German band ACCEPT has long since achieved legendary status after more than forty years since its inception. The band is now ready with their fifteenth studio album, “The Rise Of Chaos,” and once again proves that there is still plenty of fire left in the band.
It’s guitarist Wolf Hoffmann from ACCEPT who meets me one morning at a hotel in Stockholm. The man smiles from ear to ear and welcomes me like an old friend who hasn’t seen each other in many years. The 57-year-old metal legend is remarkably well-preserved and charismatic. We are now in the lobby of a fancy hotel in the city center, and the guys from Rob Zombie are flying back and forth as they have a concert in the evening. Along with me and Wolf are also Darren from Warner and the lively Antonina from Pirate Rock Radio. Wolf tells amusingly that he just got the most unusual question from Antonina; about what he would do if he were a woman for a day. ‘I never even thought about it. Haha!’ Antonina adds, ‘Playing with your tits all day?’ and earns a big laugh from all of us. I follow Wolf to a quieter lounge, while he tells me that he just flew in from Helsinki and is heading to London to meet more press.
We eventually sit down, and we naturally start talking about ‘The Rise Of Chaos.’ The fifteenth ACCEPT album and the fourth album since the comeback seven years ago with Mark Tornillo from TT Quick on vocals. Is there any change on the new album compared to the three predecessors, Wolf?
– I don’t know, you tell me! No, I don’t think there’s much difference. The songs are better, so there’s a difference. We’ve worked the same way and used the same ingredients. We have the same producer, the same studio, the same record label, the same vocalist, and the same people who wrote the songs. We have a new drummer … but that didn’t change our sound much.
Yes, because it’s you and Peter Bates who wrote the songs on this one too?
– Yes, because it’s not like we go into the studio as five guys and start writing songs. Peter and I come up with the initial ideas for songs, and when they’ve developed enough, we pass them on to Mark, who then starts with lyrics. The way we’ve worked on the last three albums is a well-oiled machine. So I saw no reason to change anything.
Why change a winning team?
– Exactly! If it’s not broken – don’t fix it.
We’re well into old sayings here, so it’s time to switch to talking about the lyrics on the album. Now, it’s true that Mark Tornillo writes the lyrics, but I have the impression that Wolf has a hand in most things within ACCEPT.
– Yes, Mark writes the final lyrics. But Peter and I often come up with song titles and themes, so Mark writes stories around them.
Wolf Hoffmann confirms that the title ‘The Rise Of Chaos’ is related to the turbulent times we are in now and all the chaos that seems to be going on in the world today. But the album also has many other themes. The song ‘Koolaid’ must be about Jonestown, where the People’s Temple cult committed mass suicide of over 900 people?
– Ah, you did your research? You didn’t know beforehand, did you? Wolf asks enthusiastically.
Well, actually, I was familiar with it.
– Really?
Yes, I saw the movie The Sacrament, which is about Jonestown, where the priest mixes cyanide with Koolaid before distributing it to the members.
– Ah, because many people don’t know about that at all. I must admit – I knew the story of Jonestown – but I wasn’t aware that the phrase ‘don’t drink the koolaid’ comes from that exact event. Terrible incident where almost a thousand people died. We had the song title ‘Don’t drink the Koolaid,’ and I really liked how it sounded and how it fit into the song. But I’m not familiar with the drink. It’s a cheap mix of powder that you mix with water. But I’ve never tasted it. But in America, the phrase means ‘don’t be stupid’ or ‘don’t do everything people tell you to do.’ The phrase apparently stems from the Jonestown incident when Koolaid was used to mix with cyanide that killed so many people. Nuts! People are crazy. That story fascinated me, so we used it in the song.
What about the song ‘Analog Man’? Are you not satisfied with the digital world we live in?
– I’m satisfied – but Mark isn’t, Wolf laughs.
– Mark has been saying it for years now; ‘I’m an analog man, caught in a digital world.’ Hehe. He says it mostly when something goes wrong. A computer crashing or something digital not working as it should. And almost everything is digital today. So I thought, damn it, let’s just write a song about it.
You surely record digitally, like most others these days?
– Yes, of course. I love working digitally – when it works, it’s fantastic. Mark also uses a lot of digital, but he still bitches about it. He just wishes he could turn back time to 1987 or thereabouts.
Since ACCEPT came back as a band, all four albums so far have been produced by Andy Sneap. Did you consider using someone else as a producer this time?
– No, as we discussed earlier, we didn’t want to change anything that works. Maybe there will come a day when he’s not available, and we’ll be forced to work with someone else. But right now, the collaboration works so well that I see no reason to change it. I feel the same way about a lot of other aspects of ACCEPT too. I think we’ve found a working pattern that works very well and yields good results. We manage to create songs that both the fans and we ourselves like. The only thing we want is to move forward with new songs. That’s the only change we want right now. New songs and that the material should be better than ever,” answers the enthusiastic guitarist.
Many have probably already noticed the cover of ‘The Rise of Chaos,’ which shows a city falling apart while bombs rain down and flames rage around it. The cover is made by Gyula Havancsák from Hungary. Both I and Wolf struggle to pronounce his name. The man with the name that no one can pronounce, as Wolf says. He has previously made covers for bands like Destruction, Annihilator, Grave Digger, and Stratovarius, but it’s the first time he’s made a cover for ACCEPT. I wonder where the band found Gyula Havancsák and what made them choose him as an artist.
– Because he made a stage set for us and also designed some T-shirts,” Wolf quickly replies.
– We’ve known him for a while now. We liked the stage set he made for us so much that we thought it would be a shame not to use him more. So when we had the album title ready, and we needed a cover, we thought we could use the same industrial landscape that he had previously created for us, only now in an environment after the chaos has broken out.
ACCEPT has had some changes in the lineup on the new album as both rhythm guitarist and drummer have been replaced. What happened, Wolf? Why did Stefan Schwarzmann and Herman Frank leave?
– Because they decided they wanted their own band and start their own projects. So we went our separate ways. That’s life,” Wolf says without seeming too upset.
So no hard feelings?
– No, not really. No big deal. People come and go. That’s how the industry works. Peter and I have been with ACCEPT for forty years now, and Mark has been with us for almost ten years, so we’ve been pretty stable. But Stefan and Herman decided to do their own projects. But we were lucky to find two new guys who are both fantastic. Uwe Lulis, we’ve known for a long time because he was friends with our drum tech and was also our guitar tech for a while. So he was a friend of the band. When the job opened up, he wanted to audition. We were a bit unsure, ‘Uwe, you’re a good guy, but can you really play for us?’ So we tried him out, and he’s really a good guitarist. He has played in a few bands before, including Grave Digger. So he knows what it takes when it comes to touring and is a good guy to have on the road. Christopher Williams – our new drummer – is a younger guy with not much experience. But we found him in Nashville, where we all live. So he’s the metal drummer in Nashville. Nashville is mostly about country music, but he takes care of metal in the area. He auditioned for us, and we liked him immediately.
So you live in Nashville then? What made you move there?
– Why not? It’s a music city. It’s all about music there. So it’s a good place to settle down. A German in Nashville – strange stuff, isn’t it? Hehe. I’ve actually lived there for 25 years now.
Although it was news to me, it’s not so surprising as a number of European bands have settled in the states. Like Judas Priest, King Diamond, and Ozzy Osbourne. ACCEPT fits nicely into that line.
When you play live, which do you prefer to perform; the old classics or songs from after the comeback with Mark?
– I actually don’t think about it. They’re all fun to perform live. We play about fifty percent old songs and fifty percent newer songs from the Mark period. Some of the newer songs have already started to feel like classics, like ‘Teutonic Terror.’ It already feels like an old classic as we’ve played it so many times now, and it’s become part of the encores we do at concerts. So to be honest, I don’t think about whether the songs are old or new. They’re all my songs, so it’s the same for me.
There are only two original members left in ACCEPT, as we’ve discussed earlier. How does that feel?
– It’s the hard facts of life. But I’m quite proud to have played with Peter all these years. We’ve been playing together for forty years now. We still get along well, and we write all the songs together. We have good communication. It’s almost unthinkable for a band to stay together for so long. There are hardly any, and there are only a few examples of bands that have lasted so long and still have the original lineup. I think U2 is one of them. I think Golden Earring also has the same lineup, if you’re familiar with them? But those are the only two I can think of, out of thousands of bands. That’s how it is, band members come and go. It’s probably part of human nature, I suppose,” Wolf says, shrugging. – People change their interests, they get married, they get new priorities.
Of course, I have to check Wikipedia afterward to see if what Wolf says about U2 and Golden Earring is true. Unfortunately, he is partially wrong. The members of U2 have indeed all been there since the start in 1976, but the band also had two other guitarists in from 1976 to 1978. Golden Earring had many members in the band in the 60s, but they have had the same lineup since 1970. Only two of the members have been there since 1961.
I tell Wolf that I have met several old ACCEPT fans who have not checked out newer albums by ACCEPT. Simply because Udo Dirkschneider is the original vocalist of ACCEPT, and they haven’t bothered to give ACCEPT a chance with a new vocalist. Thus, they miss out on some damn good albums. Wolf seems to care little about it when I ask him what he has to say to people who think like that.
– Actually, nothing, as I can’t change it. Personally, I’m not even aware of it… so it doesn’t worry me. Many people come to our concerts and tell me that they’ve been ACCEPT fans their whole lives, and even though they love the old albums, they’re starting to like the new period with Mark more. Quite a few people tell me that, so it shows me that we’re doing something right. So if there are any die-hards who don’t want new music. Fine. Live in the past. I can’t do anything about it. We did the only logical thing we could do with the band. It’s either this version or no version,” explains Wolf casually, but at the same time making it quite clear that Udo Dirkschneider is unlikely to ever come back to ACCEPT.
