He is an amazing bass player who has always dedicated his skills and talent for the benefit of the band. There is no doubt about his role in making the legendary ACCEPT successful. Peter Baltes was born on 4 April 1958 in Solingen, Germany. He started his music career when he was young and although he claims that he is not Billy Sheehan he was voted as the number one bass player in Burrn Magazine reader’s poll of 1985.
ACCEPT are heading towards the end of ‘The Rise of Chaos’ European tour and very soon they are going to bring their music to the land of metal, Finland. Peter shares his thoughts on playing there:
“Number one is the dedication of the fans, I mean Finland is a true, true metal country. It has true metal fans and it shows every time we play, we can feel this is like something special, this is something beyond you know. It’s just, you can feel it on stage and when you talk to the fans and people.
And everybody seems to know metal – even people in the hotel, people on the street. Metal is like a high standard in Finland, which is great.”
Whenever they were active, ACCEPT have always been on a high. Great quality of music and production on their albums, along with energetic and perfect performances on stage have always been true facts about them. But what makes ACCEPT work so well?
“I think there’s a couple of factors. One of them is the songwriting part, Wolf and I have been writing these songs for so many years and we have our little quirky ways how we do it, but what comes out in the end is somehow what defines Accept, from the songwriting part.
Also, our dedication to our craft and our work ethic – we really do strive for excellence. When we play on stage we want things perfect. And at the same time trying to achieve the human aspect – that we have fun and play, that it’s not so organised. So that’s difficult for us to do, but for some reason we’re doing this very very well.”
Not many bass players dare to play a solo on stage, but Peter Baltes has done, which has always received positive feed back from the crowd.
“Well we used to do a few bass solos a couple of tours back. It’s not really about the spotlight, it’s a variety for the fans. If you’re in the audience and you see a show, in the old days there used to be a guitar solo and a drum solo. A bass solo was a little unique, but it was something cool we could offer. We decided now it would be much cooler to have some sort of battle going on instead of play a bass solo – have a little guitar bass battle with Wolf going on, which I win every night (laughs), I’m just kidding.
I’m no Billy Sheehan, I’m not very technical. But most things I play come right outta my stomach, my gut and I’m always concerned about the rhythm of things. I see the faces of the people when I play and that’s pretty cool. Most of all, it’s just I prefer playing within the band.”
Those fans who followed the band from the beginning know that Peter also did some lead vocals on tracks such as ‘Primitive’ and ‘The King” and a few more. But would it be possible that he do it again in the future?
“Probably could in the future, but never had the opportunity at this point because Mark has such a great range and has a really nice clean voice. Which back in the day was the reason I started singing a couple of ballads because we wrote some and you know, I guess almost the band pointed at me and said ‘you try it’ because they knew I was singing a little bit, ’cause back then it made sense, it was kinda cool.
We have Mark now and he’s such an excellent singer, but who knows in the future? Maybe we do something together, I’m not opposed to it, no.”
You can listen to the whole of this interview on the Audio Player below and if you would like to win a pair of tickets for the ACCEPT shows in Finland, Peter said a secret code, fill the form with that code and you’ll have a chance to be one of our lucky winners.
Finland has become the first country in the world to publish its own set of country themed emojis, according to independent.ie.
They are to be featured as part of the Christmas calendar published by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on ThisisFINLAND.
This emoji collection contains important things associated with Finland and illustrates Finnish emotions. Some of the emotions are represented by an internationally known Finn. As a whole, these will reveal the weirdnesses and the strengths of the country and its people. The sauna, the headbanger, and the unbreakable (the Nokia 3310) are just three of the emoji that will be represented.
Director for Public Diplomacy, Petra Theman, explains that emojis have revolutionised the way people communicate. “The Finland emojis were designed with a tongue-in-cheek approach, but I hope that they will tell the world not only about our special features but also something about our strengths. One example is disarming honesty,” Theman added.
The emoji calendar features 24 hatches. For now, the site simply promises that the calendar is “coming soon.”
