Accept

Accept
Still Delivering the Teutonic Terror

29.11.2013

Архив интервью | Русская версия

“Accept is now better than ever”, argues Wolf Hoffman, and Russian fans will have a chance to check that out very soon. After several unsuccessful comeback attempts nobody believed that Accept could make it with a new singer, but now destiny seems to be rewarding the German band for all the blows it delivered upon them in the 1990s. The two albums with Mark Tornillo on the vocals had a huge success, and now Accept is working on a new one. Two weeks before the German heavy metal veterans’ return to Moscow, which is due on December 2, we phoned the band’s mastermind to find out more about the upcoming show, learn the latest news from the Accept camp, and ask a few questions that the band’s fans prepared for Wolf…
 
How are you, Wolf?


I’m doing great. We just returned from Helsinki yesterday.

How was the show?

It was great, we played with Scorpions for the first time in our life, and it was a fantastic experience.

Having grown up in Germany, Scorpions should have been your heroes…

Yeah, definitely. We’ve been side by side with Scorpions for all these years and we’ve seen them a lot of times, but we’ve never been on the same stage.

And in a couple of weeks you are going back to Europe and finally to Russia.

Yeah, unfortunately these shows had to be rescheduled. Originally it all had to be in one run, but it doesn’t really matter. We’re still excited to come to Russia and hopefully the people are excited to see us no matter when and how. So we’re looking forward to it.

So do we. What are you bringing to Russia this time?

We have a great setlist that consists of the newer material from the last two albums, but of course we can’t do any show ever without remembering the classics. All in all we have probably six or seven new songs from the last two albums “Stalingrad” (2012) and “Blood of the Nations” (2010), and the rest will be the old material. It’s a good package of old and the new and usually people are really excited. So it gonna be great.

Are you satisfied with how Mark is singing your old classic songs?

You know, Mark delivers the old songs so well that it has never even been a concern. We can actually do songs that we’ve never done with Udo (Dirkschneider, ex-vocalist), and they sound great now. Back in the past we never played “Losers And Winners” or “Aiming High”, and they sound great when we do them now. And a couple of years ago we played a show with the complete album “Restless and Wild” (1982). Surprisingly a lot of songs that we thought didn’t work so well, they sound great now. It’s amazing!

Maybe they are made for playing live?

Well, we tried them 20 years ago and they didn’t work so well. Now they do. I don’t know why. It must have something to do with Mark’s voice and his ability to sing them. So we are very happy as the team together. In a weird way Accept is now better than ever. I’ve heard that comment from a lot of fans.

Do you think Russia is a special place for performing your “Stalingrad” album?

Well, of course, of course! What other place in the world could be more significant? I mean, this is the story about Russia and Stalingrad. We wrote it not only because it was close to our hearts, or because it was a very moving and historically significant story… We, of course, incorporated the Russian anthem and all that with Russian people in mind because we’ve been to Russia many times, Russia means a lot to us. You know, as a German band it might be a particularly great opportunity to pick up that theme and to talk about it finally, to write a song about it. We’re aware that it’s not gonna change the world, and it’s not gonna reverse history or something but it keeps the story alive. I think it’s a great way to get people thinking about it again.

Where did this theme come from?

The inspiration came when we were watching a documentary about the battle of Stalingrad. It is such an epic story of such a huge tragedy that happened over there then, that we felt it’s a great story that needs to be told. We tell the story of Stalingrad not so much out of a historical perspective, we just talk about the massive loss of people, and we talk about it from personal viewpoints of two opposing soldiers that actually get to help each other and meet each other in the last final moment on the battlefield. At the end of the day we’re all brothers at the moment of death. That’s our thought behind it and we just thought of making it a great story. You know, as an artist you always try to look for something interesting that moves you, and that certainly moved us.

You like to touch upon these controversial topics, don’t you?

Yes, we do. We always did. I think it’s always better to try something controversial than something boring. Because unfortunately I think a lot of rock songs are rather boring in terms of lyrics and we’re always looking for stuff that can get people talking and moving.

Planning your trip to Russia, did you consider visiting Stalingrad itself?

Yes, of course we did. Actually we even wanted to perform a concert there but so far it didn’t work out. Hopefully one day we’ll get there. You know, Russia is so damn big that (laughs) it’s not so easy to just go there. Unfortunately. Otherwise we’d have already done it. But we’ve never been anywhere close…

But you will. Krasnodar is not so far away. Well, by Russian standards. (everybody laughs)

Yeah, it’s all relative.

Somewhere in your schedule there must be some time to work on your new album.

Yeah, we’re in the middle of songwriting. During the last three months we’ve been working in the studio on the new material every day and we’ve got a lot of it written already. We just interrupt everything for a few shows and then we’ll go right back to the studio.

Doesn’t this interruption affect the writing process?

