Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

Interview By Alison Booth

As their fans know very well, metal giants ACCEPT never rest on their laurels! The band are in the middle of recording their highly anticipated next album and are also set to release a brand new live package “Restless And Live” on 13th January via Nuclear Blast. This package will include the entire show ACCEPT played at Bang Your Head Festival 2015 on Blu-ray/DVD plus two live CDs, with different recordings from during the European tour.

Metal Shock Finland Senior Manager Alison Booth, recently celebrated the fourth anniversary of her radio show Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem on http://www.totalrock.com. Metal veteran, guitarist Wolf Hoffmann joined the celebrations on  the show to chat about the new “Restless And Live” release, the forthcoming new ACCEPT album and much more! The whole radio show will soon be available to hear at this location, but you can hear the chat with Wolf (plus a song in between!) on the audio player below, along with a few excerpts to read:

Discussing “Restless And Live”:

“We wanted to have our own production featured as much as possible for the DVD, we didn’t really know how it was going to turn out. We just watched the footage afterwards and thought ‘wow, it’s awesome!’ looks really good, the edits are really cool, so we decided to release it. We figured it’s a good time for a live DVD.

What I think is important to mention too was that we didn’t just do the cheap way and did the audio CD from the exact same footage as the DVD – no, we used recordings from all over the world and across Europe. There’s a lot of material on the audio CD’s that’s completely different from the DVD part. Andy Sneap mixed them all, it took him forever, it’s a lot of different tracks! ”

Talking about the forthcoming tour with SABATON:

“I think this is gonna be a fun experience for us. It’s one of those things we spontaneously agreed to because it also gave us a chance to leave the studio for a while. We’ve been locked up in the studio working on the new Accept album for some time now. We can actually leave all that, go on the road, have a little bit of fun! It’s not our tour, it’s really Sabaton’s tour – we can just go out there and enjoy playing for a while in front of audiences, then go back to the studio and finish what we started.”

Working with Andy Sneap and the new ACCEPT album:

“This is the fourth time in a row with the same producer, it’s a world record for Accept for sure! Every time we work together it turns out fantastic, we love what the final result is. We have a great working relationship, so why change it if it works, right?“

“The only thing I can tell you is that it feels as Accept as ever. It feels maybe a slightly bit heavier for now, but these things are always hard to say when you’re in the middle of it. Man, it’s gonna sound like Accept as always, there’s not gonna be any weird surprises – we’re not gonna go soft, we’re not gonna go jazz! We’re really just trying to get better at what we already do.

We’re trying our best to get it done in time for next year, July or August. We’ve got a bunch of basic tracks done, a lot of vocals are done, so we’re looking pretty good at this point.”

“Headbangers Symphony” fan reaction:

“I didn’t know how it was going to go, but everybody loves it, it’s amazing! People are much more open minded and into this kinda stuff than I thought they would be.”

On more future classical work:

“There might well be, there’s a time and a place for all that. Right now I’m working on the new Accept album and when that’s done and we’re touring with it, maybe by that time I start thinking about new ideas for another classical project, I’d love to do it. First and foremost I’d like to do some shows with it though, that would be the more immediate thing for me to think about, to perform this stuff live on stage and get some shows under our belt. That would be fantastic and what I’m really looking forward to because this music’s really meant to be played live, I can’t wait for that to happen!

There are some definite plans next year, I can’t tell you yet. I can officially tell you it will happen.”

Wolf Hoffmann will celebrate his birthday on 10th December, so we wish him a very Happy Birthday!

For more information on Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem, visit the official Facebook page here and the official website at this location.

Check out the official ACCEPT website here.