You’ve been going on for forty years now. How long do you think ACCEPT will continue to exist?
– Well, we have to keep it going for at least ten more years so we can reach 50 years, right? As long as we’re happy and healthy, we’ll just keep going. But I don’t know, as it’s hard to predict the future. I can’t believe we’re already on our fourth album since we came back. It’s been 8-9 years already. It’s crazy. Time flies. So what’s another ten years? Or another twenty years, for that matter? Who knows,” asks a smiling Wolf.
So you’ll just keep playing until you can’t anymore?
– Until we drop dead, yeah,” says Wolf, smiling. – That’s the goal – to die on stage. Death by metal!
So everything is set for us to have ACCEPT with us for many years to come.
The last time you played in Norway, you were the support for Sabaton. Many fans found this quite odd as you are an older band and for many, a much better band as well. So several people I know left after ACCEPT finished their set. What made you decide to support Sabaton?
– Well, I can tell you why we decided to do the tour, even though we knew it would raise some eyebrows. First and foremost, we had been in the studio for a while, and we liked the idea of getting away and playing without any specific agenda. The idea was just to get out and play for an hour. It wasn’t our production, we had no album to promote, and no interviews to do. So for us, it was all about the music. The other thing was that we had known the guys in Sabaton for a long time. So we had seen them grow and make their way in the world. They have a good idea of where they want to go. So we thought maybe they deserved a little support. So I feel like it was a win-win situation. I’m not such a big fan of Sabaton’s music – but I really respect what they do. So when they asked us if we would consider it, we decided to do it. It’s a bit unusual too, as we get to play for a different audience. So when we come back and do our own concerts, many of those who discovered us at the Sabaton concerts will come to our own concerts next time. One more thing was that I got to work on the songs for this album during the day. I brought my computer and guitar to the hotel room where I could work on the songs. So I played an hour-long concert in the evening, then got back to the hotel room and worked some more. So when the tour was over, I had the whole album more or less ready. All the songs and all the arrangements were done.
So you wrote the album while you were on tour?
– No, the songs were already written, but I got to write the solos, add nuances, rearrange some things, and so on. Even though the songs are written, there’s still a lot to be done. They have to be rewritten and rearranged a zillion times before they’re perfect. Sometimes a song can go through 15 to 20 versions before I’m happy with how it sounds. It’s about how long each part should go, how long the solo should be, the middle part, beginning, and end. All of that needs to be worked through before the song is completely finished.
Wolf Hoffmann has more than just ACCEPT on his plate. Last year, he released a solo album called “Headbangers Symphony,” where he does his own songs based on classical music composed by composers like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Albinoni, and Mussorgsky. This is the second time he has released a solo album like this, as he released “Classical” in 1997. This time, the man has an ace up his sleeve as the album will be performed live at Wacken Open Air with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Wolf is clearly excited about this.
– Cool, right? It’ll be something completely different from the Wacken shows that have been done before. I’m a bit nervous about it, to be honest. There are so many unknown factors that could go wrong. First, ACCEPT will play some songs from the new album. Then we’ll perform my solo album, “Headbangers Symphony,” with an orchestra of fifty people. The last part of the show will be ACCEPT with the same orchestra playing ACCEPT songs rearranged in ways you’ve never heard before.
This will be recorded, I assume?
– Oh yes! comes the short and constant response from the guitarist. So we have a Blu-ray to look forward to.
Wolf Hoffmann has also, on several occasions, drawn pieces from classical music and used them in ACCEPT songs.
– Yes, that has always been one of my passions. I really love classical music, and I like the idea of taking snippets from classical music and using them in our music, if possible. That’s why I also made a solo album this way. Another step forward in making a whole album this way. It’s one thing to take a small part of a piece of music that lasts under a minute or so and put it somewhere. But it’s even more fun – and more challenging – to make a whole song and a whole album this way.
For now, plans are in place for ACCEPT to go to Japan in September. Wolf can also reveal that they will then go to Australia and South America. That also bodes well for Norway to be visited by the legends.
– It’ll be Europe in the winter. We start Europe in January. Probably to Norway as well,” Wolf Hoffmann reveals happily.
We hope so, yes. I assume it’ll be at Rockefeller as usual?
– Yes, a good chance of that. It seems to be the usual place for us. I can already feel the cold before I walk up the ramp to Rockefeller. We’ve been there quite a few times now.
We think it over and probably come to the conclusion that ACCEPT has only played at Rockefeller for the last ten years, except for the support job for Sabaton when they were at Sentrum Scene. One thing is for sure; none of these concerts have been disappointing as ACCEPT always delivers. ACCEPT’s new album “The Rise Of Chaos” is out in stores now.
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