WOLF HOFFMANN Says ACCEPT Will Never Experiment With Musical Directions Again

Patrick Prince of Powerline recently conducted an interview with guitarist Wolf Hoffmann of reformed heavy metal legends ACCEPT. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Powerline: As far as ["Stalingrad"] being the second album with [ACCEPT singer] Mark Tornillo, do you find things getting a lot easier?

Hoffmann: About the same, to be honest. I mean, the main challenge is always to come up with the music and some sort of title idea or hook line idea that's really catchy and really grabs you. And once that is done … that, to me, is always the hardest part, and obviously somebody's got to write the lyrics for the verses and stuff. That's really, in my mind, not that big of a deal but that can be difficult as well, you know. But, anyhow, we leave that to Mark nowadays.

Powerline: Isn't it amazing how Mark has just fit right in?

Hoffmann: It is totally amazing. And it is even more amazing how people sort of embraced him.

Powerline: Well, metalheads did know about him and he did have his fan base with TT QUICK. He's a decent guy, a good singer and he slips right in that ACCEPT mode.

Hoffmann: Yeah, he was sort of known in the U.S. in some circles and stuff but, you know, when you go to Russia or Europe, people have never heard of him. So it really comes down to how he can he deliver the stuff onstage and how does he come across on the album — and people love it.

Powerline: Were you surprised at the immediate reaction of the new album?

Hoffmann: I'm pleasantly surprised. A lot of people say this is as good or maybe even better than "Blood Of The Nations", which is a small miracle to me because "Blood Of The Nations" has been so well received that we wondering how we could possibly come up with something that's even on par with it. It could have been, hell, we were just lucky or just at the right time and at the right place or whatever. You are always afraid that you can't top it or come up with something as good but I guess apparently we did.

Powerline: It is as good, if not better. You've got into a groove here where you have a take-no-prisoners attitude.

Hoffmann: This is our time. This is our moment. We shouldn't think about it too much and just let it rip, you know. That's what the attitude was when we started to write this stuff. We said, "Let's not think about it too much. Let's not change anything. Let's just keep on doing what we're doing." It worked well last time so why change a winning formula. Let's do another album that's similar but not too similar. More songs along the same lines and let's use the same producer.

Powerline: You always wonder when a band comes out with a new album that they will experiment and change directions.

Hoffmann: No, I don't think we are going to make that mistake ever again in our lives. We've been there done that, [where we] tried to change directions. Life is too short and we just want to do what we want and have fun. We kind of know where we fit in now. And it's a lot easier to say that now than it was back then. Because now we have this long history and we know exactly what fans love about ACCEPT. It would be foolish to try anything radical nowadays. We know where we stand and where we belong.

Read the entire interview from Powerline.

Multi-camera footage of ACCEPT's April 14, 2012 performance in Geiselwind, Germany: