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Quote today, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, number one rating based on boat market share data from ratefilingx.com. Talk Is Jericho Baby Talk Is Jericho I talk Is Jericho Mama Talk Is Baby! Alright, welcome to Talk Is Jericho. It is the pod of Thunder and Rock n' Roll. And my guest today, one of my favorite German heavy metal bands, some of the pioneers of German heavy metal, talking about Accept.
I caught up with Accept guitar player Wolf Hoffman and knew, well, he's not really that new these days, he's been in the band for 20 years. Sorry, he's not really new these days, he's been in the band for 9 years. Talking about Singer Mark Ternillo from New Joysy. They've got a great story about how they met, how Mark ended up joining, except and how what really sparked the reunion and the band's current resurgence, the bigger now than maybe they've ever been.
It's possible they're more successful, like I said, than the height of their 80s metal run. And there's a great article in the Wall Street Journal about producer Andy Sneep, we all know Sneep and how he's helping the metal music scene, producing albums for Accept and Judas Priest to name a few. It's a great read, you'll hear what Wolf and Mark have to say about Sneep, he's another reason for their big resurgence, what specifically he's done for the band.
They're also talking about the very first gig they ever performed, is accept with Mark Fronting at a club in New York City. And Wolf is also talking about the band's first run in the late 70s and early 80s when they opened for everyone from ACDC to Motley Crew to Iron Maiden. Except also just released a brand new album Symphonic Terror live at Valken 2017, the biggest heavy metal festival in Europe takes place in Valken Germany.
It's the live performance that accepted with a full Symphonic Orchestra, very cool. The album is out now and you can order it on their website at acceptworldwide.com. And of course it's available wherever you buy music, anywhere are you stream it, Spotify, whatever. They're going to talk about what it was like playing with the 50 piece orchestra from Prague. And we've got some details on the band's upcoming tour except and the orchestra of death Symphonic Terror tour.
It starts April 20th, 2019 in Germany. Lots of stuff to talk about, let's get to it Wolf Hoffman. Let's get to it Wolf Hoffman and Mark Terniel from accept our on talk is Jericho now. That is my mission is to not answer the same questions all the time because I get asked the same questions all the time. You can interact, you can do whatever you want here on talk is Jericho.
And I'm here with Wolf and Mark from accept on your bus on your beautiful bus beat the street which I always thought was an interesting name for a bus company. I don't really know what that means. I don't know either. We don't question it. We just take it as a comment. And also too you know it's going to be a good bus because in Europe, I mean at least you guys probably don't have to worry about it anymore but you get some pretty shitty buses sometimes. Yeah, you know they're a good company.
Yeah, it's good. I don't really like the double deckers like I said because I can't ever stand up anywhere. Usually we have the ones that are like one level right. They're much taller. And you hit your head many times because you forget right? Damn right. I get out of the bunker. Luckily I'm a dwarf. A little guy from Jersey. So you guys you mentioned you've been here since May over in Europe. Huge kind of resurgence for accept over the last I mean it's been almost 10 years now. Yeah, but nine.
Nine years right. And that's how long you've been in the band for two Mark nine years. So and first of all a lot of that has to do with the records you've done with Andy Sneep. Did you see the Wall Street Journal? Yes, I did. I did. I'm unbelievable. I mean he deserves it. Yeah, it says Andy Sneep is slowly saving quietly quietly. I don't know. I think it's quietly, but he doesn't. But I mean, did that make you feel good because it was based around except.
Yeah, well, it's pretty in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, that's pretty damn cool. You know, talk the same thing. You know, probably the only time you'll ever see our name in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, you don't get to talk to a journalist from Wall Street Journal ever really. So they called you and said it's so much more. Absolutely. Yeah, great. There's some great, some great quotes in there talking about because Sneep kind of did it the same way that Rick Rubin did it with Johnny Cash or.
Yeah, yeah, under all those guys. What exactly did he tell you when you started working with them off? Well, did we ever tell him anything really? He just came over. He had heard that except we're planning, you know, to get back onto the scene and to make more albums. So he basically contacted us through our mutual friend Ed Abourne. Oh, yeah, yeah. Shout out to Ed for setting this up. Exactly. So he's, you know, Ed is really the man pulling all the strings here. That's right.
No, all of a sudden we get this call. Hey, do you want to meet Andy Sneep? And we were like, sure, why not? We didn't really know who he was. And we were not quite ready even to think about who was going to produce it because we were just starting to write songs. We're starting to write exactly. So we just had the first ideas down and then the first rough sketches for songs and shit and all of a sudden there's Andy on the doorstep and says hello.
