ACCEPT‘s ‘Pandamic‘ official video clip reached more than 3 Million views on YouTube, which seems to be one good side effect of COVID 19 pandemic . The band has posted the following statement:
“We all hope that our fans across the world remain safe and healthy wherever they live or work! We all must band together to defeat this nasty virus!!! You are not alone – the ACCEPT Family will STAND TOGETHER and we shall all continue to help and support each other! We will stay connected … today and tomorrow and forever! The sad reality today: This is A PANDEMIC – but, when we wrote this song ten years ago, we were pushing the idea that it is THE LOVE FOR HEAVY METAL that is spreading like a disease; this is true for the past, the present and the future. Today we believe that when you are head banging’ to our song … that song is a Heavy Metal DISEASE, one that will make your day brighter and help you through this “other” disease!😊
Let’s unite virtually in metal, stand together STRONG. Please obey social distancing! #stayhome”
Take good care of yourself and your family! Stay safe! With eternal love,
ACCEPT ❤️”
Teutonic metal gods, ACCEPT released this song through their epic return album,”Blood of the Nations“, which was released on 20 August 2010 via Nuclear Blast. The album was a successful release for the band, which hit the charts on many country like USA, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Japan and Austria. It was also the first album to feature the amazing vocalist Mark Tornillo, who replaced Udo Dirkschneider successfully for the fans.
Metal giants ACCEPT have been pounding the ear drums of metalheads around Europe on “The Rise Of Chaos” tour since early January. Metal Shock Finland’s Alison Booth had a chat with vocalist Mark Tornillo when ACCEPT were in Paris, for her Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem radio show, (which can be heard here) just before the band’s explosive and packed out show in London. Many topics were covered including the fans, Mark‘s love of vinyl and his thoughts on joining such an iconic metal band – you can read a few excerpts below and listen to the full interview on the audio player:
On playing the UK Mark stated:
“I wish we were dong more shows. At the end of the day, it’s not really up to us – it’s up to the promoters and powers that be and we’ll have to see what happens. But at least we’ve got one.”
When asked if there could be a more widespread UK tour, Mark answered:
“I hope so, I wouldn’t doubt it. I mean things really seem to be progressing, so we’re gonna be doing a lot of festivals this summer too. Hopefully we’ll be there for one of those, well you never know.”
Talking about ACCEPT fans:
“Makes me feel great, it makes me feel great that they accepted me into the Accept family, no pun intended! It’s been wow man, going on ten years for me now which is just insane. We just had an incredible run through Spain, three shows in Spain and they were just ridiculous – off the hook, you can’t even imagine! The fans are what make it happen definitely.”
Mark Tornillo London 2018 Photo By John Lambton
One of the newest songs ‘Analog Man’, from “The Rise Of Chaos” is about Mark, so of course I asked him about it:
“I’m just one of those people who has issues with computers and all of that nonsense. I’m not totally crippled but just not computer savvy, put it that way. I get what I have to get done and that’s about it. But in the end it just annoys me, you know when things don’t work and things I can’t figure out. And I just get annoyed and I also look at them and I go look, see me – analog, analog man! You can have your digital work, analog man!’ And they just wrote the damn song!”
Moving on to vinyl, Mark expressed:
“I had a lot of vinyl at one time. I still have some of it, but over the years from moving, you know, living with different people and stuff, I guess a lot of it just went different places, but I still have a lot of my favourite records. AC/DC – I have the entire box set, I think the latest one in that was The Razors Edge maybe. I got them all on vinyl, I’m an AC/DC nut.”
Discussing when he joined ACCEPT, Mark revealed:
“It was frightening. When we first announced what was going to happen, there was really not many people on board with it. Online there was a lot of naysayers, a lot of badmouthing, it was very disheartening. We all sat down and said, ‘look, we have to make an amazing record or else we’re gonna die here’ and that’s what we did. We spent a lot of time writing Blood Of The Nations and a lot of time recording it and I think in retrospect, it paid off. If that album wasn’t what it was, we wouldn’t be here.”
On people who still don’t ‘accept’ today’s ACCEPT:
“Everybody is entitled to their opinion – I’m a purist too with certain things, I get it. But I think we’ve moved on, we’re a different band at this point. We still pay tribute to the old Accept by playing the old songs, I mean we have the two people that wrote most of the songs, we have to. That’s always gonna be part of Accept’s history, we can’t change it. All we can change is the future.
