UDO DIRKSCHNEIDER Discusses STEFAN KAUFMANN's Departure From U.D.O.

Patrick Prince of Powerline recently conducted an interview with former ACCEPT and current U.D.O. frontman Udo Dirkschneider. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Powerline: The last album ["Rev-Raptor"] was considered modern sounding. How do you compare "Steelhammer" to that album?

Dirkschneider: Let's say it this way, I don't want to say anything bad against Stefan [Kaufmann, former U.D.O. guitarist and producer], you know, but for me the "Rev-Raptor" album was a little bit cold. But Stefan was really much into computers. So, what I did now is have musicians facing us in the studio, using real amps, cabinets, drums, everything. It's a more live feeling and I think you can hear that humans are playing the songs. And I think that's the difference between "Rev-Raptor" and "Steelhammer".

Powerline: And, Udo, how is Stefan doing?

Dirkschneider: I think he is producing a band from Switzerland. And I think after he left U.D.O. he again had problems with his back, but now it's much easier for him and I think he will just work at his studio. As far as I know everything is alright. I think in July we will have a dinner together, then we'll talk together, maybe about the future. I mean, we are way open-minded. I say to Stefan, okay, if you feel you want to write songs for U.D.O. or come up as a producer again, the house is open, you know. And we will see what he will do in the future… When we did the "Rev-Raptor" album, we had to stop for three months. He couldn't move. And that was a really bad thing. We were already thinking at this time maybe it's better to stop being on tour with us. He said no and then he was fine after awhile but then the real problem came up on tour. He had to take really heavy pills. You could kill an elephant with those, you know, and he could not really move on stage. Always, you know, he had so much pain, I know it. He was really never showing this but if you're so long together with somebody, you know what's going on. If you have always pain, then you're not always in a good mood, you know. He started shouting, he was always in a bad mood and the whole atmosphere was going down in the band, and that was also another thing. Then I said, "After the 'Rev-Raptor' tour, Stefan, I think we better stop." And then he said in the end to me, "You are right."

Powerline: Do you find that as you get older, touring is more of a grind?

Dirkschneider: No. For me, no. I feel fine. For me, there's no problems. I don't have any problems with my voice. I think I'm really lucky. I don't have any health problems. We always do shows over two hours here in Europe, I mean, there's no problem, I do five or six shows in a row.

Powerline: Were you pleased with all the recent reissues of U.D.O. albums [in America]?

Dirkschneider: Yeah, I mean it was important, especially for the U.S. We never had a real proper record company in America. That was also the reason why we were not touring in America for a long time. There was no backup but now we have our German record company open up a distribution label. We have a guy working for us in America — management, booking agency and on and on, so now it's the time to say, okay, let's see what going on for U.D.O. in America. So we had a short tour and everything went really well.

Powerline: There must be a favorite U.D.O. album or one that you think is a time capsule for you.

Dirkschneider: There was a very important album I think for U.D.O. that was definitely "Faceless World". It was the first time we were using keyboard but in a different way. Another important album completely different than "Faceless World" was the "Timebomb" album, so … but I think now with "Steelhammer" … it's for me, at the moment, one of the best U.D.O. albums. I think we put everything together on this album.

Read the entire interview from Powerline.