So, you know, we had one night of drinking and a couple of days of working together and that was it. The drinking is more important than the work. Yeah, just to break the ice, you know, there's one of those. It's a bonding rich. Yes, sir. Well, because that's the thing. It's not the being on stage and working together is great. But it's, you know, especially when you're in a band, it's the time you spend on the bus. Yeah. In between the shows. Yeah. That really decides if you can get along.
Exactly. You know, but you had a great quote in the Wall Street Journal. He said he told you guys to be more German. Yeah. How trippy is that? Yeah. Nobody ever said that to us. And what did he mean by that? He basically, well, we didn't even know ourselves. But he made us funny enough, he made us sit down and listen to, I think, all of rest doesn't wild. And maybe all of Breaker and Peter and I were sitting there like, you know, school children.
Basically, the teacher telling us what he liked about our stuff, you know. Because he grew up listening to accept and he said, there's a moment. What did he say? It's one of those moments or the quality moment or how did he always say it? I don't know. It's magic moment or whatever. The phrase that he used. And we were totally surprised because we didn't really think we sound specifically German. But I guess we do. It's something we can't help. We are German. There's a real style to it.
We always call it like, it's almost like beer, Steinrock or Octoberfest Rock where you just want to swing your beer back and forth with a big handle. And, you know, oh, it's like a champ ball, it's exactly right? Yeah. It's like a swing beer mug like a St. Paulie girl. Yeah, that's a thing. It's probably in the DNA or something without us realizing it. Right. Because we didn't really write that stuff back then to sound more German. If anything, we wanted to sound international.
We didn't want to be German, you know, really. I mean, we just wanted to be one of the international acts. Yeah. But then you have, like I said, there is a certain kind of a style to it which makes accepts, does stand out. Yeah. And since he pointed all that stuff out, we thought, oh, that's easy. We can do more of that if that's what you're after. It's a plenty of that, you know? So it was kind of easy from there on out, you know? It was enlightening, though, you know.
I mean, he really went, you know, point by point through the music and, you know, this, this, this, we need more of this. We need more of this and they were like, okay. And how was that for you, Mark, because you're coming in not just as the new singer, but also with this new producer, you know, and you're the new guy in the group as well. Yeah, I had no idea where we were going, man. It was, you know, it was, it was, it was kind of sketchy at first for me, for sure.
But it would just really work well together, you know? When we started writing and the idea started coming together and once Andy approved of the ideas, it was, it really, it really flowed, but we took a long time to write blood of the nation. Yeah, it was a few months.
It was definitely, yeah, we had plenty of ideas, but didn't really know how should we sound after all these years, having been away from the scene and, you know, should we sound different, should we sound exactly retro, like back in the old days or, you know, so there was a lot of, you know, a lot of songs that kind of went sideways, basically. Sure, sure. Sure. And he was the one who really said, no, no, we don't want that. We want this.
Is it hard sometimes like for our last album, we decided that, okay, this producer, he's the principal, he's the boss, he has the final say. Right. And sometimes during the recording process, you're like, this guy, who does he think he is? You know, he's driving crazy. The producers can get on your nerves. Yeah, you know, especially you know, as a singer, man, especially, yeah, I was, I was good.
Can you do it one more time? I was, I was even better. How about one more? Do you have one more in you? How many one more do you want? Right. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. And also for you too, it was interesting because I had the TT Quick Record, metal, metal of honor. Uh, great tune in front burner. Nice. Produced by Waco from Raven. There's a little bit of stuff for you there. So why don't you do a different producer?
It's not that right. Really? But it, but it'd been a while since you were in the scene though at that point in time. Were you, were you still gigging, uh, playing, uh, very rarely. Hmm, very rarely. I was out for a while. You know, I mean, I went the whole thrashing hit, not thrash. I mean, when the whole West Coast grunge thing hit. Right. It was, which was pretty much, we just said, you know, we're beat at that horse here.
Hmm. And I'm not going to start playing grunge. I'm not going to cut my hair, put on a flannel shirt and look like a freaking idiot. So I'm not doing it. And I pretty much went into my other life and I was raising children at the time. I needed a real job, a joint electrician's union. I would always been an electrician. And that's what I did for like a long time. I'll do. Right. Oh yeah. Yeah. Sure. So belong to union. So how did you end up working with wolf? How did you find?
We, what just happened to really by accident, we, we Peter and I jammed one day and, and some guys suggested there's a singer who lives close by. Why don't you invite him? He can sing all the material and see how you get along and see how it sounds together. But really, that was just all there was. There was no big auditioning. There was no big looking for a singer because we didn't really.
