By: William Clark
For the past four decades, Wolf Hoffman has been prominently ruling the metal world as the lead guitarist for the heavy metal band, Accept.
Since 1968, his breakthrough riffs and solos have assisted in creating some of heavy metal’s most renowned albums, such as Balls To The Wall and Metal Heart.
In 2010, Accept caught the world’s attention once again, this time with a new powerhouse singer and their comeback album Blood Of The Nations, which is now considered once of the best metal comebacks of all time.
Since then the band has toured the world and created another record, Stalingrad, which has only increased the band’s popularity and world demand.
I recently sat down with The Wolfman to talk about the band’s renowned success, his story behind former lead vocalist Udo Dirkschneider’s absence in Accept, his choice in guitars, and the future of his musical career.
******
William Clark: With over 35 years of experience in the music biz, I’m sure you’ve found the perfect arsenal of guitars that work best for you. What guitars did you use on the new album?
Wolf Hoffman: I have a brand new guitar handmade for me by the German company Framus. This is an old company that’s been around for a long, long time and when I grew up, everybody knew that name. They made some economy guitars and beginners’ guitars back in the ’60s and ’70s, and they just relaunched this company a few years ago, and they make some awesome quality stuff right now.
They made a signature series, The Wolf Hoffman V, for me, and it’s a pretty incredible guitar. It features all of the qualities I like to have in a guitar, like a Floyd Rose bridge, EMG pickups, just pretty cool stuff, man!
William: You have some pretty creative solos in Stalingrad. Do you find it challenging to come up with such dazzling shredding styles or does your improvising just show up naturally?
Wolf Hoffman: Well, I always look at the song and ask, what does it really need?. Does this song need a solo that is sort of worked out as you go along or one that’s composed?. Or does this song just need a solo that’s all shredding?
And if that’s so, then I’ll just sit down and do multiple takes until I’m happy with the expression. If it’s a shredding and attitude-type of solo, then I don’t wind it out. If it’s a melodic-type of solo, then I’ll just sit down and think for hours in my head before I actually play it.
I’ll just sit back, put the guitar away, and think of a melody line that fits the song before I actually pick up the guitar and try it out. But I’ll give you an example.
There’s a song off the new record called “Shadow Soldiers”, which has a sort of melancholy melody that keeps repeating all through the song. And that solo is one that I play note-for-note every night, basically the same way and it’s almost like a little composition.
William: I think fans everywhere would like to know: Why wasn’t Udo Dirkschneider part of 2009 Accept reunion?
Wolf Hoffman: Very simple, because he didn’t want to. We invited him several times to join us and make more records with us. We really wanted to keep working with him. But, you know, he had no interest. That’s the long story short, and the rest is history.
William: What are your thoughts about Udo’s recent solo work? Have you listened to it?
Wolf Hoffman: No. I don’t think about him, I don’t talk about him. It’s honestly not an issue for me or anyone else in the band.
We really want nothing to do with him anymore. We all put this thing aside and to rest a long time ago when we found Mark Tornillo, because for us it’s a whole new chapter of Accept.
We’ve made two albums with him, and to us it’s like a whole new era has begun. We don’t even think about Udo anymore, and funny enough, we don’t really get any questions about him. You’re the first person to ever even ask about him. But, I respect that.
William: Thank you. There was some debate about whether or not Udo was kicked out of Accept.
Wolf Hoffman: Kicked out?! No, no, of course not.
William: At what point did you decide to continue Accept, with or without Udo?
Wolf Hoffman: Well, the story is this. The band really wasn’t even in existence for a long time, and Udo was doing his own solo thing. So we asked him if he wanted to continue with us, if he wanted to do some Accept shows, and wouldn’t it be great, blah, blah, blah. And he always said no.
And then we just put the issue aside, because if we didn’t have a singer then we couldn’t continue as a band, and I didn’t think that there was anybody out there who could take Udo’s place.
We weren’t thinking about it, we weren’t auditioning anybody, absolutely nothing. Then one day by pure luck, we found Mark Tornillo, who joined us for a jam session one day, just for fun. And that little event sparked a whole chain of events which led to the recreation of Accept.
It’s funny, really. This innocent little jam session that wasn’t meant to be any more than just a half-day of fun turned out to be so much more than that.
We heard Mark’s voice, and we all thought “Man, especially if Udo doesn’t want to do it, than this could be the perfect guy to replace him”. And what really intrigued us is that Mark’s voice is even sort of reminiscent of Udo’s voice, so he could perfectly do the old material.
On top of that, Mark’s voice has this whole other range of capabilities where we are able to expand a little bit and do things that we weren’t able to do before with Udo. And that’s how things worked out, and that’s how Blood Of The Nations and Stalingrad turned out as good as they did.
William: What are your thoughts about the strong and positive fan response to Accept’s comeback album, Blood Of The Nations, and your new album Stalingrad?
