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 try out as a songwriter. I did carry on with new musicians, changing the direction to a more accessible sound. We decided to keep the ‚old‘ 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. Three Mile Smile was more rock and groove oriented and 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. 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... Klaus was the one with the knowledge and equipment thus being responsible for the recording. When he 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 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!). So no hands on music production tips ‘Produce Like a Pro’ gives 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 also 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 immediately formed a new band: Ocean Bed were born. Andy Sachs joined on bass and Ocean Bed independantly released 3 records and 1 EP. Good stuff. High Road Easy 2008 singer Jan Knopf and I met on a melodic rock festival. Jan is from my hometown Karlsruhe and we knew each other for years. We decided to set up a songwriting session and formed High Road Easy. High Road Easy debuted in 2009  with ‚Hotter Than A Thousand Suns', followed by 'drive' in 2011. The latest album is called 'III' and was released April 2015. More information is available at highroadeasy.com. 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. I joined Jan‘s classic rock cover band Juke Box Heroes as a bass player and when they disbanded joined Andys his current band Educated Guess, this time as a guitar player. We played a few gigs, had fun in the rehearsals and I ended up producing a demo tape with 4 cover tracks. Good times. Sven Horlemann Besides High Road Easy I worked on my 2nd solo album 'Standing Tall' which was released in 2013 and features three 3 songs with Klaus Schmuck. October 2015 I started working on a new solo record which became ‚Happy Turns To Blue‘ and features singer and songwriting partner Udo Maurer for the first time. As of November 2nd, 2016 it is available worldwide. In 2018 I digitally released 3 EPs via bandcamp.com. All EPs feature singer Udo on 6 of the 12 tracks. 2019 - back to High Road Easy Jan and myself have several ideas for more High Road Easy releases. Work has already begun. Let‘s wait and see what we come up with. This is it. My musical journey as of today. I really enjoyed writing it all down. 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