Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

As you perhaps know, we at Metal Shock Finland presented a week’s Tribute To Ritchie Blackmore in April 2014. Many big names including artists, musicians, one writer and one photographer joined us and shared their opinion and thoughts on Ritchie Blackmore. The legendary ACCEPT ‘s Wolf Hoffmann was also one of them, who agreed to have a chat with Mohsen Fayyazi. But unfortunately, due to some technical issues we were not able to publish this interview up to now.

Wolf Hoffmann is one of those guitarists who influenced many bands and musicians, ranging from younger talented musicians to the big names such as AMON AMARTH. Check out what Mr Hoffmann shared with us about Ritchie Blackmore:

“Well, I’ve always been a huge fan of Ritchie Blackmore, but especially growing up in my formative teenage years. Me and a lot of other people in Germany growing up were heavily influenced and totally into Deep Purple and especially Ritchie Blackmore. When he had his own band Rainbow, we all worshipped the guy and I think he had a few years of making some incredible albums. And he definitely influenced my style of playing, no doubt.”

Wolf Hoffmann said, when asked what he has learned from Ritchie as a musician:

“Well, what I always liked about him, he was kinda different from all the other guys, not so much a shredder. Actually, I have to say in the mid seventies, nobody was that much into shredding, that came later with Yngwie Malmsteen and all the speed players. He was always very melodic and he was a great songwriter and he always managed to write solos that fit the song. Maybe that’s one of the things I try to use as an inspiration. A solo is more than just a little piece of noodling, it’s really another piece of the song, that gives the song another dimension.”

“Would Rock and Metal music be different today without Ritchie?” Check out Wolf‘s answer:

“Yeah, I mean who can imagine a world without Smoke On The Water? What a monster riff that shaped a whole generation! Like I said earlier, everybody on my friends, particularly in Germany, was into Blackmore then and a lot of ’em still are today. You know, I live in the United States and he’s not that well known here and I don’t think he ever was. But definitely in Germany, people still worship him.”
You can listen to some part of this interview on the Audio Player below: