Formula Indie Sessions – Interview with Stärnehagel Coverband
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
My earliest musical memory is my mother singing lullabies and the large tube radio with a built-in record player in our living room. As a little child, I seriously believed that there were dwarfs hidden inside that radio cabinet who were able to make music.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
One of the things that started it was the fact that some of my fellow students invited me to join their band, Triibsand. Over the course of 20 years, we played around 180 concerts and produced three recordings. I was mainly responsible for organizing the recording sessions. This also led me to invest in expensive recording equipment of my own and to start composing and recording my own songs.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
Over the past 30 years, I have composed an increasing number of my own instrumental pieces and songs. I then put together a band, played several concerts with them, and recorded a CD 20 years ago entitled *Guten Morgen Schweiz* (“Good Morning Switzerland”).
So far, I have written around 260 songs. Under the band name *Stärnehagel*, however, only about 35 of them had been professionally recorded and released in good, high-quality form by 2025.
Then, in December 2025, SUNO introduced a new option that allowed users to upload their own song recordings together with the lyrics and have SUNO re-instrument them while staying very close to the original.
This opened up the possibility of releasing many more of my songs in an appealing and professional-sounding form, instead of allowing my rather modest-quality but correctly performed rehearsal recordings to disappear into obscurity.
In other words, I can now have my own songs covered by “professional bands” in a wide variety of musical styles. That is why my mx3 channel on Swiss radio is now called **“Stärnehagel Coverband.”**
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
Very diverse, because I choose the musical style according to the lyrics and the subject matter of each song.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
I have learned that it is difficult to find fellow musicians when you work in as many different musical styles as I do.
At the moment, I still lead a small acoustic band consisting of another guitarist, my wife and me, with my wife singing alongside me.
However, I produce the recordings for *Stärnehagel Coverband* on my own. That requires a great deal of patience and discipline in order to achieve satisfying results. Usually, SUNO has to generate between 10 and 20 versions. I then continuously refine the prompts and make other adjustments until I am happy with the result.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
When it comes to covering my own songs, I either start with older recordings of my songs or, for new songs, with a guitar or piano, a notepad for writing the lyrics, and a recorder with which I can record my new composition before feeding it into SUNO.
When working with SUNO, it is always important to me to specify that the program must not alter my song structure, melody, chords or the phrasing of the lyrics.
The vocal performance generated by SUNO also depends heavily on how well the original recording has been sung. If the original vocal is not performed convincingly, the generated singing and lyrics can quickly sound unnatural.
In this context, I also think it is important to emphasize that we should make much greater distinctions when talking about AI-generated music than we currently do. Many people tend to condemn everything created with the help of AI as a whole.
There is a big difference between letting AI generate everything from scratch and using SUNO simply as a professional-sounding backing band to reproduce existing original compositions — or one’s own recordings — as faithfully as possible and turn them into an acoustically appealing production.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
My niece, Denia Weber, who took part in *The Voice of Germany* last year. This year, I recorded an original musical song with her. It is now available to listen to on Spotify and other platforms, and there is also a video of it.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
I worked as a social worker for many years and later as a teacher and pastoral counselor. I have seen a great deal that many other people never get to see, and many of my lyrics deal with these experiences.
As a teacher and a grandfather of eight grandchildren, I also enjoy writing children’s songs. Together with my wife, I created a CD of original songs for my grandchildren.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
A great many different ones.
On the one hand, I hope that my melodies touch people’s hearts and that my lyrics encourage them to think. Other songs are simply meant to entertain people or make them laugh.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
That music is a mysterious gift from heaven.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
That isn’t really possible with my cover songs, because the various bands that perform my music are not real bands — and if they were, I could never afford to hire them.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
Xavier Naidoo — because, like me, he has a spiritual dimension to his work, and I consider him an honest and courageous person.
My song *Der letzte Indianer* (“The Last Indian” / https://mx3.ch/t/22cG ) was specifically written to suit his voice in its soul version. It would be wonderful if he could sing it.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
My songs and playlists/music albums can be found on the Swiss platform mx3 under “Stärnehagel Coverband.”
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
To compose and release many more new songs and instrumental pieces.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
I make Songs in english, german, swiss-german and italian language.
If you want here you can add a representative Youtube video to insert below the interview 🙂
Link
The video for the musical song *Silence*, written by me, featuring vocals and video by my niece Denia Weber:
Or on Spotify:
