Accept – Wolf Hoffman
Greg: Now if I read this right, when you originally went into the studio with Peter and Andy, you had a bunch of material that you planned on recording. And then Andy sat down with you, had you listen to your entire catalog, to hone in on what makes ACCEPT, ACCEPT. And after that, you scrapped much of the material you planned on recording. Can you talk a bit about that?
Wolf: Yeah, it’s totally true. He came to Nashville and we played him about a handful of songs that we had written, and he said, “Yeah… I like this a little bit and that a little bit. But why don’t we all sit down and listen to Breaker and Restless and Wild because that’s the stuff that made you guys famous.” And we thought, “Well, OK, what about it?”
As a musician you don’t really know what (makes you) you. You kind of have a feeling, but that might be wrong. Yeah, so we did that. We listened to all the songs and he pointed out all the transitions, quirky little unique details and nuances that we had almost forgotten about. And once we knew what those were it was pretty easy from there on forward to write stuff in that genre. I mean, it was all in the same genre any how, but it made it easier to write that sort of stuff again.
Greg: And by this time, you had already hooked up with Mark? I’m just trying to make sure I have the timeline correct in my head?
Wolf: Yeah, yeah. That is correct.
Greg: So was this album written with Mark? Or was it a matter of you and Peter doing your thing first, because you two guys are ACCEPT? How does that work?
Wolf: Peter and I always wrote the music. We always came up with the riffs and the grooves and the choruses. Then we sent all that stuff to Mark and he wrote the lyrics. And Herman (Frank) contributed a song over in Germany. But Peter and I have always been the ones, sort of the songwriting buddies, if you want, back in the day of “Restless and Wild” and “Princess of the Dawn”.
Greg: So back in the old days, Gaby (Hauke, aka Deaffy) use to help with the lyrics. But now that you have a singer, whose primary language is English, he’s writing all the lyrics?
Wolf: That’s correct. Because he felt, and we all agreed, that it’s time to give this new member a chance to express himself. Because A) a singer would probably sing better if he can express his own thoughts, in his own words. And B) he’s a native speaker. It’s his own language. It’s only fair to give him a chance. With Udo, we almost had to, because he didn’t really speak English and couldn’t write lyrics.
Greg: So I’m curious about a few things. In another interview, Peter called Andy Sneap, the 5th or 6th member of the band. Does that mean that you intend to work with him on future albums, and that there will in fact be future ACCEPT albums?
Wolf: All of the above. Yes, we want to continue forever and ever. Yes, we would love working with him again, if he will have us. It was really like another band member I’d say. He actually joined us on stage in London to play “Balls to the Wall” with us.
Greg: Yeah… I read about that. That’s very cool.
Wolf: Yeah, it was awesome. How many producers are doing that? None of the ones we had before did that or could do that.
Greg: So once you guys decided that you’re resurrecting the band, was it a no-brainer to reach out to Herman and Stefan (Schwarzmann)?
