Metal Shock Finland has just been made aware the recent Tokyo show of legendary German metallers ACCEPT was sold out. As we heard it was a triumphant and very happy band who came off stage after a sensational 2 hour show.
Legendary guitarist Wolf Hoffmann commented:
” Man, that was a killer show – like in the old days…. exactly like then. Fans have been singing every line with us! We just could not believe it! What a night! Thank you, Tokyo!”
In 2000, the legendary Wolf Hoffman was mentioned as the 11th best guitar player in the world by Japanese Burrn magazine.
Metal Shock Finland‘s Chief Editor, Mohsen Fayyazi stated:
“I’m a little surprised about that list, well perhaps Japanese rockers think different. As I believe Wolf could be in the top 5 best guitar players in the world.”
Wave 100‘s “Maken Musiikkinurkka” conducted an interview with guitarist Wolf Hoffmann of reformed heavy metal legends ACCEPT before the band’s November 6 concert at Pakkahuone in Tampere, Finland. You can now watch the chat below.
ACCEPT‘s new album, “Stalingrad”, sold around 5,400 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 81 on The Billboard 200 chart. The band’s previous CD, “Blood Of The Nations”, opened with around 2,900 units back in September 2010 to land at No. 187.
“Stalingrad” was released on April 6 via Nuclear Blast Records. The CD was once again helmed by British producer Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, EXODUS, NEVERMORE, ARCH ENEMY), who worked on the band’s critically acclaimed comeback effort, “Blood Of The Nations”.
Metal Shrine recently conducted an interview with ACCEPT guitarist Wolf Hoffmann. Excerpts from the interview are below:
Metal Shrine: Writing music, like for this album, I saw an interview where you said you don’t write on the road. I just thought with all the down time you have when you´re on tour… is there never a time when you sit down and strum on the guitar trying to come up with stuff?
Wolf Hoffmann: “No. For me, I need to get deep into it. I don’t know. Maybe song writing is like a spiritual thing where you gotta immerse yourself into it? I need to know that I have an open calendar. Even when we´re in song writing and I know there´s an appointment at six, I hate to sit down at two o´clock and think that I only have four hours. What happens if I have the greatest idea of my life and I wanna finish it? I hate the thought of having something on my schedule that blocks it, you know. I need to have nothing else that day that I need to do. It´s weird. Another thing is that when you´re on the road you never have all your gear. I hate to do it on a little laptop with crappy guitar sound. I wanna have my shit and sit there with my stuff and get inspired.”
Metal Shrine: Are you involved in any other projects, solo stuff or otherwise?
Wolf Hoffmann: “Yeah! I made a record over 10 years ago called Classical and I´m working on a follow up album for that one. I always felt that all my rock and metal stuff ends up in Accept and I don´t really need a side project. I´m not a frustrated song writer that needs to vent his ideas, but what I love to do and have already done once, is an instrumental record. That´s really what I´d like to do. It´s a very unique challenge, it´s one thing to have song writing with vocals and lyrics. It´s actually a lot easier than instrumentals. For instrumentals you´ve got just your guitar. You don´t have the vocals to keep your attention and song writing is also very repetitive. You´ve got your first verse, chorus, second verse, chorus so you only need like two parts and you´re already three minutes into the song. Whereas in an instrumental, after 30 seconds it can be awfully boring if you don´t come up with something that is interesting so it´s a very unique challenge.”
Metal Shrine: True. I also heard that you´ve recorded stuff live. Is that for a possible live DVD?
Wolf Hoffmann: “It´s in the works, man! A lot of fans are asking for it and they feel that Accept is so strong now and they´ve seen us live. They think ‘They´re on fire! Where can I get proper recorded DVD from?’ We´ve already recorded some shows and it´s actually quite challenging. Everybody´s doing these live DVDs at festivals because that´s the easiest thing because the cameras are already there, but I´m not sure what we end up doing. I think it´s almost a discrepancy because at the live show you really have to focus on the audience at that moment and you´ve got to play the greatest hits and maybe two or three songs from the new one, where on a DVD I always wanna see more obscure songs that might not work so well at the concert while you´re there. I´m always thinking, ‘Wouldn´t it be better if we had a sort of a special occasion where we recorded some stuff that we don´t normally play live?’ I´m not sure. I haven´t debated that all the way through to the end, but I always think ‘If we just record a show, maybe that´s not enough? Maybe we should have a special event where we just set aside for filming and look at it that way.’”
