Interviews : Accept (Wolf Hoffman) – 09/12/2010

Highly influential German heavy-metal powerhouse Accept returned to stages last year after a 15 year hiatus and released a brand new studio album entitled Blood Of The Nations with new vocallist Mark Tornillo. With roots dating back to 1968 Accept have released 12 studio studio albums and are credited for setting the grounds for Speed Metal with their famous 1982 release Restless and Wild. One thing they haven’t ever done (surprisingly) is an interview with Australia, we are bringing you the first. Read on as we catch up with Guitarist Wolf Hoffman as he talks Accept and the possibility of their first ever Australian tour.

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Metal Obsession: Hey Wolf, this is Jake from Metal Obsession – how are you today?

Wolf Hoffman: I’m doing well man, you really sound like an Australian!

MO: Well you know, I am one! Accept were actually the first heavy metal band I ever listened to, so it is with great pleasure that I’m talking to you now.

WH: Wow, that’s great man. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone tell me that before.

MO: Yeah, dad played me Fast as a Shark when I was four years old and I think I nearly shit my pants.

WH: Excellent, that’s the  effect we wanted to have. Scaring the shit out of four year-olds.

MO: Well it’s great to have you guys back making music – I was three years old when Predator came out! Blood of the Nations is a great record, you happy with the way it turned out?

WH: It feels great to be back. Absolutely we are happy with the new record, I think it’s one of the few records that we are all very happy with the result. When you write a song you envision it to come out a certain way and often it comes out quite different when it is eventually released. However, in this case it was everything I had hoped for and more, especially with Mark [Tornillo] on vocals.

MO: Excellent. How is Mark fitting in with the band? He’s definitely got a powerful voice on him!

WH: I know, it’s perfect! And personality-wise he’s great too, gets on with all our members.

MO: Being the first album since 1996, it’s also first album that more people are probably going to download than buy – is this something that upsets you?

WH: Yeah a little, but luckily most metal fans are the sort of people who will still go out and physically buy a record. They aren’t as much the downloading type as hip-hop people.

MO: Yeah that makes sense too, who would pay for hip-hop?

WH: [Laughs] Not me.

MO: Me either! Do you think you guys are back for good now?

WH:Oh heck yeah, we aren’t just doing this for a one-time deal. We’ve really missed making music all these years, we just didn’t find the right form to do it- obviously we didn’t have a singer. Now that we do, we’re back and we’re back for good.

MO: What has been your favourite show since reforming?

WH: One of the favourites would have been supporting your fellow Australians AC/DC in Germany. We played with them to about 80,000 people two nights in a row. It was a huge night for us, we have always been long-time fans of AC/DC and playing with them was a big honour.

MO: Gaby [Hoffman’s wife/manager] was saying that you hadn’t done any interviews with Australia before! You guys have a lot of fans down here.

WH: Really? Nobody tells me these things. We still haven’t been to Australia, so to know that we have fans down there is refreshing.

MO: Would there be a possibility of seeing you guys make the journey down here? You’d make a lot of people happy!

WH: Absolutely! We’re actually working on it at the moment. I’m not sure if anything is confirmed yet but apparently it’s looking really good.

MO: What would be your all-time favourite Accept tune?

WH: I think as a guitarist Fast as a Shark is my favourite. It’s technically challenging and a blast to play, it also has a lot of meaning in the history of our band with it basically starting speed metal and all that.

MO: The Teutonic Terror video turned out great, did you enjoy making it?

WH: Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun. We have been lucky enough  to meet some wonderful people that are really on top of their game and willing to help us out. One of those people was the guy who produced our video, I met him online a few years ago. He would always say ‘If you ever want to produce a video, I have great connections here in Hollywood and Los Angeles’ and that’s exactly what we did. I told him about the new record and he came up with the video concept and made it all happen, it was amazing!

MO: That’s great. Who would you rate as some good newer metal bands?

WH: To be honest mate, I don’t really know. I’m too old-school and old fashion, I don’t even really follow any newer bands. It’s probably a lame answer, but it’s the truth.

MO: Fair enough. You’re a professional photographer in your spare time Wolf?

WH: That’s right. I’ve been a photographer for the last decade and a half since Accept was no longer active. I didn’t want to play music on a lower scale than Accept, so I took up Photography because it was another passion of mine and it was nice doing something completely different. Music has always been number one though and I am so happy to be playing again.

MO: I can imagine you have a pretty large archive of Accept photos…

WH: Oh heck yes man, it’s huge. The problem is I’m not in any of the photos…obviously [laughs.]

MO: Could you see another Accept album on the horizon?

WH: Very soon actually, we want to start writing soon. We think we’re going to follow a similar path to Blood Of The Nation, the album worked so well and I feel I love the new band sound.

MO: Thanks for our time wolf, hope to see you in Australia sometime soon!

WH Me too! It’s summer over there at the moment isn’t it?

MO: Certainly is mate, and pissing down with rain!

WH: Ahh that’s not right. Well I was going to say see you next summer, but it would be your winter I now realise.

MO: Wolf, I’ll come and see Accept in a hailstorm if I have to. Have a great Christmas mate.

WH: You too, hopefully see you soon.