We are at an ice skating rink, hearing skate blades and a babble of voices. Five friends on a trip. “My new micro-synth is the best present!” shouts Lukas as he glides across the surface. “I can now even make beats while brushing my teeth.”
Leonie, who is curving next to him, counters: “That’s nothing compared to the gig bag in the extra-used vintage look that I got. Very expensive. The design is by a mega-hip neo-punk fashion designer from London!”
Youth slang on the ice
Adults may not always be able to keep up with this language. But children and teenagers do. Lukas’ and Leonie’s three friends Ben, Nikolas and Aylin look at each other – and laugh. So do your speakers in the studio.
“No Murders!” is the name of the episode that these five adults record. Together they are the Punkies, one of the most successful radio play groups in this country. The fictional Hamburg band has several hundred thousand listeners per month on Spotify; They have been active since 2016 and 44 episodes have been released so far. The quintet received a boost in popularity from the “Teufelskicker”, who, like the Punkies, belong to the “Europa” radio play label, which is distributed by Sony Music. The “Teufelskicker” – with speakers like Oliver Rohrbeck (“The Three ???”) and Uli Potofski (until his death in 2025) – have already had the punkies as guests.
Successful radio play band
In their adventures, the punkies are sometimes at the Dockville Festival, sometimes on Mallorca, sometimes ghosts seem to spook them, other times they come into conflict with their favorite enemies, the frenemies from the rival band krashkiddz. Both bands dream of a music career. Aylin is the Punkies’ singer, Ben is the guitarist, Leonie is the bassist, Nikolas plays the keyboard and Lukas sits on the drums.
The ages of the Punkies musicians are not mentioned in the episodes; only that they are teenagers is given. Now there is the age of every person, and there is the “role age”: it defines the age at which one can speak – younger or older than one is. The five speakers have a very variable role age. The youngest team member is Ben spokesman Daniel Axt, he is 34. Keyboarder Nikolas drives the band van. So he has to be 18 already, otherwise he wouldn’t have a driver’s license.
Role age and reality
Together with the other punkies, Merete Brettschneider (Aylin), Jenny Maria Meyer (Leonie), Tim Kreuer (Lukas) and Patrick Bach (Nikolas), Daniel alias Ben is now sitting on the couch of a backyard studio in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg and talks to ROLLING STONE about the radio play series, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. The occasion is also celebrated internally; Heike Weber and Corinna Wodrich from the Sony label are there. In the evening the “Punkies” team goes out to eat.
All five “punkies” appear extremely agile; it’s easy to imagine her as a teenager. “In a way, as an actor you remain a child and retain this playful lightness,” says Daniel Axt, who, like his character Ben, is also a musician in his private life. His colleague Tim Kreuer adds: “Fortunately, we don’t have any routines in our profession – so we don’t lose any energy.” All five can look back on long careers as actors and voice actors.
Between child role and career
The parents of the Punkies listeners at least know Patrick Bach, who shaped perhaps the most famous ZDF Christmas series with “Silas” and “Jack Holborn” in the early 1980s, later shone in SOKO episodes and achieved his masterpiece as the voice of Samwise Gamgee in the “Lord of the Rings” films, which is reflected in legendary sentences like “I can’t carry the ring for you – but I can carry you!” culminated.
Luckily, the punkies don’t rely on the buzzwords from their youth – which will get old when the next buzzword is chosen the following year. Jenny Maria Meyer: “If we only spoke slang all the time and adapted to the age or the language that the young people or children speak, then the result wouldn’t be timeless.”
Friendship before fame
“The Punkies” tells the classic story of five friends who come together to form a band through interpersonal chemistry – or, conversely, because they harmonize so well as musicians, they become friends privately.
“You have to put it so simply,” says Tim Kreuer, “the world isn’t very beautiful right now. And music brings people together.”
Ultimately, “The Punkies” should serve as a role model. Jenny Maria Meyer: “Friendship is above the band. And nobody thinks about what skin color someone has or what religion they believe in. It’s about an hour and a half – and pure love.”
Role models for Generation Alpha
A special role is played by the character of Aylin Günes, who, as a young woman with Turkish roots, is supposed to combine tradition with an expression of rebellion in music. “Of course a lot is in the author’s hands,” said her spokeswoman Merete Brettschneider. “But I prepare as best as I can for the role. Once I was supposed to sing a Turkish birthday song – I learned the pronunciation in advance with a Turkish friend.”
In a certain way you also feel a moral responsibility. “My Leonie, for example,” says Jenny Maria Meyer, “is the vegan in the group. She was once traveling in a horse-drawn carriage in an episode. When we were discussing it, we thought about it: Okay, actually she should say that she doesn’t really want to support it – but there’s no other way to get away from there at the moment. All right, then she gets into the carriage. We want to give her some ideas. Leonie always finds it annoying about Lukas that he likes to put chops on the grill.”