Ruben Mosqueda of Oregon Music News recently conducted an interview with guitarist Wolf Hoffmann of reformed German heavy metal legends ACCEPT. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Oregon Music News: With “Stalingrad” being Mark Tornillo‘s [vocals] second record, was he more involved on the new album than the previous album?
Wolf: (pause) I’d say Mark‘s involvement was about the same; the songwriting process hasn’t changed in the band’s 30-year career. It’s Peter [Baltes, bass] and I who take one of the riffs and begin to come up with some of the raw ideas for the song. There are times that we already have some ideas for a chorus, other times we don’t. We then give what we have to Mark at a certain point and he put his own spin on it. After he gets his hands on it — sometimes it might change the direction of the song, other times it might remain close to the original idea. An example of a song that came together very quickly is “Stalingrad”, and it is very close to the original idea or concept we had in mind — that was one of the very first things we did, actually.
Oregon Music News: You retained [producer] Andy Sneap for “Stalingrad”. Things went incredibly well the last time around; it sounds like you took the “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” approach.
Wolf: Oh yeah, absolutely. We knew, “Why change it if it’s working so well?” you know? That was our thought going into the new album — whatever worked the last time, we’ll do that again. Why mess with it? I guess the way that we looked at it, we wanted it the same without it being the same. We wanted ideas that were like you heard on “Blood Of The Nations” — huge backing vocals, heavy guitar riffs, which makes the ACCEPT anthems. The hard part was the first album; we were searching for what ACCEPT would sound like today. When we found what that was we just wrote more songs. The great thing about that is that we tossed out some of the crazy ideas that did not sound like ACCEPT; those weren’t worth pursuing.
Oregon Music News: Will Wolf Hoffmann write a biography at some point? It would be a great read, I think. It could be a behind-the-scenes of the band, a love story with you and [your wife and ACCEPT‘s manager] Gaby. There’s so many angles that you could take.
Wolf: Ain’t gonna happen, man, it ain’t gonna happen! [laughs] Here’s why, because I’ve asked Gaby about it, too. She’s got the stories to tell more than I do. She’s the one pulling the strings behind the scenes and she doesn’t want to do it because it would open so many old wounds. We can’t talk about the past without hurting a few people and saying a few negative things. If you’re going to write a book, you have to tell the truth; otherwise you’d be cheating yourself and the public. If you’re telling the story how it really happened, it’s going to be painful. Right now we don’t want to go there. I think sometimes it’s better to leave things alone and just move on. Anyone that has been in the entertainment business will tell you it’s never all smooth sailing — a lot of stuff happens along the way that you’d really rather forget.
Oregon Music News: An ACCEPT documentary would be great as well.
Wolf: I don’t really know. I think I’d have to look at the format, but as I said, these things aren’t my favorite things to do. I’m not the best member of the band to ask stuff related to the band’s past. I don’t recall all the details. I don’t live in the past mentally. I am a person that feels what is done is done — I’ll put it aside and move forward. Sometimes I have a hard time recalling who produced a particular album. It’s funny, a lot of fans know all these details about the band that I can’t even recall — and I was there! [laughs] I say to them, “Oh, yeah that’s right — I almost forgot about that.”
Jason Bodak of Examiner.com recently conducted an interview with guitarist Wolf Hoffmann of German heavy metal legends ACCEPT. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Examiner.com: ?Now that you got your “comeback” album out of the way with “Blood Of The Nations”, and now that vocalist Mark Tornillo has been overwhelmingly welcomed to the fold by fans and critics alike, was it a much more pleasant experience recording the follow-up album, “Stalingrad”?