Yes, a little bit, but it’s a good interruption. It gets you out of your environment back into the real world, back to the stage. It’s good to get some air and out of just… everything in a way. I like it though we’ve never really done it before. Usually we stay in the studio until it’s finished but not this time. You know, sometimes there is a danger when you are so close to something and you’re so deeply immersed into the working process, that… I don’t know, something always happens. You get touched a little bit. So it’s nice to go out and see what people are like, play the old songs again and then come back to the studio with opened eyes.

Do you feel any pressure? With your last two albums being so great you have to live up to certain expectations…

Yes, absolutely. A huge pressure. But I’ve always said it’s a good problem to have. It’s a good pressure. I think it’s better than if your last album was shit and you have to… (laughs) You know, then you have another kind of pressure. (laughs)

That’s right. You know, there are some people on the Internet who don’t believe you can stay on such a high level. Do you think you can prove them wrong with your new album?

Well, there are always people that say things like that. I remember very well when we announced to the world that Accept is coming back, the Internet was full of people saying it could not be done and without Udo nothing would ever be popular and blah-blah-blah. And we proved them all wrong. Now our two last albums have been hugely successful, “Blood of the Nations” has been named the comeback of the century, and everybody loves that now. But of course there are gonna be some people who just wait for our next album to be not so good. I guess that’s the human nature and that’s fine, but we are not too worried about it. We just move on and do the best we can, and the rest we can’t influence anyhow. You cannot drive yourself crazy thinking about, you know, the mayfairs and the dollars. Eventually if you believe in something yourself and you do the best you can… that’s all you can do.

Can you tell us something about the upcoming album?

I think it might be slightly more melodic, but I’m not really sure. I’m too close to it. Right now we’ve got a lot of good solid songwriting. I think it might be a really strong album, I’m starting to feel really good about it. The direction is not gonna change dramatically, I think it’s just gonna be more or less the same but better. It’s gonna be classic songwriting of the 1980s but with modern sound.

Does Gaby (Hoffman, Wolf’s wife) contribute to the album?

A little bit. I mean, she’s always been a sort of an engine in this band, she pulls the big strings. (laughs) Sometimes she has ideas for songs, stories that she shares with us. She’s always been a huge lyric writer for us, especially in the 80s, the only person writing lyrics. All the lyrics for “Balls to the Wall” (1983), “Metal Heart” (1985), “Russian Roulette” (1986), they were all her stories. Naturally, she still has ideas and she still shares them with us. Even though Mark Tornillo is the one writing fine lyrics now, she contributes too, yeah.

What about the producer? Are you still working with Andy Sneap?

Yeah, Andy is the man!

You worked with three great producers during your career. What’s the main difference between them?

Andy is the first guy that is really connected with us on the high level as a musician. You know, the other guys that we had were great producers but they were not real metal fans and metal guitar players, like Andy. Andy was an Accept fan as a teenager and so Accept has a very special meaning to him. He sees all the songs that we write, everything we do, from the perspective of a fan, and at the same time he’s a great guitar player and a songwriter. He’s got his band, he went on tours, so he knows very well how it is, what we do and what a good guitar sound is like. He’s a very special guy for us in that sense and that’s very different from Dieter Dierks or Michael Wagener who were mostly engineers, producers. You know, it’s a different level.

Can we now talk about your reunion? We all know how Mark joined the band, but what about the others? What was their reaction when you called them to say Accept is back with a new vocalist?

Well, I think they were totally surprised ‘cause nobody had expected any of this. I mean, they were just living their lives. Herman (Frank, guitarist) was living in Hannover, he has a little studio where he produces bands, and I’m not sure what else he was doing at the time. All I know is that he wasn’t actually on the road or pursuing music career anymore, or at least not in the environment like Accept. And when the call came I think he was totally surprised but he thought about it for a moment, talked to his wife and then he was immediately onboard. The same story happened with Stefan (Schwarzmann, drummer). He lives in Switzerland and he didn’t expect any of that. You have to understand this little story changed our life dramatically. Now we are back on the road, touring the world… You know, months and months at a time we are away from home and we are doing all these exciting things that nobody could have expected before.

Why did you invite Herman, not Jörg (Fischer, another ex-guitarist)?

Because Fischer disappeared. He wasn’t even available, nobody knows where he is. We have no contact to him, he is out of the music business and who knows where the hell he is. We don’t know.

And why did you decide to invite another guitar player anyway? As far as I remember, you were the only one in the 1990s.

That’s right. But I think it was made clear by the fans that everybody wanted to see Accept as a two-guitar band. Also you have to remember that in 2005 we did a few festival shows with Udo and the all original line-up and we used Herman and Stefan then. So we knew that those two guys could really do the job well, and people loved the line-up and people loved Herman. It was clear to everybody that from the eyes of the fans Accept should really be a two-guitar band to recreate that old original sound. Even though I personally liked being the only guy on stage, it gives you a little bit more freedom and more jam session environment where you can do spontaneous things… But I realized that to do the old stuff it has to be a little more historically correct.  It’s good to have two guitar players onboard again.

