found sympathy for one another. So he received a call by Christian in 1999 and was offered to join Chris’ and Dan’s new band Feedom Call.
 
With Ilker Ersin of Moon Doc and the unknown young Sascha, the line up seemed to be complete.They recorded their first album under the supervison of Charlie Bauerfeind and the following summer, Sascha had (for his first time) the opportunity to tour and perform as the support act to Edguy and Angra.
 
Bang! The first shot’s been fallen, but soon Sascha had to find out, that things worked differently from what he’d expected. He thought: “Cool, 4 guys playing in a band making music and writing songs together, means sharing its success!”Chris and Dan wrote the songs and had a concrete imagination of how to run things. For ideas Sascha barely found someone’s attention and strictly had to play during the recordings what he was told! He couldn’t accept this attitude and soon the situation lead to dissatisfaction and confrontations. In 2001, Sascha left Freedom Call after the completion of their 2nd album Crystal Empire and following tour, supporting Virgin Steele and Hammerfall.
 
Now he felt free from suppression and made his own little home studio and started writing own material. He played in several cover bands such as Lanzer and Neumond, and started projects combining grunge, metal and pop until one day in 2002 Charlie Bauerfeind called and told him, that Helloween was looking for a new guitar player!

As Charlie knew them very well and had worked with them, as with Sascha, he thought that he easily could fill the gap and be the best replacement to former guitarist Roland Grapow.Soon after dozens of phone calls with Michael Weikath, Helloween held a 4 week meeting in Tenerife, which led to a very refreshing, enjoyable and funny time.
 
During the first rehearsals for the new Helloween album, it was crystal clear that they all get very well along and their musicianship swims in the same waters.Finally Sascha’s dream became reality: “A bunch of buddys writing songs together, they like my ideas and everybody still has a fab time.”
 
Since August 2002, Sascha Gerstner is the new guitarist in Helloween. 
  

Discography:

1998 - M.A.D
1999 - Freedom Call / Stairway to Fairyland
1999 - Freedom Call / Taragon ( EP )
2001 - Freedom Call / Crystal Empire

www.freedom-call.net
www.neumond.de