I wish them all well, I wish Udo well and his band you know. No hard feelings on my part, that’s for sure.”
Discussing the future for ACCEPT, Mark said:
“That’s a good question – it’s still up in the air what’s gonna happen the rest of the year after the festivals. We may continue touring all year, I really don’t know. After that, it remains to be seen, maybe do another record, I don’t know. We’re too old to take five years off (laughs). At some point we’re gonna have to call it quits or just go right back to the studio. It is what it is, or just continue touring.
We do as much as we can, but you can’t oversaturate either. You just have to pray for new markets too and thank God for South America – that’s become a great market for us, actually we’re gonna go back in May. Australia seems to be picking up for us, we just have to be consistent. It’s just like the old days, you have to tour consistently and hit those places and keep pounding ’em, that’s how you pick up fans.”
Check out the picture gallery from the London show on 8th February. All photos by John Lambton.
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For the rest of the tour dates, visit the official ACCEPT website at this location.
In 2009 brothers and Internet radio DJs Turbo and Jay Scorpion(both of whom have Spinal Muscular Atrophy) decided to take their love of rock and metal music, support from the rock and metal community, and desire to find a cure for Muscular Dystrophy and turned it into Rock Against Dystrophy.
The purpose of Rock Against Dystrophy is raise to money and awareness about Muscular Dystrophy by holding benefit concerts featuring local area rock and metal bands and the occasional rock and metal star in the New York and New Jersey area with proceeds going to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
In 2013 Rock Against Dystrophy held its first ever All Star show at Crossroads and then at Dingbatz last year. The support from the rock and metal community for RAD continues to grow and 2016 has the show moving again.
On Sunday, August 21st 2016 the Rock Against Dystrophy All Star Edition 2016 benefit concert will be at The Headliner in Neptune, New Jersey. The show will have TattooTony return to MC the event. The benefit will feature performances by High Octane, Broken Past, New Day Dawn, a special set from New Jersey’s metal legends T.T. Quick and will wrap up with a performance from the RAD All Stars.
Returning to lead the RAD All Stars are Mark Tornillo (T.T. Quick / Accept) and Bobby Blitz (Overkill) and joining them are Chris Caffery (Savatage / Trans Siberian Orchestra), David DiPetro (T.T. Quick), Bob Pantella (Monster Magnet / The Atomic Bitchwax), Danny Watts (BulletBoys), Kenny Dubman and Scott Metaxas (Prophet) with more still to be announced.
Last year when metal giants ACCEPT were in Finland as part of their “Blind Rage” world tour, vocalist Mark Tornillo had an interview with Metal God Rob Halford from JUDAS PRIEST.
The interview has just been released via the official ACCEPT website here and you can check it out below:
With kind permission by Jayne Andrews, Holger Stratmann and Thomas Kupfer.
Before ACCEPT embark on the next chapter of the band, writing new material, the band accepted invites to play two special US shows. On March 3rd, ACCEPT are heading to Sioux Falls to play at Badlands then make their way to The Arcada Theatre in St Charles, Illinois on March 5th!
“After touring so much, we thought it would be great to have a long break to write songs,” commented guitarist and main songwriter Wolf Hoffman. “But than – we changed our minds and thought – it would be great to do a few shows – just to stay sharp and keep up with the cool dynamics between us! May be – we just need to get hot and sweaty on stage again. See ya all very soon!”
Upon the completion of the US dates, ACCEPT will cross the Atlantic to play in Austria then make their way to South America where they will play in Argentina followed by five dates in Brazil! Don’t miss your chance to watch Accept live in all their glory.
Confirmed dates for the ACCEPT 2016 Blind Rage Tour are:
3/3/2016 Badlands – Sioux Falls, SD USA
3/5/2016 The Arcada Theatre – St. Charles, IL USA
4/2/2016 Full Metal Mountain – Hermagor-Presseggr See, Austria
4/6/2016 Teatro Vorterix – Buenos Aires, Argentina
4/8/2016 Carioca Club – Sao Paulo, Brazil
4/9/2016 Imperator – Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
4/10/2016 Music Hall – Belo Horizonte, Brazil
4/12/2016 Teatro Manauara – Manaus, Brazil
4/14/2016 Opera de Arame – Curitiba, Brazil
Metal legends ACCEPT have posted via their official website that vocalist Mark Tornillo and guitarist Wolf Hoffmann will be appearing live in the studio on Sirius XM’s Trunk Nation. The band stated:
“BLIND RAGE will be released in the USA on Tuesday! Mark Tornillo will be live in the studio with Eddie Trunk tomorrow night (Monday) on Sirius XM’s Trunk Nation at 9pm. Wolf Hoffmann will be calling in to the show! Besides talking about BLIND RAGE Mark will also talk about the upcoming Gramercy NY show on September 15th.”