It wasn't really on our mind at that point. We were just purely jammed for fun and all of a sudden income's marked, takes a shirt off and starts singing a flash rock and man. And it sounded amazing right away. And I looked at Peter. He looked at me and said, what the hell? Where's this guy from? That's amazing.
You know, and we thought there's a chance to maybe start the whole machine back up again, but it really happened after that moment. And it wasn't like everywhere on our minds before that day. You just mentioned something that's very important to you for people that might not know. So you said we were jamming for fun. Peter and I were jamming for fun. And were you ready to go forward with except and you didn't care if it got huge or not huge or whatever it may be.
You just wanted to keep playing because you enjoy playing music. Yeah, but we didn't have a singer and we weren't really, I mean, we didn't think there is one out there and we didn't really actively look for anybody. I don't know. I wasn't opening the auditioning anyone. It was just really interesting. A freak thing, man. So you didn't put a call out that you were looking for a new singer. You guys, wow. No, hell no.
I won studio just happened to know me and gotten touched with me. Peter called me up. I went and jammed with him. And I thought that was going to be it. You know, two weeks later, I got a call from Peter again. He was, what do you think about doing a record and a tour? I'm like, what? So how did that go with your wife and your family? That was the first thing. I said, I'll get back to you. I ran it by her and she says, well,
if you don't, there'll be no living with you. So I find she enjoys it. She loves it. Do you find now, like you mentioned, nine years later, working with Mark to accept his bigger at this point that you guys ever were in the 80s? Yeah, I would say so. I think so. Yeah. I think so. I mean, it's really hard to say because he comparing apples to oranges back in the day. The scene was so different.
It was all based on selling records and touring was just a side business. Now it's just the opposite. Now we're all just make records to tour basically. But still overall, I would say we have now a more successful period and a more more of a stable point in our career than we've ever had. We've made four strong albums, studio albums, live albums, you name it. It's all happening and it's happening right now and it's more successful. I would say.
You can see like in all the festivals you guys always headlining the stage, second stage main stage, whatever, I mean, you know, people really are into it. Yeah, it's great to see. The holidays are here at the Home Depot. So let's get to decorating. Find your perfect tree in our huge assortment of shapes, sizes and styles. Like the easy to assemble Jackson Noble Fur with pre-lit branches perfect for styling with all your favorite ornaments.
Or the Flock Starry Light Frazier Fur with over 1900 pre-lit memory wire branches that keep their shape so it's ready right out of the box. Find the perfect tree now at the Home Depot. Was that hard for you, Mark? At first, to kind of take over this, I'm not going to say iconic voice, but you're taking over, you know, a very major part of the band.
Once we got to doing it, it wasn't. But the initial reading the comments on the internet, all that stuff while we were making the record and God only knows what's going to happen. It was like, wow, yeah, heavy trip, man. I stopped reading all that shit after a while because initially we were hit with this shit storm when we announced to the world that we're coming back with a new singer. And then everybody had an opinion and they weren't good.
They had written off the thing before it ever even started. I mean, nobody had actually heard a damn thing and they already said, I won't work and here's why. Everybody was against it just how to principle. Really, it was hard to find anyone who was on board. But then once Blood of the Nation came out, it all went backwards. It all shuts everybody up. Yeah, it kind of took about a year or so and it was no discussion anymore.
It was a great story about Paul McCartney when the Beatles were making Sergeant Pepper and all the critics, like the Beatles are done. They're finished. They take six months to make a record. It's going to be terrible. They're finished and the car is just like, I'm on the f**kers. We can see what happens, right? In a weird way, that's kind of what happened to us. Right. Because all these comments happened while we were still writing and working on Blood of the Nations.
And we had the same attitude, just white guys will show you. It made us put even more steam and effort into it. Isn't it kind of the way that the world is now talking about comments and social media and stuff? It drives me crazy because if you're a fan of a band, if you're a fan of Acceptor or Kiss, for example, or Fossy, right? I'm talking about bands that have replaced members. Let's say like Journey. We want Steve Perry, but Arnell is a great singer.
Do you just want the band to break up and be done? Hell no. That's what I'm saying. So just give it a shot and go with it. I kind of relate it to it. It's kind of like kids when their parents are getting divorced. And the kids are like, no, I want you to stay together. I want you to stay together. You'd rather have us be f**k miserable. Right. So you can have say, I live with my mom and my dad. It's the same damn thing. Right. You know, I mean, move on.
Yeah, exactly. And my thing is if I'm an Accept fan, I know that Wolf and Peter aren't going to put this out or hire a guy and it's not going to be great. Right. So trust the guys that you respect. Yeah, and all it takes is I think whenever you replace, I think as long as you find the right guy, I mean, look at Judas Priest, they, you know, KK Downing. Perfect fit. I mean, you would never think they would replace KK Downing.
