by Steve Patrick
– Senior Columnist —
German hard rock legends Accept have completed the follow-up to 2012’s Stalingrad record and will be releasing their new album Blind Rage on July 18 via Nuclear Blast.
Founding member and guitarist Wolf Hoffman recently talked with Hardrock Haven about a range of topics including the new album, Accept’s new line of eyewear, and who he thinks has the best shaved head in metal (aside from himself).
Hoffman had this to say about the inspiration behind Blind Rage: “We’re old bitter men who have some rage built up (laughs). To tell you the truth, we have a new song called ‘Blind Rage’ and we just felt it was a good overriding theme that works with the album artwork that we have and it sounded like a strong, powerful title.”
“There are some really retro-sounding solos on there, or guitar parts I should say. Cool riffs as well. I’m very pleased with the guitar part on this whole album,” Hoffman continued.
When asked about whether or not former frontman Udo Dirkschneider was involved in the ongoing band documentary Acceptology, Hoffman replied, “Yeah, funny enough we actually invited Udo to contribute to the whole thing, but we haven’t heard from him yet. I think there’s a certain amount of bitterness on his part about who knows what and a certain amount of animosity. I sometimes read comments and never react to them. Just leave it at that. All we can do is just do our thing and invite him to be friends and that’s what we did. We’ll leave it at that.”
Hoffman also revealed that some versions Blind Rage may contain bonus live material. “You know, we have a full-blown, fully recorded concert from Chile in the can that is live DVD. I believe that that is going to be the bonus material for this album. I think that’s what was decided last, that’s what I heard. It might be that there’s a shitload of bonus material on this album. It’s not been 100% decided yet, but there’s talk of that.”
Listen to the rest of the chat below:
