ACCEPT's WOLF HOFFMANN 'Can't Wait' To Play More Shows With A Symphony Orchestra

Josh Rundquist of That Drummer Guy recently conducted an interview with ACCEPT guitarist Wolf Hoffmann about the band's new live album, "Symphonic Terror - Live At Wacken 17". You can listen to the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On where the idea to release a new alive album came from:

Wolf: "We did the show at Wacken and we knew they were going to be filming. Once we saw the footage, we thought, 'Man, this worked so well and it was such a beautiful show, we have to release this.' Because not everybody, obviously, could be there for that show live in person. If you saw it streaming around the world, which a lot of people did — I heard about a million spectators online — but even those people wanted to see it again and have something they could watch in their home later on. So we decided to go through the footage and re-edit and make sure proper audio and visual quality and release it as a DVD."

On the actual Wacken show itself:

Wolf: "It was one of the craziest shows we've ever played. Good crazy. It worked really smooth, just having three parts like that during the set was totally unusual for us. Starting with our new songs from 'The Rise Of Chaos', then doing the changeover and having the orchestra revealed, then playing instrumental songs, the last hour, never-heard-before classic ACCEPT songs with orchestrations. A three-part show like that was quite challenging and was fun as hell."

On being able to enjoy the pairing of ACCEPT with an orchestra:

Wolf: "To me, I've always been somebody who likes the nuances of playing metal. I've never been into something that's like one-hundred percent all the time. To me, it's all about ups and downs — you know, quieter parts, then full blast again — so, with an orchestra, it makes you do that really well because you get all the dynamics that an orchestra can arrange. That to me, is the most fun is when you can actually work on those nuances and have all the variety and basically a toolkit."

On reviewing the footage of ACCEPT performing with an orchestra:

Wolf: "It was unreal in a way. Like I said, it was the first time ever we have done it. Now that we have done it once, we want to do more of it. We're actually talking about booking shows for next spring again with an orchestra. We're playing shows all over Europe. It's not exactly the same show, but it's kind of similar where it's ACCEPT and songs from my 'Headbanger's Symphony' solo album. We're going to bring a different version of that same show around the world. It's going to be in indoor venues and nicer venues than your typical rock shows, like your typical rock clubs. It will be nice theaters and symphony halls and those type of venues. Some of them are historical places that a rock or metal show would never be at. That will be interesting for the fans to see. A lot of fans like metal and they've seen a lot of metal shows over the years so it's always fun to see something different whether it's a different venue or sound, or both, or something you never get to see again. That's what that concert tour is going to be next year. It's going to have a more of a 'concert' feeling than a metal show. I can't wait to do that and play some more shows like that. Also, when we do these shows next year, we're actually going to have a little more time to play other material that we didn't get to play at Wacken. Let's say Wacken is a metal festival with sort of a party crowd there, so you can't really play all the songs like the slower ballad-y type of stuff that you might want to do. It's better not to do those at a festival like Wacken where everyone is in a party mood. If we do our own headlining shows in these concert shows, then we get to play a different setlist as well. We'll see how far we can take this. We'll always going to stay a metal band and do our metal tours and we're actually working on another studio album before too long, too. This is really a change of pace for everybody. We really enjoy it. It's always been one of my lifelong dreams to do a show like that, a show with a symphony orchestra. Now I've done it and now I want to do more."

"Symphonic Terror - Live At Wacken 2017" was released November 23 via Nuclear Blast.

ACCEPT's founding bassist Peter Baltes recently announced his departure from the band. A replacement bassist has not yet been announced.