Was it difficult to take the decision to announce Accept’s reunion once again? What made you sure you could do it?

Yeah, but we love playing music. What do we have to lose? It might work or it might not work, that would be sad to us. When we heard Mark, we said, “If this is not gonna work, it is never gonna work! He has a perfect voice for what we wanna to do. We want to go out and play the old Accept material and maybe create some new stuff, some new albums”. But originally all we ever wanted to do was to go out and play shows. And Udo didn’t wanna do it so here came another opportunity. What did we have to lose? We could only try and we were convinced it might work. And we were right. Of course you never really know. I mean, there is no 100% guarantee ever in our life and not in the music business.

Mark’s voice is pretty much like Udo’s. Do you think it was a mistake to look for a completely different singer back in the 80s?

Yes, of course it was. We know that now.

Do you think you could have done better if you realized it then?

Maybe, but we didn’t want to then. We were looking for different things, you know. But I think back in the nineties it was a weird time when nothing was supposed to work. You know, sometimes there is time in your life when everything falls in your lap and everything goes smooth. That was the case when we found Mark. It was just too good to be true, we found Mark, then we found Andy Sneap, then we found a great guy to do our video… You know, the stars were really in our favor. (laughs) And the case was just the opposite when we hooked up with David Reece. First we had one guy who wasn’t the right singer, then we threw him out, then we got David Reece at last minute. It didn’t work, and the album’s production didn’t work, the album was late, the tour was terrible… The times were weird, I mean it wasn’t the right time or it was the wrong product. You know, everything was against us, we didn’t have a chance then. It’s not only the singer’s factor… If everything else would have worked in our favor maybe we could have pulled it off with David Reece, I don’t know. It’s almost irrelevant now. Who cares now? It’s done, it’s history.

What were you doing when the band was not around?

Photography has always been my number two passion and when I didn’t see any prospect of continuing with music I became a photographer. And I loved it. I still do it now when I can. I don’t have much time anymore because I’m always on the road but I still do a good number of photo shoots every year.

Would it be expensive to order a photo from you? Maybe a signed one?

(laughs) No, it wouldn’t be. But I don’t do this kind of photos. I do commercial photography, not art. I did art photography early on but then I discovered if you wanna to make a living out of something, it’s easier to do it where people have money to spend. So I work for advertising agencies, I work for big corporations, this is my specialty. It’s a totally different spectrum from heavy metal but I like it differently, for different reasons. It’s good.

Did you ever consider joining any other band during that time?

No, never. I’ve been asked many times, but I never really gave it much thought. Accept has been my baby since I was 16 years old. I’ve been in this band for a long, long time and never left this band, never quit. You have to understand, a lot of people I know came and left the band, rejoined and left again… But I never left the band. I’ve always been the one who kept it going together with Gaby. This is our thing since nineteen… God knows when. Why would I want to change that? Why would I try to join another band and just be a hired hand or something like this? I wouldn’t want that. There’s no reason. I love Accept, I’ve never talked bad about anything, I’m very proud of what we achieved. What more can you want in your life?

With you living in the USA and with a new American singer, do you still consider Accept a German band?

Absolutely. I consider myself German and I will always do. Just because… Imagine yourself would move to… Texas. You’ll still be a Russian girl in Texas, you wouldn’t all of a sudden become anybody else. I mean, you keep your history, your upbringing, you can’t take that away, no matter where you live. You can change a little bit, but you’re never gonna change who you are. And we are still German. Everybody here calls me “the German”.

Let’s get back to present and other news from your side. Some time ago you mentioned another classical album you were working on. What’s the situation now?

Yes, I’m working on this new album with a good friend of mine from Italy. He’s a string arranger and composer. The entire album is basically written and most of it is recorded. I’m just trying to find the time right now to record the final touches on it and hopefully it will be ready for release very soon. I’m working on it, but of course Accept is priority number one, so…

We are looking forward to it.

Good. I know, Russian fans will probably like it. That’s what I like about Russia, the Russian people are very connected to the classical music and also the way I play guitar and I can always sense that in the audience. Somehow it’s different from other countries. That’s true.

Do you think heavy metal and classical music have something in common?

Definitely. I think if the classical composers were alive today, they might write heavy metal stuff. Look at Beethoven, he was maybe the heavy metal guy of his time. It’s so dramatic... It was unheard of back then. You know, the classical music is not one continued genre, it went through so many different stages. Eventually some guy came along with something that shocked everybody and everything and people in their time thought it was outrageous. It’s hard to imagine nowadays, but I think it’s true. So you can definitely compare these styles, there are a lot of parallels to metal and classical music.

