Interviews About Albums: Stonebourne - Play This Record Backwards (2025)

In this new interview, we sat down with the German Rock/Grunge band, Stonebourne, to ask questions about their album "Play This Record Backwards". 

1. What can you say about this new CD/LP?

PETER: Great Songwriting, great lyrics, great guitars, marvellous bass, great drums, great sound, great, great, great…

SVEN: Every musician always says so: It's the best record we've ever done. And it's true. Compared to our previous records, these songs have a darker, heavier, more melancholic feel, but they still have these great melodies, too.

HEINZ: It’s heavier, but perhaps also more honest and more in tune with the current mood.

DIERK: I always say the best is yet to come, but PTRB is definitely another milestone in the band's catalogue.

2. What is the meaning of the EP/CD name?

HEINZ: I'm not telling ;-)

SVEN: Well, you need to just do it and find out.

PETER: Buy you a fucking Record Player

DIERK: Say no more.

3. Which one is the composer of the CD/EP?

PETER: I only do what I‘m told :-)

HEINZ: Sven usually composes the songs and tries to convey their meaning to us. Accordingly, I try to adapt my drum sound without neglecting my personal artistic component, of course :-)

SVEN: First, I write the lyrics and do song demos to define the structure and give my band mates a clue what the songs mean to me and how they sound in my head, and then we work on the arrangements together in the studio, and sometimes it stays the same, and sometimes it changes.

DIERK: Agreed

4. If you had to pick one song, which one would you pick?

DIERK: Needless Things. Everyone has gone through this, I guess.

PETER: Children of Men

HEINZ: The Hate you give! Because it should be clear to everyone that skin colour or origin should not matter, but that we must perceive people as a whole. We have "the same mother"; they are not different. The difference is that some put themselves above others.

SVEN: For me, it's the opening track "Peaceful Soldier" - I had the idea in my mind for so long and struggled a lot to get it into shape for the final version of that song, and now feel it's all good.

5. Is there a special message in this EP/CD? If there is what it is?

SVEN: Well, read the album title - says it all!

DIERK: ?noitseuq eht dnatsrednu t'nod I

HEINZ: Buy the album and decide for yourself. To show your inner wounds and still be loved, or perhaps because of them? Do you even understand me? Can you love me?

PETER: Don‘t drink and drive

6. Are there some lyrics that you'd love to share?

SVEN: I'm really working hard on all of my lyrics for every song, you may better ask my band mates, because I think they don't know at all what I'm singing about! But here's a short line, I really like to hum: "No one knows me, but heaven calls my name"

HEINZ: What it takes to love

PETER: We are all trying to survive this life

DIERK: Go back to question 4.

7. Which inspirations have been important for this album? Like musically or friends, family, someone you'd love to thank especially?

SVEN: I think it's been the unbelievable things that happened during the times of Corona and after that that influenced me the most in writing this album. It's really dark in a way and carries inside a lot of ambiguous phrases like "hope is for believers".

HEINZ: Musically speaking, in the case of the drummer: Matt Cameron, Taylor Hawkins, and Mike Bordin, who have really influenced me in some way.

PETER: Sven is my one and only inspiration.

DIERK: However 

8. Something to add?

HEINZ: Sure: Go to concerts, celebrate and support the bands that still make "handmade" music! They really need it!

SVEN: All you guys out there, thanks for still listening to real music. It makes a difference!

PETER: Give us your Love!

DIERK: Amen!