Nils Wittrock and John Lappin of The Hirsch Effect

January 28, 2026·28 min·2 clips

At 13, Nils Wittrock was pulled on stage by Marcy Ramone's band after saying he could play some power chords.

The episode opens with host Brian Patton welcoming Nils Wittrock and John Lappin from The Hirsch Effect ahead of the release of Der Brauch on Long Branch Records. Wittrock, born near Bremen and trained at a conservatory in Hanover where he studied classical guitar from 2004 to 2009, describes his entry into music through drums left in his family basement by his mother's boyfriend, then a transition to guitar after feeling unable to recognize songs from the drums alone. At 13, he attended a Marcy Ramone and the Intruders show and was pulled onstage to play power chords alongside the band—his first stage experience. Lappin's path began with cello at age eight at his parents' insistence, then bass at 16 when two friends with a band needed a bass player. He picked up guitar at 18 and met Wittrock at a conservatory mixing class in Hanover around 2008. Their connection formed over a shared knowledge of a Dredge record—Catch Without Arms—when no one else in the class recognized it. The band's name came from their former drummer, who found the phrase somewhere while reading, forgot what it actually meant medically, but liked how it sounded. The English article 'The' was added as a joke about how all the great bands—Metallica, Slayer—start with 'The.' The discussion of singing in German is substantive: Wittrock says it was the only authentic option for him personally, but acknowledges it has functioned as both a unique selling point and a limitation. Germany's progressive metal scene is small, meaning the band is already in a niche, and singing in a non-English language makes international booking harder. Bookers in other countries have shown interest in the music but pulled back when they realized the lyrics were in German. Lappin notes that countless German metal bands sing in English—Powerwolf, Halloween, Blind Guardian, Kreator—and that Rammstein's international success came from reducing German to a handful of powerful hook words rather than full lyrical content. On Der Brauch: Wittrock describes wanting to leave behind the djenty tech-metal path the band followed after touring with Dillinger Escape Plan in 2013 and playing festivals like Euroblast and UK Tech Fest. He wrote the album largely alone after asking his bandmates whether they were in a place to contribute, and they agreed. Lappin notes that at a certain point during demo stages, interference from other directions would have disrupted Wittrock's vision rather than added to it. Early responses to singles suggest the audience is primarily existing fans who welcome the more melodic, earlier-sounding direction rather than new listeners. The album title Der Brauch means tradition in German and reflects Wittrock's questioning of the band's self-created tradition—touring cycle, album cycle, repeat—and whether that tradition serves the music or just habit. On touring: the band now does one compact tour per year of around 16 German shows rather than two, having found that scarcity produces better-attended rooms. Wittrock says he accepted after the pandemic that 200 or 300 people per show is likely where they will stay, and he describes that acceptance as a kind of freedom. He frames it as something many musicians would be grateful for, and says he is working to embrace it.

As heard by us

A patient, grounded look at a band widening its sound without losing its center.

The episode takes its time with The Hirsch Effect, tracing how Niels Wittrock and John Lappin started playing together, what comes with being a German-language band, and how Der Brauch opens up the sound a bit.

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You want heavy-music talk that stays honest about language, success, and growth.

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