Did you start liking metal or classical music first?

First heavy metal. I discovered classical music in my early twenties. But I always liked great melodies. Weirdly enough I always liked Beethoven (humming a melody). Even as a child I liked that, I was always intrigued by that. I’ve been told by some people that know me a long time that I’ve been playing that little lick when I first started playing guitar.

Can you tell me how the “Acceptology” project is going on?

That was born as an idea of a place where fans can share any material that they have. We know so many fans and so many journalists that we’ve been attached with during all these years, and they all have their personal stories of how they met Accept. Maybe they went to our first concert once and some people would have some old photos… Some people would just have stories about how they ever heard about Accept, maybe they were in high school and maybe they met us one time, maybe somebody did an interview with us thirty years ago… All these people in the world may have something unique to tell, and we wanted to create this project where we can gather all this material. Whenever we have enough stuff – it might me next month or next year – we’ll release it in one form or another. Maybe it’ll be a DVD or a book, or a website only, we don’t know yet. It depends on what kind of material we’ll have in the end.

Does Udo take part in the project?

He doesn’t so far. We invited him many times and I hope he will. But I haven’t heard anything. I doubt, but I wish he would.

And what about other former band members?

Yeah, many people that were with us very early on contributed some stuff. Like the first drummer ever (Frank Friedrich), who recorded our first album with us in 1979, he’s got some photos and some old stories that he’s going to share.

I heard you have your own wine now…

Yeah, we’ve been approached by winemakers and we’ve been working with them together to release this wine. We had a great first run this year, it was sold out immediately and now we are working on a following release. Hopefully, next year we’re gonna have another one. I think it’s a lot of fun, people loved the idea to have an Accept wine. We are very proud of it, but it’s obviously just a little side project. I’m not gonna become a winemaker. (laughs)

Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to produce beer?

Maybe. (everybody laughs) But, you know, beer is a little bit harder to make. Maybe vodka, ah? How about Russian vodka? (everybody laughs)

Sounds great! Accept vodka?

Yeah, for the Russian fans. (everybody laughs)

Okay. Here I have some questions from the fans, if you don’t mind…

Not at all, go ahead.

First one. When was the last time you were really drunk during the show?

The last time was in 1980s. At some point we played a show in Los Angeles. I remember it was in “Troubadour”. It was one of the very, very few times that I was drunk. We went to a Mexican restaurant before the show. I remember, Lemmy (Kilmister, Motorhead, - ed.) was there, I had some tequila and I can’t handle tequila. All of a sudden I realized that I was like a little too drunk to go on stage, but the show had to go on anyhow. So I did and it was an awful feeling. I’ve never done it since.

When will your live DVD be released?

I know that we are ready with it. It’s ready to be released whenever the label decides it’s a good time to do it. I think they’re gonna try to do it next year.

There were some rumors about a fight between David Reece and Peter Baltes (bassist) in the early 1990s. Is that true?

Yes, that’s true. That was when we decided that we should not continue, this was not gonna worth it. It definitely didn’t work out between David Reece and the rest of us, but when he started to get into a fistfight with Peter we decided, “You know what? We’re just gonna walk away from it, we’re just gonna leave him where he is”. And we actually dissolved the whole thing then and there. Nobody would expect us to be good friends all the time, but we didn’t want to lower ourselves to that level and we decided to call it a day then.

There’s an opinion that the albums “Death Row” (1994) and “Predator” (1996) are the weakest in the band’s history. Do you agree?

Yeah, probably.

What were the reasons for that?

Mainly because we were looking for a new direction and didn’t really know where to go. It was in the 1990s and nobody was really happy in the 1990s. All the metal bands were struggling and everybody was looking for a new direction. Classic metal was dead, nobody wanted to hear the old “Restless and Wild” songs and all this good stuff. Everybody was looking for a next Nirvana, a next grunge band. It was a weird time and all the bands, including Accept, were sort of trying to see where they could fit in, everybody was experimenting, trying to change a little bit with a new sound and new wave. We were doing the same thing. From this perspective I think there are some great musical ideas there, but all in all it wasn’t our thing. You know, we learned. I’m kind of glad we did that because sometimes we have to leave your old ways and see where you might have been… But then you have to be honest enough to go back and say, “Well, maybe that wasn’t meant to be, that wasn’t our thing. Let’s go back and do what we are good at”.

I ran out of questions. Thank you for your time. Maybe you want to add something for the Russian fans?

Yeah. We’re gonna see everybody in a couple of weeks. Let’s hope it’s not gonna be too cold when we get there. But anyway it’s gonna be a great and hot concert, as usual. I love the Russian audience, so it’ll be another unforgettable night in Moscow. See you soon.

Accept on the Internet: http://www.acceptworldwide.com

Special thanks to Alexey Morozov for arranging this interview

Ekaterina Akopova
November 15, 2013
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