ACCEPT Guitarist: 'It's Hard To Get Sick Of Something When Everyone Else Loves It So Much'

Ryan Ogle of Hails & Horns recently conducted an interview with guitarist Wolf Hoffmann of reformed heavy metal legends ACCEPT. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Hails & Horns: ACCEPT, to me, has always been about energy. You were one of those bands that genuinely got my blood pumping back in the day and I thought "Blood Of The Nations" recaptured that feeling perfectly. When you went into this, was there any concern that you wouldn't be able to recreate that magic?

Wolf: Not really, but at the same time, now that I look back on it, we had announced to the world that we were coming back and hadn't even written a single song yet. We really had no idea if we could still do it, we just thought, "Yeah, we can do it. Of course we can do it!" It was actually pretty gutsy. At that point, all we had done was say, "Okay world, we're a band again, this is Mark [Tornillo] and he's our new singer. We're gonna make a new record." Bam! Then we had to sit down with ourselves and say, "Oh shit. We really have to do this now. How do we do it?" We started writing and luckily it all worked just fine.

Hails & Horns: You brought Andy Sneap into the studio with you to produce the album. How was your experience with him?

Wolf: That's another interesting story; one of life's great coincidences. We just happened to meet because of a mutual friend. He had heard that we were planning another record so he approached us about working on it. You've got to understand that I've been away from the music scene for quite awhile, so I didn't even know who Andy Sneap was, to be quite honest. After speaking with him, I checked out some of his stuff and it was really impressive. To imagine that he's been an ACCEPT fan since his teenage years is quite amazing. He really wanted to work with us on this album. He came over and we hit it off right away. We loved his suggestions and how seriously he took this album. We knew right away that he was the perfect man for the job. It really felt like he was one of us. He wasn't your typical producer. There's usually some sort of separation in authority, age or whatever, but in this case he was just one of the guys.

Hails & Horns: It's easy to tell that he approached the record from a fan's point of view. I thought he did a great job of capturing that classic ACCEPT sound.

Wolf: It was pretty weird really. There were so many things that he loved about ACCEPT that we weren't even aware of. He literally had to sit us down and make us listen to our old records. We did this together and it was an eye-opening experience. Ear-opening, I should say. There really were a lot of little nuances and minor details that we had forgotten about over the years because we never really listened to our own records. Once it's done, I never go back and listen to my own stuff, to be honest with you. Andy knew about those things and pointed them out. Once we were all on the same page, the whole thing was just outstanding.

Hails & Horns: Songs like "Balls To The Wall" and "Restless And Wild" have become a part of pop culture. Do you ever get sick of playing them?

Wolf: No, not at all because when the audience is into it, you get so much back. It's like an old cliché, but it's really true. It's hard to get sick of something when everyone else loves it so much. When you start crankin' that riff and the crowd goes nuts, what's not to like about it?

Read the entire interview from Hails & Horns.

(Thanks: NJthrasher)