ACCEPT's MARK TORNILLO Says Fans Can Expect 'A Little More Diversity' On 'Blind Rage'

Metal Wani editor in chief Owais "Vitek" Nabi recently conducted an interview with ACCEPT singer Mark Tornillo. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the songwriting process in ACCEPT:

Tornillo: "There's a few different ways that we do things. As far as lyrics go, sometimes I'll just come up with an idea, and I'll write down these ideas and I'll send Peter [Baltes, bass] and Wolf [Hoffmann, guitar] a list of ideas, songtitles perhaps. If something strikes their fancy, they'll pull out one off the list and start working on it. Other times they'll write a song and they'll put their own title to it and send it to me and see what I think about it. And normally, depending on where the vibe of the song is going and what the working title is, I'll see if it fits and I'll try to gather something about that. Now, in other cases, sometimes Gaby [Hoffmann, Wolf's wife and ACCEPT's longtime manager] has an idea; she's still active in this. But she kind of hands it off to me now. She'll have an idea for a song and they'll have music written for it and hand it off to me, and she tells me the gist of the song and I'll write the lyrics."

On the vibe in ACCEPT during the songwriting process for the band's upcoming album, "Blind Rage", compared to how it was for its two predecessors, 2010's "Blood Of The Nations" and 2012's "Stalingrad":

Tornillo: "The vibe is good. We're, I think, more relaxed at this point. 'Blood Of The Nations' was… We really had no idea where we were going at that point; we didn't even have a record deal when we wrote that record. We had no idea what was gonna happen and where it was gonna go, and we had a lot of time to do it. And then the response came, and we set the bar pretty darn high with that record. And then when we went back to do 'Stalingrad', we didn't have that luxury of time; they gave us a deadline, that they wanted the record by such and such a time, and it was a little more hectic. There was a lot more pressure than [there was on 'Blood Of The Nations']. Plus we had 'Blood Of The Nations' out there, and we had to try to top it, if possible, or at least try to get to where that record was. This one, we've had a little more time. This past year, all we did was festivals, which was nice, which gave us time to write on the road. And when we were done touring, we had a good three or four months to complete everything, which is a nice time frame."

On what fans can expect to hear on "Blind Rage":

Tornillo: "You can expect more of the same, but you can also expect, on this album, a little more diversity, I think. And the way I see it, some of the songs sound more classic than the stuff that we've done. I mean, there are songs, I think, when I hear the opening riff, I go, 'Wow! That could be on 'Balls To The Wall'.' So you're gonna get a few different… I mean, we're not searching for a direction at this point. We're writing to please ourselves and to please our fans… We're not changing horses in the middle of a stream. I mean, if something works for us, we're gonna stick with it. We're certainly not gonna change direction, but I think we're not afraid to step out a little bit. We're also not afraid to go back and be what the band was in the '80s, which is what we've really strived for."

"Blind Rage" will be released on July 18 via Nuclear Blast. Like "Blood Of The Nations" and 2012's "Stalingrad", the new CD was helmed by British producer Andy Sneap, who has previously worked with MEGADETH, EXODUS, TESTAMENT, ARCH ENEMY and KILLSWITCH ENGAGE. The cover artwork was created by Daniel Goldsworthy and can be seen below.