The New Year

The year of 1998 was kicked off with a short headline tour, supported by Belgian cult act Double Diamond. Five gigs were played in Belgium - a country not visited by HammerFall before - and the Netherlands. Shortly thereafter, the first HammerFall concert in Göteborg in six months was scheduled. It was organised by Rock Scene, and the 400+ tickets were sold out over a week before the show. The concert was recorded live to be used on an upcoming single. Before starting to concentrate on the follow up to "Glory To The Brave", a handful of Swedish shows were made, to overwhelming response.



The pressure is on…and delt with

The last couple of months had been sporadically used for song writing, but in February the real work started. The recording was sheduled to begin on April 27th, and the expectations would be sky high for the second full-length album from these guys. Once again written by Oscar, Joacim and Jesper, "Legacy Of Kings" lived up to every one of those expectations. On a side note, due to Jesper no longer being an active part of the band, his input in this album is considerably smaller, often reduced to just a riff or a melody. But all three wanted to continue writing together, to preserve the magic that made "Glory To The Brave" what is was.

Around 40 days was spent in Studio Fredman perfecting "Legacy Of Kings". It was hard work, but it paid off in the end. The result is a much more mature album than the first, both playing wise and in the structure of the songs. A large attention to detail was paid, from the overall sound to every little part of every song. The album was produced by Fredrik Nordström and Oscar Dronjak, with assistance from Joacim Cans on some vocal parts.



Festival frenzy I

Beginning with Dynamo Open Air (Holland) in May and ending with the Rock Hard Festival (Germany) in August, HammerFall made appearances on several festivals. Apart from the already mentioned, Karlshamns Rock Festival (Sweden) and Monsters Of Rock (Italy) in June, and Mind Over Matter (Austria) and With Full Force (Germany) in July are among worth mentioning. Bands that appeared at these festivals were: Rammstein, Dee Snider's S.M.F.'s, Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Dream Theatre, Saxon, Stratovarius and countless others.



The second chart entry

On August 3rd, the first sample of what "Legacy Of Kings" would sound like was unleashed upon the world in the form of a single. The songs on the release were "Heeding The Call", a classic heavy metal track, "Eternal Dark", a Picture cover, and three of the live tracks recorded in Göteborg in January, showing the pure strength and power of a heavy metal concert. The single entered the German Singles Charts on position 48 and stayed on for three weeks, selling almost 20,000 copies in the process. Compare this with the Blind Guardian - one of the leading German bands - single "Mirror, Mirror", which entered the chart on pos. 44 but was nowhere to be found the next week, and you will begin to understand what an incredible breakthrough this was for HammerFall and Nuclear Blast!



More dreams come true

Like "Glory To The Brave", "Legacy Of Kings" was launched with a release party. This took place at Kåren, Göteborg, on September 19th, in conjunction with the Swedish Music Fair also happening that same weekend. In order to make this a very special night, some guest artists were invited. First up was AC, the former drummer of Running Wild and current Lacrimosa beat master, with whom the band performed the Rainbow anthem "Man On The Silver Mountain". For lifelong Accept fans - like the band themselves, for example - the next guest was truly unbelieveable; Mr. Udo Dirkschneider himself made an appearance, taking the mike on two Accept hymns, the fantastic "Head Over Heels" and the immortal "Balls To The Wall"! On the latter, Motörhead's Mikkey Dee on drums joined the ensemble. The party was concluded with a very special version of Judas Priest's "Breaking The Law", where all band members switched instruments with each other.



A flair for tributes

During the summer, the band was asked to participate on three different tribute albums, to three of their childhood heroes. Rock Hard and Century Media Records wanted to follow up their success with the "Judas Priest: Legends Of Metal" tribute albums from last year with one revering the great Ronnie James Dio. HammerFall recorded "Man On The Silver Mountain" from the first Rainbow album. Nuclear Blast will hit the world with two tribute albums, one for Accept and one for Helloween. "Head Over Heels" from "Balls To The Wall" and "I Want Out" from Keeper Of The Seven Keys part 2" was chosen for these releases. What better way to record a Helloween song, than in Hansen Studios? The session was booked for the beginning of October, and all three songs were recorded at the same time. To make their contribution something special, the band wanted to have a special appearance on each song. Being a major Cozy Powell fan, AC was once again asked to join the band for "Man On The Silver Mountain". Kai Hansen helped make "I Want Out" a very memorable version by singing a duet with Joacim and playing a little guitar, and "Head Over Heels" was recorded partly with Udo Dirkschneider on vocals, uniting the old and the new in heavy metal. Needless to say, this was an unforgettable experience for the five HammerFall members, and a great way of preparing for the upcoming tour.

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