Hertzton

History

Winter had already been making music for years before HERTzTON came together. Back in 1993, he formed the band CRY and sang English pop tunes. That group put out an album called "Invisible Tears" in 1995, which featured "Longing for Fire," a track that became a hit on Belgian radio. The shift toward HERTzTON happened in 2001 when a friend stumbled upon some old recordings in a box and urged Winter to lay them down properly. He took the advice and founded HERTzTON that same year. The debut album, "Das Album," arrived in 2002, and the song "Eiszeit im Paradies" gained traction as a local club favorite. Before that album could officially drop, the original lineup fell apart due to a conflict of interests. Winter quickly brought in Jürgen Zass on bass and backing vocals and Olaf Ginko on drums to fill the gaps. The band toured extensively in 2003 and 2004 to support the record. By the end of 2004, both Zass and Ginko left for personal reasons. HERTzTON didn't release another album until 2006, when Winter worked with session musicians Jonas Bentin on keyboards and programming and Milly Snow on drums to create "Schattentänzer," which remains the band's most successful effort. That November, the third and final album so far, "Metamorphose," came out as a worldwide download. It collected remixed versions of tracks from the first two albums to highlight the band's musical evolution. The cover featured a photo montage of Winter from 2001 to 2007, tracking his physical changes. In August 2007, the EP "Die siebte Sünde" appeared, including an exclusive remix of "Schattentänzer" made for the audio play series "DiE DR3i," which Winter was writing for at the time. That series ended after just eight episodes.