“I wanted to make a series that is also suitable for younger children because it is not too complicated,” says Corinna Wodrich, product manager of the “Punkies” at Sony Music. “A series that you can also continue to listen to as older children and ideally as adults.”
Rock instead of kling-kling
It is important to Wodrich that the Punkies’ songs are understood as music to be taken seriously: “Kling-Kling-Kinder-Lala music to the Punkies. It has to be decent rock music, because the children are starting to listen to real music earlier and earlier. And there are plenty of other things that really cover this toddler music need. We don’t need that with the Punkies.”
The origin of the band and radio play name is of particular importance. It’s not the music genre punk that’s meant, but rather the American word for mosquito.
Eternal youth in the radio play
Basically, “The Punkies” promise eternal youth. Just as the “Simpsons” never grow older, the radio play band will always remain in their teens. Wodrich refers to “The Three ???”: “Otherwise there would have to be an episode along the lines of ‘The Three ??? and the Tax Return’. The adult world simply brings with it so many challenges that are no fun.” So there shouldn’t be an episode with the title “Now the Punkies are celebrating their 18th birthday”.
The “Punkies” have Nikolas for that, says Wodrich. “Nikolas is a surprise. He has a driver’s license, so he has to be at least 16 if he got it in America. You don’t know how old he is – he doesn’t say it either. But he’s already experienced everything. He took part in biological research in the Amazon. He’s also taken photos for Milan Fashion Week. I love this running gag.”
The group is now laughing at another running gag, according to which tradition in storytelling has stood the test of time for many years. Sometimes you shouldn’t keep up with the times: “Bibi Blocksberg has been the same for tens of years. Still using a wooden broom – not an electric broom.”
Ensemble instead of X-Recording
Like everywhere else in the world, artificial intelligence is the big topic in the acting and speaking world. “We’re talking here as a five-piece ensemble,” says Patrick Bach. “There’s no X-ing here.” X-Recording means that all voices are recorded individually and then edited together. According to Bach, there is a quality in group recordings in particular that an AI can never reproduce with artificial voices. “We are together,” says Tim Kreuer, “we experience each other, especially in our individual intensity. Sometimes we talk over each other. An AI would never be able to do that so naturally. Spirit, warmth, love – it can’t replace that.”
And what if listeners become jaded and accept AI? “Will the audience stop hearing the difference at some point?” asks Bach. “No matter what could replace humans, it would not have the same quality.”
“The topic of AI is very sensitive for us, and we have high quality standards for our radio plays,” says Heike Weber, Senior Marketing Manager in the Family Entertainment division at Sony Music. ” We know exactly what the speakers do, and you can hear the authenticity and individuality and, above all, the feeling that they put into their voices. And that’s exactly what we want to preserve for our radio plays. With the punkies, as Patrick also says, the dynamic is very special. Precisely because they usually record in an ensemble.”
Guest stars as a recipe for success
A USP of the “Punkies” is the inclusion of guest stars – narratively refreshing and a win-win for marketing reasons, because musicians can perhaps tap into a new target group through the “Europe” radio plays, while “The Punkies” can hope to be heard by young people who would otherwise never listen to a radio play. Especially since the Punkies are not yet available in television series or film format. The best conditions for pure mental cinema.
The label considers “Die Punkies”, which will celebrate not only its tenth anniversary but also its 50th episode in 2026, a great success. “We currently have 430 million streams for the series,” says Heike Weber.
There is still a gap in reach to the number one “Europe” radio play from Sony, i.e. “The Three ???”. “The radio play adventures of the three detectives have been around since 1979,” says Weber. “Radio play is a product that takes a lot of time to establish itself.”
The punkies live in a realistic world
“The three???” is also already available in junior format as “The Three ??? Kids”. Heike Weber thinks it’s good that the age range of the “punkies” is very open. The average age is 10.5 years, but there are also young people who see the radio play band as role models. “At ten and a half, children are usually old enough to decide for themselves what they like to listen to.” “The Punkies” should definitely remain role models for Generation Alpha: “They won’t trash hotel rooms.” And there are certainly more peaceful ways to celebrate success.
“The punkies live in a very realistic world,” says Corinna Wodrich. “This world is still fictional, but it could exist exactly as we portray it. And it’s also realistic that you meet other musicians and work with them.”
Guests from Bela B to Johannes Oerding
Because Sony also brings the label’s own musicians into the “Punkies” studio, but not only. Guests so far have included Johannes Oerding, Antje Schomaker, Laith Al-Deen, but also veterans such as Bela B, Smudo and Kai Wingenfelder.
“Are we excited then?” asks Merete Brettschneider. “The guest artists are excited about coming to US!” Everyone laughs. And you’re probably right.
