My first ever recording was done on a 2-track cassette tape recorder, just guitars and a singer. The ‘band’ was called Fireraiser, the year was 1985. I still have the  recording... Making music got more serious when I teamed up with Wolfgang Roch,  a seasoned guitar player who took me under his wings. We formed Rockforce and did a 3 song demo on a  4 track. Moving on we re-named the band to Target Eagle, found additional players and did another demo tape.  Target Eagle is the first time I met Andy Sachs, a guitarist turned bass player who accompanies my musical journey until today. Making it 30 years! 1987 also marks the first ever international release under the Sven Horlemann moniker. Produced by Wolfgang, we recorded 4 instrumental tracks in the local music shop ROCKSHOP in Karlsruhe (after hours of course). Pretty heavy and fast stuff... at least at the time. It was so cool to get fan mail from all over Europe! And with mail I mean postal letters. In an effort to get a major deal I was writing and auditioning material with Peter Winter for Ariola München. It was very busy phase and I am still thankful to Alfred Koffler of Pink Cream 69 for connecting me with Peter. On drums groove monster Marcel Millot, on bass Peter ‘Zegge’ Zechiel. Nothing serious developed, so in 1991 Zegge and myself found drummer Georg Schantze and formed the power trio Changes. We did a demo, gigged and disbanded.

Changes played pretty progressive stuff and gave me all opportunities to reach out as a songwriter and arranger. I did carry on with new musicians, changing the direction to a more accessible sound. We decided to keep the name. Changes (MkII)  led to my first time in a real recording studio making the  ‘Aliteration’ demo in ‘93. Until today I really like what we did then. Great songs, great musicians and with Michael Waidelich we had a superb singer. Years passed and Changes folded. I did play some guitar on the Zoolum project from Michael. Ex-Changes bass player Norbert Dreikluft invited me to play with drummer Andreas Engels. One of the best sessions I ever did. And  one of the best drummers I ever played with. Groove baby! Everyone was enthusiastic and in 1995 Spread was born. The female singer left, Eberhard Ruck joined on vocals / gutiar and the band renamed themselves Three Mile Smile. With „Ebo Rock“ we put more rock into our grooves. Looking back I can say: What a joy to play with them. I just wish we‘d gig more often.

In 1997 I joined Klaus Schmuck aka Jerry Can -  a pop rock band that had it already made on nationwide TV in Germany in 1998. Klaus was known as singer and bass player of Starstruck one of the few bands from the Karlsruhe area with a recording deal. Klaus had worked all over Germany as session musician earning him credentials and experiences through multiple TV features from 1989 onwards. Guess who played bass on the first album - yep, Andy Sachs who also introduced me to Klaus. Musically Jerry Can was the most ‘pop’ sounding music I ever made. We played some classy gigs, stripped down the band to an acoustic guitar duo. Recording was done on Klaus’  8 track tape machine also using an ATARI computer. Those were the days... When Klaus decided to take a break from music it was he who encouraged me to start recording and producing. With the 90's nearly done, the musical landscape completely changed (at least for hard rock), I felt it the right time to start all over. I started with Cubase VST 5, switched to Steinberg's NUENDO and went back to Cubase in 2011. Today I use Cubase 9.5 PRO and love it.

In the 2000's I wrote, recorded and mixed several CD's, largely unreleased. It was me trying to understand not so much the engineering, but the mixing of records. There was no YouTube  (imagine this!). No hands on music production tips ‘Produce Like a Pro’ or ‚Pensados Place‘ give you.  Again it was the recording team of the ROCKSHOP Karlsruhe that supported beyond duty, especially Tom Lichtenwalter and Frank Herzog. I did 5 Shore records. That was me with an attempt to sing, the style rock with light progressive ideas underneath.  As Sven Horlemann I also made one (unreleased) solo album - The Nature Of Things. It was my first production of instrumental songs since the ‘87 demo tape. During these years I recorded & mixed 2  Jerry Can records. In 2006 I started recording some heavy rock songs and asked Klaus to sing on them. We loved the results and formed a new band: Ocean Bed were born. Andy Sachs joined on bass and Ocean Bed independantly released 3 records and 1 EP.

High Road Easy 2008 singer Jan Knopf and I met on a melodic rock festival. We decided to set up a songwriting session and immediately formed the melodic rock band High Road Easy. We released our debut ‚Hotter Than A Thousand Suns' in 2009. In 2011, the second album called 'drive' was released. The third record is called 'III' and was released April 2015. End of 2018 we started working on a follow up. More information about High Road Easy is available at highroadeasy.com. Going solo (again) 2009 also marks the release of my first ‚proper‘ solo album. ‘in.com.plete’ is an all instrumental rock album, very much inspired by classical music, themes and motifs. Something I wanted to do for a long time. Cover bands & playing live I joined Andy‘s current cover band Educated Guess. We played a few gigs, had fun in the rehearsals and I ended up producing a demo tape with 4 tracks, again all cover tunes. Following this I helped out as a bass player in Jan‘s classic rock cover band Juke Box Heroes. This engagement lasted 3 years until the band had run its course. Studio work & more releases by High Road Easy and Sven Horlemann While finishing up the latest High Road Easy CD I worked on my 2nd solo album 'Standing Tall' which was released in 2013. Three of the songs features vocals by Klaus Schmuck. Beginning of 2015 I was looking for a new songwriting partner for Sven Horlemann as I prefer records that are not completely instrumental. Luckily I found singer / guitar player Udo Maurer. In October 2015 I started working on another solo record which became ‚Happy Turns To Blue‘, released 2017. Following the ubiquitous trend to digital releases, 2018 I released a trilogy of EP‘s exclusively on bandcamp.com. Each EP consisting of 2 instrumental and 2 songs with Udo singing. They are called ‚Wonderful Things‘ (EP I), Come In‘ (EP II) and ‚Tiny Packages‘ (EP III). Each EP is accompanied by promotional videos. Interestingly, this also means 2018 is the first year I did not release a retail CD. I decided to bundle all EP‘s plus 2 bonus tracks for a retail CD and released it May 2019. If anything, the best album I‘ve ever made. Thanks to my songwriting partner Udo, the best arrangements, songs, and thanks to 15 years of mixing, the best sounding record IMHO. In all things High Road Easy Jan and myself started working on some leftovers last year, and doing a proper production on them. That turned out so good that we decided to write even more songs. 14 tracks are ready to rock and mixing & mastering just was finished. The new High Road Easy CD will be available worldwide April 2020.  This is it - my musical journey as of today. I really enjoyed revisiting the past and I hope you enjoyed reading it. I want to thank my good friend Andy Sachs for helping me getting all the details right. Cheers, Sven last updated March 6th, 2020