U.D.O. To Release New Album In August

Former ACCEPT singer Udo Dirkschneider was interviewed on the latest episode of the "Talking Metal" podcast. He was joined during the chat by his U.D.O. and DIRKSCHNEIDER bandmates Sven Dirkschneider (drums) and Fitty Wienhold (bass). You can now listen to the interview using the Spreaker widget below.

Dirkschneider has spent the last two years touring under the DIRKSCHNEIDER banner, performing classic ACCEPT songs for the last time. The trek, which was originally supposed to conclude with the band's North American run in January/February 2017, has now been extended through the fall of 2018.

Asked if he pays attention to what the current ACCEPT lineup is doing, Udo said: "They're doing also, let's say, not bad. People are asking me, 'What do you think about the singer?' I mean, Mark [Tornillo, current ACCEPT frontman] is doing a good job. I think he's got some problems when he has to do all this ACCEPT classic stuff; it's not so easy for him. But they do their thing, and we are doing our thing. And that's it. But it's also a reason why I did this DIRKSCHNEIDER thing. I was a little bit tired of all this complaining — who's playing the songs better, ACCEPT or Udo? Now that's it. And for us, [after we are done touring with DIRKSCHNEIDER] then we'll keep going on with U.D.O."

Udo also offered an update on U.D.O., which released its last studio LP, "Decadent", in 2015. He said: "We just finished recording for a new album. We just started mixing. And the album is coming out at the end of August in Europe, I think maybe in September in the U.S. And then we stop [touring] with DIRKSCHNEIDER the middle of October is the last show. And then after the last show with DIRKSCHNEIDER, we start rehearsing for a U.D.O. tour, and then we start touring in November, I think, in Russia — we start touring with U.D.O."

In addition to Udo, Sven and Fitty, the DIRKSCHNEIDER and U.D.O. bands include Andrey Smirnov and Bill Hudson on guitar.

DIRKSCHNEIDER released "Live - Back To The Roots - Accepted!" last August as a DVD/2CD, Blu-ray/2CD and gatefold triple vinyl in two different colors.

After putting out the live double CD in 2016, fans were asking for a visual output, so finally, in December 2016, the show in Brno, Czech Republic was recorded for that purpose. Besides many classics from Dirkscheider's ACCEPT era, there's a cover version of Frank Sinatra's "My Way" as a bonus track on the CD and vinyl.