With their new album “Life’s What You Make It”, German rockers Winterland from Kaiserslautern return back to their roots. While guitarist Markus Pfeffer also plays with Lazarus Dream and Mystery Moon and works with singers such as Danny Vaughn (Tyketto), Tony Harnell (TNT), Doogie White (Rainbow), Zak Stevens (Savatage), Dan Reed and Rob Rock as part of his Barnabas Sky project, celebrating international success in the process, Stephan Hugo is a singer, actor, musical director and singer-songwriter. He is also known as a singer and actor on the musical stage of the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, for example in the plays “Christ 0” (Vanden Plas) and “Sweeney Todd”. Hugo is also the frontman of the tribute band Ziggy’s Stardust and part of the live cast of the metal opera Dispyria.

Stephan Hugo’s lyrics touch on many different topics, such as the courage to stand up for oneself in the title track and in ‘PerSonality’, the frightening power of influencers (‘Follow Me’), the powerlessness of the individual in the face of the overall economic development and the increasingly noticeable destabilisation and division of society (‘I Don’t Know’) and the courage to individually contribute to changes (‘Reach For The Sky’), while Pfeffer gives the songs a noticeably unique touch with edgy guitar-riffs, filigree solos and spherical synth sounds. Bassist Bernd Schreiber not only provides the groovy foundation, but also surprises with fretless bass and funky parts such as on ‘I Don’t Know’.

The regular album closes with a self-interpretation of the eighties classic ‘Through The Barricades’ (originally by SPANDAU BALLET), sparsely orchestrated by two musical guests, namely French keyboardist Jorris Guilbaud (HEART LINE) on the grand piano and singer Sabrina Roth, a close friend of the band, on the flute.

Friendship is a good keyword here, because the listener is not expecting an album from another randomly thrown together “project”, but rather an album that was composed collaboratively over a course of 5 years by Hugo and Pfeffer, who have been very close friends for over 3 decades, which you can hear (and feel!) in every note of the songs.

 The CD version of the album additionally contains four reinterpretations of eighties songs, namely “Union Of The Snake” (DURAN DURAN), “Warriors Of The Wasteland” (FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD), “Everything Counts” (DEPECHE MODE) and “Sunglasses At Night” (COREY HART).

Tracks:
1 I Want Out 04:16
2 I Don’t Know 06:34 3 Reach For The Sky 04:11
4 Life’s What You Make It 04:58
5 Follow Me 04:18
6 Strength In Numbers 04:19
7 PerSonality 04:22
8 After The Storm 04:13
9 Missing 04:37
10 Run Away 07:29
11 Through The Barricade 04:51
12* Everything Counts 04:17
13* Sunglasses At Night 04:23
14* Union Of The Snake 04:02
15* Warriors Of The Wasteland 03:38

* Cd version only.

Winterland:
STEPHAN HUGO – Vocals, Backing Vocals
MARKUS PFEFFER – Guitars, Keys, Bass (1, 10, 13)
BERND SCHREIBER – Bass (All songs except 1,10, 13)

GUESTS:
Sabrina Roth – Flute (11), Backing Vocals (14)
Jorris Guilbaud – Piano (11)
Thomas Nitschke – Additional Keys (12)
Thomas Rieder – Drums, Percussions (All songs)
Heidi Gödtel – News presenter 1 (Song 2)
Christopher Pennington – News presenter 2 (Song 2)

Available in digital formats and on CD upon release! 

A video for I Don’t Know features below. 

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