Wolf Hoffman: You know, it’s nothing short of overwhelming. And a miracle, to be honest, because we were all fully aware how difficult it was to replace singers, to come out with a new lineup and still be successful.
The entire fan community was a bit skeptical at first, but when they heard the album, all of that was blown away, and everybody was enthusiastic about it worldwide. It’s just incredible to hear how well it’s been received.
All over the world, people named it “Metal Album of the Year” and “Comeback of the Decade”.
It’s funny, I just read one of the metal magazines from Europe today, and still after two and a half years people still name Blood Of The Nations as one of their favorites in the Readers Poll.
And I think that’s quite an accomplishment for a comeback album. So, we are all just so humble and ecstatic that this happened to us, and we’re just having the time of our lives.
William: How strong of an impact did world-renowned metal producer, Andy Sneap, have on these past two records?
Wolf Hoffman: Quite a big one, I would say. It’s always hard to say what albums would’ve sounded like had a certain producer not been there.
But I’d say he had a pretty big impact when it came to choosing which songs made it to the record, shaping and mixing each of the songs, and the way the songs would end up being recorded. Who knows how it would’ve turned out had he not been there?
But I’m very grateful that he was and how he helped each of these past records turn out the way they did. I really think the reason that he made this albums is because he’s a metal fan through-and-through, and he was a big fan of Accept’s earlier work as a kid. He’s very familiar with our older material, and he knows what an Accept fan wants a new Accept album to sound like.
I think that helped tremendously, on top of the fact that, like you said, he’s a world-renowned metal album producer. He has so much experience, he instantly knows exactly how he wants a certain song to sound like.
William: How do you feel Stalingrad compares to the band’s earlier releases?
Wolf Hoffman: I think both Stalingrad and Blood Of The Nations are both as strong, maybe even stronger than the best we’ve ever done. At least that’s what fans tell me.
Everybody knows that we had a very strong phase in the ’80s, with Balls To The Wall and Metal Heart being a few of those glory albums that everybody likes. But, I think these past two albums have been just as good, if not better.
William: Have the song writing dynamics changed between members in the band over the years?
Wolf Hoffman: The essentials really have never changed. I mean, even back in the ’80s, most new songs started out with Peter Baltes and myself brainstorming. We’re the guys who would get together first, jam on some riffs, and exchange ideas.
Then of course when Stefan Schwarzmann joined the band in the ’80s, it was a little different. Even without him, it’s pretty much the same formula. The both of us usually work on songs until we feel we’ve got some sort of rock song structure going, and then in this case we’ll hand it over to Mark write the lyrics, and maybe shape up the vocal lines.
So the dynamics really haven’t changed that much over the years, to be honest. They’re still like they were 35 years ago. Peter and I have been songwriting buddies since day one, when we were teenagers.
We’ve worked together for so long, when we work together it’s almost like we know what each other is thinking. That’s a really rare thing, I think, to find somebody that you click so well with and keep that going for so long, so I’m glad to have him as a buddy and as a band member.
William: I think that’s great. What is it like working with Mark, compared to working with Udo?
Wolf Hoffman: It’s completely different, because Mark has a much wider vocal range, and he actually plays instruments, he knows his keys, his knowledge of music theory, he has cool ideas for songs, and he actually participates in the songwriting, much more than Udo ever did.
Mark’s mostly responsible for lyrics and vocal lines, but still, Udo never did any of that sort of thing. Udo was mostly the performer, to be honest.
William: It might be a little too soon to ask, but can fans expect anything more from the members of Accept in the future?
Wolf Hoffman: You bet! The next thing that we’re planning and hoping to do is a live DVD, and then at a certain point we’re starting to think about new songs again.
You know, we really want to keep this thing going. Now I don’t think we’re going to crank out a new album every year, like we’ve done these past two years, but we don’t want to wait too long, either. We want to stay active and keep the momentum going, because we feel like we’re just getting started!
William: Fantastic. Any tour plans in the works?
Wolf Hoffman: Well, we’re still on tour, so let’s not jump the gun too much! We’re still in the middle of a three-month tour around the world, and we’re going to continue through Christmas and then hit the festival circuit, which we will do extensively.
Basically, we’ll tour all next year around festivals, and maybe some other headlining shows, and in that process we’ll probably record a live DVD. And after that, it’ll be time to start heading back into the studio again.
William: What about you – Any solo projects or collaborations outside of Accept in the works?
Wolf Hoffman: Yeah! I’m working on the followup album to my solo record, Classical. I made a classical album a few years ago, and for a long, long time I’ve been trying to come up with a followup album. But, it’s just been dragging on and on, mainly because Accept has been so busy.
You know, I was in the middle of working on it three years ago, and Accept picked back up! I’ve been working, making new albums and touring the world with Accept for the last three years.
William: There are worse things.
Wolf Hoffman: [Laughs] Yeah! Hopefully when I get back from this tour I can continue working on it, and one day soon it will be finished. But, it’s definitely in the works!
