 In his early career he played in many small-time bands and cover bands, before he was invited to play keyboards on tour with Gamma Ray.His career began to gather momentum when he was brought into the power metal supergroup Masterplan, shortly after the recordings for their debut album were completed.In 2005 Axel also joined Beautiful Sin, the side project of his Masterplan bandmate Uli Kusch, and he performed as a guest musician on Megadeth's 2007 album "United Abominations".