Hand on heart: what associations do the keywords "rock'n'roll" and "rock musician" usually evoke? For most of us, the first image that comes to mind is that of a slightly battered man in his fifties, covered in tattoos, livingsomewhere in the middle of Los Angeles, for whom the music business is all about girls and booze while his management takes care of everything else. A notion that is fundamentally flawed: real rock'n'roll is not a cliché created in the 80s, but a timeless and above all genuine attitude of life. And five musicians who are only half the age of the clichéd image and live a little more than 9,500 miles from Los Angeles prove just that. Kissin' Dynamite from southern Germany have been on the music scene for eleven years and are releasing a new studio album this summer titled "Ecstasy". It's a pure homage to the attitude of life called rock'n'roll. Pure, unadulterated and straightforward, "Ecstasy" gets to the heart of the feeling you get when you spend a few months touring Europe, Japan and Ukraine as the five Svābs, when you spend nights in airports and backstage at clubs for lack of alternatives, and when you're confronted with the real life of a rock musician far from the glitzy Los Angeles movie theaters of your dreams. "You don't have to reinvent the wheel and you don't necessarily have to cram all sorts of messages into the songs," says drummer Andreas Schnitzer, who is primarily responsible for the lyrics. "Good-sounding hooks that stick in your ears and songs that are fun and have heart and soul - that's our thing, that's why we started the band." Hannes Braun, who composes the band's music, adds. It may seem paradoxical that the five musicians are going "back to their roots" on their new album, but in the case of Kissin' Dynamite, that's exactly the case. They've seen and experienced more than many a 50-something in a career that began with a major contract and a European tour with U.D.O. and has taken them halfway around the world time and time again. Their passion for music has never waned despite a few setbacks; on the contrary, it has continued to grow through countless quirky, funny, crazy and incredible stories. In short: the stories that characterize the new album "Ecstasy" in its original form and that have just been recorded in a book written by Andreas Schnitzer. The album, which musically returns to the band's somewhat unrelieved, energetic beginnings, also presents a new caesura. Produced by singer Hannes Braun, the album is a return to the big recording studio and is released on Sony Columbia/Metalblade. Kissin' Dynamite are a complete exception in the German musical landscape, and a bit of that much-vaunted fresh breeze that we often miss so much.