Punk sensation The Losers in SO36: Fingers for Berlin

They call themselves The Losers, but career-wise things are going very differently for the Berlin punk band. It was only founded four years ago, two years ago the first album was released as a cassette on a small Berlin label and now the musicians are selling out the SO36 in Kreuzberg two days in a row. In June they will even play in the Max Schmeling Hall.

The band, which comes from the Berlin underground and does its thing far away from the big music industry, is suddenly the new sensation from Berlin and hardly anyone outside the scene saw it coming. There hasn’t been a lot of hype about the combo so far, but it’s very likely to come.

At the first of their two concerts at SO36 it quickly becomes clear that Die Loserer will come away from this performance as winners. They release their hit “Notausgang” from their second album of the same name, released last summer, early on. And immediately the band captivates you with their whining punk rock and lyrics that are about alienation in this city, in this country, in this world. Of the hatred that surrounds you in a Germany that no longer understands itself and for which you can only wish that you could find this emergency exit. In this song, greetings implicitly go out to the AfD, which has contributed significantly to these sometimes depressing conditions.

One band, four singers

In view of the rampant shift to the right worldwide and the return of Donald Trump, who sees himself as the ultimate winner and despiser of all losers, the band is in fundamental opposition to the current zeitgeist, which is currently swinging towards the interests of chainsaw presidents and crazy multi-billionaires. The tried and tested resilience of good old punk rock is invoked.

This was once directed against Thatcherism and Ronald Reagan and when The Losers fire off their guitar salvos, the bass rumbles and then “Fuck this city” is sung and the finger is shown to Berlin, the band credibly conveys the feeling that punk rock is still going on in 2025 can provide correct answers to misguided social conditions. Even in the techno city of Berlin. Who would have thought?

Despite the fact that Die Verlierer was originally little more than a project between two friendly bands, the quintet appears quite compact and well-rehearsed during their performance. That probably comes from playing a lot of live games. The musicians have already toured Great Britain and most recently they were in South America, which is rather unusual for a young punk band from Germany. Even at this concert in SO36 you can barely understand the lyrics, but you still understand that they are about big feelings like pain and hate.

The Losers came about when the two Berlin bands Chuckamuck and Maske wanted to record a split single. And now, in what is perhaps a world record for a punk band, there are four singers who split the songs between themselves or sing the choruses together as if they were the Beach Boys. Does your music mainly remind you of the false colors, of clay, of stone shards or of The Gun Club? Is this German or post-punk? Are you more likely to hear The Nerves or Wanda? The guitar sound of the seventies, eighties or just timeless chords?

You can deal with questions like these at the band’s concert or just do it like those who first go to the front of the stage and then eventually join the audience back at the back, sweaty and exhausted. The energy of the loser has just finished them off, they are exhausted, but they take home the certain feeling that the fight against the circumstances is not over yet.