“Blind Rage”,released in Europe on 15th August was produced by Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, EXODUS, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH). The cover artwork was designed by Daniel Goldsworthy (HELL).
The tracklist of the standard version is as follows:
01. Stampede
02. Dying Breed
03. Dark Side Of My Heart
04. Fall Of The Empire
05. Trail Of Tears
06. Wanna Be Free
07. 200 Years
08. Bloodbath Mastermind
09. From The Ashes We Rise
10. The Curse
11. Final Journey
There will also be a limited edition Digipak including either bonus DVD, or Blu-ray disc. It features a complete ACCEPT live show, recorded in Chile 2013 during the “Stalingrad” tour.
The tracklist looks like this:
01. Intro
02. Hung, Drawn & Quartered
03. Hellfire
04. Restless & Wild
05. Losers & Winners
06. Stalingrad
07. Breaker
08. Bucket Full Of Hate
09. Monsterman
10. Shadow Soldier
11. Amamos La Vida
12. Guitar Solo Wolf
13. Neon Nights
14. Bulletproof
15. Aiming High
16. Princess Of The Dawn
17. Up To The Limit
18. No Shelter
19. Pandemic
20. Fast As A Shark
21. Metal Heart
22. Teutonic Terror
23. Balls To The Wall
ACCEPT is one of the most influential bands from the German heavy metal scene. Their mark on the industry is remarkable, like a shining star in the dark sky of the night. Like the other band they have had their up and down moments, but May 2009 was absolutely different. It was a highlight in their career when they rose to ” Make the ‘Metal Heart’ beat again.“
The new line up announcement was not a shock though, as everybody was expecting a change in the front man section. But Mark Tornillo was not a very well known name in the industry. The fans and critics who didn’t know Mark, started tracking his work in TT QUICK to find some clues to how ACCEPT ‘s new music would be. “Blood Of The Nations” ended all the speculation and rumours in August 2010. Mark ‘s performance was such a great one that most people didn’t feel the lack of the legendary Udo Dirkschneider, some fans and critics stated “It’s even better …”
Mark Tornillo proved to the metal universe that he deserves to front the mighty ACCEPT, who are back to remind us that the ‘Metal Heart’ is unstoppable eternally.
Metal Shock Finland appreciate what Mark and ACCEPT did and do in the heavy metal industry, so here our Birthday messages to Mark and it’s the least we could do.
Chief Editor Mohsen Fayyazi:
“I cannot imagine the Heavy Metal world without ACCEPT, nor ACCEPT without Mark now! You whispered life into our metal hearts again, Bravo Mark! Happy Birthday to you and I wish you all the best and METAL from the bottom of my heart. Cheers!!!“
Senior Manager Ali Blackdiamond:
“ACCEPT will always have a special place in my heart, they are one of my all time favourite bands. The new era with Mark as vocalist is a very exciting one and they thoroughly deserve their esteemed position in metal history. I can’t wait for “Blind Rage” and would like to wish Mark a very Happy Metal Birthday with many more to come! Cheers and best wishes. 🙂 ”
Teresa Hopkins:
“Mark Tornillo was vital to one of the most serendipitous moments in Metal history: the rebirth of ACCEPT! But it was more than just a band reforming and making new albums. ACCEPT was the true Phoenix, rising from the ashes of what we thought would be no more, to burn brighter and stronger than ever. I am truly happy for him, the band, and the fans–we have the privilege of enjoying some of the best music around and once again they are living the dream. Mark is one of the nicest, coolest, most humble guys around–he’s the real deal and I can’t think of anyone more worthy of celebration today. A very happy 60th Birthday is wished for Mark Tornillo–and every blessing hereafter!”
The tracklist of the standard version is as follows:
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 