Grave Digger appeared on the A Tribute To Accept album with the cover song of "Starlight".

After three albums, in 1986 Grave Digger decided to change their name into Digger and commercialize their sound. Boltendahl later admitted that their main motivation for this change was to make more money; this failed and the band split up in 1987. Later after Digger's commercial flop band Hawaii was founded by Boltendahl and Uwe Lulis. Hawaii released a demo called Bottles And Four Coconuts in 1989 before renaming themselves in 1991 to Grave Digger again.

Ballads Of A Hangman is the first and, to date, the only Grave Digger album with two guitars, with Thilo Hermann joining the band in 2007. After releasing the album and ending an European tour, the band parted ways with Hermann in February 2009 after deciding they were not comfortable with the new six-piece arrangement.

This band was formed because someone who was friends with all of the original band members wrote in his testament that they should play a song together at his funeral. After they did so they stayed together as a band and called themselves Grave Digger because of the way they got to know each other.