the story of MAT SINNER

in 1990 you came back with "Back to the bullet" - why a solo album??
That was a decision by the record company (BMG) - the band Sinner had a lot of line-up changes in the eighties, which was a problem for them. so they offered me a solo deal. i thought it was o.k. to try it out. i leared a lot of business things during this time - good & bad experiences to be on a major label. .

What did Back to the Bullet mean for you??
I had a great time working with Will Reid, Dick and Albert Boekholt, who co-produced the album with me. the band was in great spirits and 100% motivated. we shoot two videos, made a great tour and the "solo-band" became a real band. i had a great experience just to concentrate as the lead singer. I won't miss this time.

After Back to the Bullet, Sinner came back with a new album and a line-up that pretty much stayed the same all the 90's.How were those times??
The difference was, that i played the bass again and we had a keyboarder (frank) from now on. in my view, the music in this part of career was a bit too mainstream orientated, that has nothing to do with the quality of the songs, which were great.

How did you handle the grunge era??
we concentrated on our thing. these times were tough, but we had a great team spirit in the band, only the position of the second guitarist was changing all the times. Grunge really didn't influenced us a lot. This was more a US thing, than a German.

plesae tell me about each Sinner album from "No more alibis" to "In the line of fire"

"No more alibis" was too mainstream in my view, but these was our taste in this time even there are great songs on the album like "Chasing my dreams", "Burning heart" or "Where were you". Trouble was that Alex left us in the middle of the recordings overnight, without a word to head to the USA ....... Andy Susmihl took over, but not for a long time. Then came "Respect" and spend a lot of money in this album. We recorded again with Albert Boekholt at the Wisseloord Studio in the Netherlands and we decided that we will record only with one guitarist - Tom. Now I think, that the mix of album sounds a little too defensive, not aggressive enough, but again great songs like "Respect", " Fire in the dark" or "Modern world". We toured with Mr. Big through Europe - what was a wonderful successful tour for us and Alex gets another chance as the second guitarist on this tour and Noise Records released a Best-Of album during the tour. We were not sure about Alex position and recorded half of the "Bottom line" album with Henny Wolter on guitar, but Henny was not 100% sure in joining the band, cause he had to record another "Thunderhead" album during these days. That's why Alex recorded the other half of the album and we decided, that Alex will get a second chance as a fulltime member of the band. "Bottom line" is a killer album - great energy and great songs. I really think we wrote some of the best songs of our entire career for this album like "The biggest lie", "When silence falls", "All men are heroes" etc. We were on tour with Savatage through Europe again and released a live album "In the line of fire" - like a Best-Of Live - cool album, mixed by Achim Köhler and me.

go back to the first part of The Story of Mat Sinner

	go back to memberzone index This is the third part of "The Story of Mat Sinner" Enjoy this journey thru 20 years of Rock!!
		in 1990 you came back with "Back to the bullet" - why a solo album?? That was a decision by the record company (BMG) - the band Sinner had a lot of line-up changes in the eighties, which was a problem for them. so they offered me a solo deal. i thought it was o.k. to try it out. i leared a lot of business things during this time - good & bad experiences to be on a major label. . What did Back to the Bullet mean for you?? I had a great time working with Will Reid, Dick and Albert Boekholt, who co-produced the album with me. the band was in great spirits and 100% motivated. we shoot two videos, made a great tour and the "solo-band" became a real band. i had a great experience just to concentrate as the lead singer. I won't miss this time. After Back to the Bullet, Sinner came back with a new album and a line-up that pretty much stayed the same all the 90's.How were those times?? The difference was, that i played the bass again and we had a keyboarder (frank) from now on. in my view, the music in this part of career was a bit too mainstream orientated, that has nothing to do with the quality of the songs, which were great. How did you handle the grunge era?? we concentrated on our thing. these times were tough, but we had a great team spirit in the band, only the position of the second guitarist was changing all the times. Grunge really didn't influenced us a lot. This was more a US thing, than a German. plesae tell me about each Sinner album from "No more alibis" to "In the line of fire" "No more alibis" was too mainstream in my view, but these was our taste in this time even there are great songs on the album like "Chasing my dreams", "Burning heart" or "Where were you". Trouble was that Alex left us in the middle of the recordings overnight, without a word to head to the USA ....... Andy Susmihl took over, but not for a long time. Then came "Respect" and spend a lot of money in this album. We recorded again with Albert Boekholt at the Wisseloord Studio in the Netherlands and we decided that we will record only with one guitarist - Tom. Now I think, that the mix of album sounds a little too defensive, not aggressive enough, but again great songs like "Respect", " Fire in the dark" or "Modern world". We toured with Mr. Big through Europe - what was a wonderful successful tour for us and Alex gets another chance as the second guitarist on this tour and Noise Records released a Best-Of album during the tour. We were not sure about Alex position and recorded half of the "Bottom line" album with Henny Wolter on guitar, but Henny was not 100% sure in joining the band, cause he had to record another "Thunderhead" album during these days. That's why Alex recorded the other half of the album and we decided, that Alex will get a second chance as a fulltime member of the band. "Bottom line" is a killer album - great energy and great songs. I really think we wrote some of the best songs of our entire career for this album like "The biggest lie", "When silence falls", "All men are heroes" etc. We were on tour with Savatage through Europe again and released a live album "In the line of fire" - like a Best-Of Live - cool album, mixed by Achim Köhler and me. go back to the first part of The Story of Mat Sinner
look out for the fourth part of"the story of Mat Sinner" in june