Heavy metal giants ACCEPT have had a dynamic start to their Blind Rage tour, setting the pace for their shows around the world! The tour began on 11th September in California and the four US shows went down a storm with fans, who gave rave reviews and many special stories about their experiences with ACCEPT. Here are some comments from fans:
Jim Hauger – It was PERFECT… Their Heavy & Melodic RIFF HEAVY MONSTERS!!!!
Claudio Aguilera – Best Accept concert I’ve seen in my life. Both guitars sounding Amazing. Tornillo’s voice is Superb.
Mike McQuerter – It’s obvious you guys are not just going through the motions to earn a paycheck. The band sounds like a freight train crashing through a wall. The music is the tight and sounds dead on. I dare to say Accept is at a level it’s never been before and this is a good thing. Listening and watching Accept live really pumps you up and makes you feel alive. Well done guys.
The band have now hit Europe running, with a sell out show in Copenhagen, Denmark last night, Friday 19th September. This weekend’s shows take place in Sweden, then ACCEPT land in Finland to give four storming shows! Any Finnish fans who have not yet got a ticket need to act fast if they want to be a part of the Teutonic Terror, check here for ticket information. Support comes from Helsinki metallers BATTLE BEAST and Australian metallers DAMNATIONS DAY. The shows will take place on the following dates, with venues and locations listed:
September 24th – Rytmikotjaamo, Seinajoki
September 26th – Torunda, Tornio
September 27th – Pakkahuone, Tampere
September 28th – The Circus, Helsinki
Check out the show trailers with a message from Wolf Hoffmann and Peter Baltes below:
AMORPHIS‘ latest Finnish #1, The Beginning Of Times, has just gone gold (10,000 units) in their homeland of Finland.
Amorphis’ follow-up to The Beginning Of Times, is being produced and mixed by no less than HYPOCRISY and PAIN mastermind Peter Tägtgren.
Check out the first three video reports of a series that is emerging during the sessions, below:
Amorphis guitarist and founding member Esa Holopainen previously commented:
“We had to face the fact that if we want to develop our music and sound we need a producer who has a vision and whom we can accept as an authority, for I know that we’re not the most flexible guys when it comes to letting outsiders into our camp for telling us how to do things. We spent one evening at our management office, talking about the right producer and the recording sessions in general. As usual the best decisions are not far to seek. We’ve been talking to Peter about him producing Amorphis for ages – I think the first time we spoke about this was when we met first at the Nuclear Blast festival tour in 1994 and it was in Helsinki around a year ago when we last speculated about the idea. We’ve been following Peter’s career – he’s developed as a musician and especially as a producer over the years. Plus he’s one of the true survivors from the ’90’s death metal scene who is still around just like us, so we share kind of an “old school” mental level.”
Amorphis’ 11th studio album is planned for a March/April release via Nuclear Blast Records.
Metalshock Finland‘s Tarja Virmakari met Steve (Drennan), Marcus (Sunesson), Magnus (Klavborn) and Jimmy (Olausson) from ENGEL, backstage of Myötätuulirock festival, which took place in Finland (Vantaa, Hakunila sports ground) on August 3-4, 2012, organized by Rockfest Finland Oy.
In this exclusive interview we talked about Engel’s music, their latest album “Blood Of Saints”, the busy summer festival period, their upcoming European tour, the new video which will be released just before the tour and about many other things … well, listen to the interview below, so you know…
Interview by Tarja Virmakari
The Fan-filmed video footage from ENGEL‘s songs “Until Eternity Ends”, “Cash King”, “Frontline” and “Six Feet Deep”, on August 4 at Myötätuulirock, check out the videos below:
Photos by Tarja Virmakari
Recently ENGEL announced “Blood Of Saints Over Europe Tour”, check out the dates below:
12.09.12 Wed D München Backstage Club
13.09.12 Thu CZ Prague Club Kain
14.09.12 Fri D Annaberg-Buchholz Alte Brauerei
15.09.12 Sat NL Het Podium in Hoogeeven (new)
16.09.12 Sun CH Pratteln Galery
17.09.12 Mon D Stuttgart Club Zentral
19.09.12 Wed UK London Underworld
21.09.12 Fri D Essen Turock
22.09.12 Sat D Köln Underground
23.09.12 Sun D Berlin Crystal
25.09.12 Tue D Hamburg Marx