Wolf: Well, yes and no. “Blood Of The Nations” has been a total freefall for all of us as we just opened up and let it out. [ACCEPT bassist] Peter [Baltes] and I have been writing songs together since we were 16 years old. “Blood Of The Nations” surprised us as much as the fans. After being not in the business for so long, we did not even know if that what came out was “it.” Our producer, Andy Sneap, was as much a miracle as us running into Mark Tornillo, when none of us had plans to revive the band again. Two world tours later, the next round was foreboding… lots of pressure. But because we wrote the album in such a short time after the first, it seemed as we just continued where we left [off]. I am probably the biggest “problem” in all of that, as I am a perfectionist and a never-ending critic of myself. So, perhaps we were not that “innocent” the second time around, as we wanted to please our fans. The verdict is out: we got that covered.
Examiner.com: ?Working with producer Andy Sneap has now yielded two exceptional albums. What is it about working with him that brings out the best in you?
Wolf: Maybe that he grew up with ACCEPT as one of his most influential bands. We believe that he brought us back to us, the way we were… and besides many other outstanding talents he has, this was perhaps the key moment in all of this.
Examiner.com: You’ve written many, many great songs with former vocalist Udo Dirkschneider, and now you are writing great songs with Tornillo. Has the songwriting process changed at all, having a new vocalist, or is there a set methodology for creating a new ACCEPT album?
Wolf: You know, we do not talk about Udo at all. Never. He left the band 25 years ago. People forget that sometimes. He has painted a picture about his role in ACCEPT and we are so very disconnected from the past that we would have a hard time to go back to define his role. One thing I can say for sure: his reality has never been ours. We hope he is doing what he loves to do… really! Mark presented us with a special situation. It is not the question about who is a better singer. The question is: what does the singer inspire the songwriters to do, how far can they go in the moment they are at that minute? I like to compare the relation between a singer and a band to a marriage. Not everybody in a marriage is bringing the best out in the other. That has nothing to do with good or bad, just with what do they inspire and positively bring out in each other. Peter and I are joined at the hips at songwriting — always have been. For us the process has never changed, but the possibilities have, big time! People are different and different experiences make you do different things. Mark is as he is now and we are as we are now: a match made in heaven. We never felt we have to prove anything beyond the songs we are writing and performing. And with great humility. I tend to believe the fans got that. We are who we are and we write songs and perform always with one thought in mind: this is the moment where you get the best we have. You judge if that is what you have been looking for. Seems to me… after a little over 30 months from the very first show we did, the fans said and say yes!
Examiner.com: With your new lineup, do you feel you could go in certain musical directions that you couldn’t before?
Wolf: We know now only one direction works for us; the time of searching is long gone. But then you never know… I am pretty sure we are where we want to be and when that is the case, I believe, you do not search for something else. I guess we’re busy to better ourselves and therefore we automatically step into new waters. You get cocky when something works well. We can do that freely, as we have Andy who will rein us in when needed!
ACCEPT guitarist Wolf Hoffmann will chat live with host Bill Peters on tonight’s WJCU “Metal On Metal” show at 7:00 p.m. EST. Hoffmann will discuss the band’s forthcoming co-headlining North American tour with KREATOR.
You can listen to the show, now in its 30th year, live at 88.7 FM in the Cleveland, Ohio area or stream it live worldwide at www.wjcu.org.
KREATOR and ACCEPT will join forces for the North American “Teutonic Terror Attack” tour in September/October. Opening the trek through the U.S. and Canada will be Finland’s SWALLOW THE SUN.
ACCEPT‘s new album, “Stalingrad”, sold around 5,400 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 81 on The Billboard 200 chart. The band’s previous CD, “Blood Of The Nations”, opened with around 2,900 units back in September 2010 to land at No. 187.
“Stalingrad” was released on April 6 via Nuclear Blast Records. The CD was once again helmed by British producer Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, EXODUS, NEVERMORE, ARCH ENEMY), who worked on the band’s critically acclaimed comeback effort, “Blood Of The Nations”.
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Metal Shock Finland has just been made aware the recent Tokyo show of legendary German metallers ACCEPT was sold out. As we heard it was a triumphant and very happy band who came off stage after a sensational 2 hour show.
Click image to watch the video
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 