If one thing is for certain, it's that Wolf Hoffmann is a man who knows how to achieve the goals he sets for himself.
Jonathan Graham
German metal pioneers, Accept are back with a brand new album, 'The Rise of Chaos'. To mark the occasion, lead guitarist and co-founder, Wolf Hoffmann took some time out during his recent visit to London to chat exclusively to Jonathan Graham about the new studio release, their Wacken Open Air 2017 performance and more in this issue's cover feature.
If one thing is for certain, it's that Wolf Hoffmann is a man who knows how to achieve the goals he sets for himself. As a teenager, he quickly developed his skills on the guitar and dreamt of establishing a band that would help take him around the world. By his mid-twenties, those dreams would granted (and exceeded) as Accept would become household names in their native Germany and circle the globe multiple times over. Later, during Wolf's break from music he would even become a successful and well-respected photographer. So when he decided in 2009 to reform Accept and planned to make the band even bigger and better than ever before was there ever going to be any doubt?
Accept's beginnings can be traced back to the late 1960s but was officially formed in the mid-1970s by Wolf Hoffmann, former vocalist Udo Dirkschneider and bassist Peter Baltes. Although moderately successful in Germany from the outset, it was during the early to mid-1980s when the band shot to fame thanks to the release of their fifth studio album 'Balls to the Wall' (1983) which earned them critical and commercial success worldwide.
The band split in 1997, and apart from a very short-lived reunion in 2005, Accept lay dormant until reuniting again in 2009 with new frontman, Mark Tornillo. Since then, the band have released their three highest charting albums to date; 'Blood of the Nations' (2010), 'Stalingrad' (2012) and 'Blind Rage' (2014). The latter would mark a first for the band, as they reached the number one spot on the album charts in Germany.
Their latest album, 'The Rise of Chaos', will be released on August 4, 2017, via Nuclear Blast, making it Accept's fourth collaboration with the independent record label as well as respected producer Andy Sneap.
The cover artwork was created by the Hungarian artist Gyula Havancsák and portrays the band's previous stage set-up destroyed. "Like After a catastrophe", explains Hoffmann.
Right from the opening track, 'Die By the Sword'