A rock drummer, a metal bassist, a tavern musician and a singer-songwriter meet …

What comes out of that is not a joke, but a band that’s hard to fit into any of the usual musical boxes. Thomas Bauer (vocals/guitar), Florian Buchner (drums), Markus Helminger (piano/accordion) and Tobias Huber (bass) bring their individual quirks together into a sound somewhere between an earworm and a slap in the face.

The lyrics — sometimes in Bavarian, sometimes in standard German — are funny without losing sight of life’s serious side, and critical without pointing the finger too hard. Musically, anything goes that the four feel like playing.

In short: four musicians, few inhibitions and definitely not anywhere near the musical mainstream. For anyone who likes to laugh, think and move at the same time — ideally all at once.

“Not Deutschpunk, but punk with German lyrics” probably describes Five To Twelve’s sound best. What that means is that they’ve been influenced more by bands like Pennywise, NOFX, Bad Religion, Sick of it All, or even Green Day (naturally from the 90s) than by any Deutschpunk bands, and you can definitely hear that in the four guys’ sound. Fast, hard guitar riffs, driving drums, melodic basslines, and two-part vocals meet socially critical lyrics, which, with a few exceptions, are all sung in German. The songs deal with topics such as the environment and animal welfare, racism and homophobia, love and religion.

But the four also tackle plenty of topics that are rather untypical for punk, such as the fact that people with disabilities can’t get supplementary insurance, or the negative effects of regular alcohol consumption.

“Not Deutschpunk, but punk with German lyrics” probably describes Five To Twelve’s sound best. What that means is that they’ve been influenced more by bands like Pennywise, NOFX, Bad Religion, Sick of it All, or even Green Day (naturally from the 90s) than by any Deutschpunk bands, and you can definitely hear that in the four guys’ sound. Fast, hard guitar riffs, driving drums, melodic basslines, and two-part vocals meet socially critical lyrics, which, with a few exceptions, are all sung in German. The songs deal with topics such as the environment and animal welfare, racism and homophobia, love and religion.

But the four also tackle plenty of topics that are rather untypical for punk, such as the fact that people with disabilities can’t get supplementary insurance, or the negative effects of regular alcohol consumption.

Panik-Kapelle has existed in this lineup for about 3 years and is a collective of aging musicians from a wide range of band projects. What they share is a strong affinity for German-language or dialect lyrics, woven into a broad range of musical styles.

In their “home base” at the Kulturverein Röda in Steyr, the foundation for making music together was laid, and within a short time this led to a creative collaboration on their own compositions.

Their climate-activist disco hit “Cyanacrylat” made it into the top 25 of the Protestsongcontest 2024.