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If you're looking for a country currently killing it in the hardcore realm, look no further than Deutschland. "Some oldheads might disagree, but in my opinion, there has never been a better time for German hardcore than now," Sebastian, guitarist of Slon, tells me. Also the co-owner of the great STTW Records, the guy clearly knows what he's talking about.
But before we get to the current state of hardcore in Germany, let's talk Slon. "The band has been around for a while now—we formed in 2017," says the guitarist and label owner. "Back then, the German hardcore landscape was very different from what it is now. There was an overwhelming number of bands that sounded like copies of copies of something that was supposed to sound like Trapped Under Ice or the Ill Blood LP. Since we were all bored with that, we wanted to take things in a more ’80s hardcore punk direction.
"The main idea was to mix Boston Hardcore with the harder side of Deutschpunk while keeping it moshable. A major influence for that was the Mannheim Straight Edge scene, especially the band Night Force, as well as the NWOBHC, which mixed Boston and NYHC with UK82 and created something pretty unique. Other influences included US bands like 86 Mentality, Exit Order, Q, or Glue. On the LP, the Deutschpunk influences became even stronger. You can hear a lot of Vorkriegsjugend, OHL, Toxoplasma, Schleim-Keim, and early Slime on it."
The LP Sebastian is referring to is Doppelganger, Slon's debut full-length, which just dropped last week. "The mask, as a kind of symbol, is a recurring theme in almost every song and also in the artwork," Sebastian says of Doppelganger's stark cover imagery.
"The lyrics attempt to explore what it feels like to illuminate the darkest corners of your own existence—and to put on a mask to cover what you might find. Our singer Simon keeps things intentionally vague because he believes everyone who wants to engage with the lyrics should come up with their own interpretation."
With releases by such No Echo favorites as Chemical Threat, I Recover, and Compete, STTW Records is a label to keep attention to these days. "The label was actually founded by two members of Slon. We did the first tape run of our demo ourselves, and it sold out at the first show. After that, we asked one of the few German labels we liked at the time if they wanted to do a second run with us. They couldn’t, so we just did it ourselves.
"I had been booking shows under the name STTW before and simply transformed that into the label. Initially, we didn’t plan on working with other bands, but then we started putting out releases for friends here and there. After the lockdown, there was an explosion of new bands in our area and across Germany, and the label grew alongside it."
That takes us back to start of this story where I talked about the great shape the German hardcore scene seems to be in right now. "It's more about building something ourselves rather than waiting for crumbs from bigger US bands or established labels," Sebastian opines. "Germany and other European countries have long had a stigma of being cringeworthy, just poorly ripping off outdated styles from overseas. That was—and sometimes still is—true. Because of that, Germany was often a good place for US bands to tour and make money, but not really to connect with the local scenes.
"The best a German band could hope for was an opening spot on one of those bigger tours. But I think that has changed now. This shift had already happened in places like the UK, Sweden, and Finland, and now scenes in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere are catching up. The whole 'Rhineline Hardcore' thing is more of a regional tag. It roughly refers to the area between Düsseldorf/Cologne, Frankfurt, and Mannheim—a region where many of these new bands are based, with members living across those cities."
Sebastian is obviously bullish about the hardcore community in his country, and his excitement is infectious. "Shows here are a lot of fun, and attendance is still at an all-time high. Shows are wild, with plenty of young kids coming out. With the Oetinger Villa in Darmstadt, we probably have the best—and definitely the most beautiful—venue in Germany. If you’re a band from outside of Germany, I highly recommend playing a show in this area.
"Check out Echo Chamber, Suspect, Preemptive Strike, Chemical Threat, Phiz, Placid, Edwin Rosen, Blockage, Compete, Thrufall, Blinded, and all the other bands on STTW, Collective Memory, DBNO, Side2Side, SFR, and Influences Records."
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Doppelganger is out now across all digital music outlets, and the vinyl will begin shipping in March via STTW Records (pre-order).
Tagged: slon