You can sleep now. Well, that's a different story. I know. I know. I know. I have not. We played with him already. I saw him in New Jersey when they came through. Okay. Andy hooked me up. It was great. And then we just played with him and we're playing with him again tomorrow. Well, it's not a day. Yeah, yeah. The festival Vienna. No, one off in Vienna. Right on. That would be a good tour, except. I know it would be great. Wouldn't it? Rob, if you're listening, make it happen. Make it happen.
How was the, how was the first show playing with accept? The first, the very first show we did was in New York. That's a grandmassy. So I kind of. That was a home show for you. That's your backyard. Yeah. You know, I almost knew everyone in the place. You know, like 800 of my closest friends. So I kind of knew what was going to happen there three days later on stage in Lithuania. I'd never been to Europe. I have no idea what to expect. You know, I was.
I felt like, you know, spanking your little rascals. I want to walk out with a garbage can. Let's. Right and go friends. Romans and countrymen. Ting, Ting, Ting, Ting. Yeah. But walked out and right from the gig go. It was like, you know, old home week. Man, it's the music. It's right. It's what it is. You play the songs. If you play them properly, you can't lose. And like you said, too, having a strong batch of material from your own stuff.
Yeah. You know, as you move forward now, four albums in, what songs, like you have to play a good significant amount of your old catalog. Yeah. Definitely. Which ones? Is it harder and harder to figure out? Like, I'm going to drop this one. We want to play this because obviously you want to sing your songs. Yeah. But it's a luxury problem to have. You know, you've got so many to choose from. It's actually almost fun to do it.
It's never a hard choice. But yeah, basically we learn from experience. We know which songs really the audience likes to hear most. And those there's a bunch of songs we almost have to play every show like balls to the wall, metal art, princess of the dawn. But you know what I tell you, what most fans really think is amazing how well this new stuff blends with the old stuff. You know, it's not really like it's two different worlds. It really goes song to song and you never know is it old?
Is it new? You almost have to ask yourself which one which albums that from it? It almost sounds like it just flows good. Yeah. Right. Exactly. You mentioned a couple of your songs. I've heard something I never heard before a little while ago, a few months ago. Did you guys write I'm a rebel for AC DC? No, it was actually the opposite. And then young wrote it right? Yeah, Alec Young. Okay. Well, they've got so many brothers and nephews and whatnot.
And one of their guys I think his name was Alec Young and he went by the name of George Alexander for some weird reason. He wrote a song and brought it to AC DC in like 76 70s whenever in the 70s. They didn't they didn't ever recorded. They just made demo didn't didn't like the song or rejected it for whatever reason. And there it was. And our publisher came to us and say said he have got his very commercial songs song for you guys. Do you want to record it?
We said, oh yeah, sure. At that point, mind you, AC DC was not as huge. I mean, there were still sort of underground or whatever just starting to happen. Right. Right. Right. And yeah, we recorded that song. And somewhere out there in the universe is a demo with Bon Scott that I'd like to get my hands on. You're kidding me. No, I'm wow. And I've heard it. And actually the our publisher a few years back came to one of our shows in Hamburg.
That's where it all happened back in the day. And he had it still on his phone. And we all listened like little fanboys. And I think that original version with Bon Scott is amazing. Actually. Wow. That's pretty cool that there one exists. Yeah. But they keep it locked away in their archive. They're never going to release it. And now, you know, they're so they're so tight with everything. We're right. And that original writer now has passed away. And so it's the publisher. So it's it's forget it.
Who owns it or was ever. No, it's never going to see the big. Bon Scott fan mark. You've got that style. You know it. Right. You know it. He was my favorite man. Yeah. How does shame. Did you ever see? It's this is no. And I was I had tickets to see AC DC open for Van Halen. Wow. 79 right before he died. I went to hell tour. Van Halen was the headliner. And for some reason, they didn't show. I think film runs mother died or something. MC five took their place, which didn't suck.
But I never got to see him with Bon Scott. I did. I did. I did. In the 70s. Yeah. When it was rumored that Angus Young at that point was like 16 years old or something. I think they they overplayed it a little bit. He might have been. But still he was clearly very, very young at that point. Very small. Yeah. We're still small. But exactly. Supposedly he was like only 16 at the time. That's how they. He was announced a sensational band from AC DC with this young guitar player.
And you know, of course wearing the uniform that you might have been 19 at the time. But who cares. Did you are you from Hamburg? No. Near Cologne. Near Cologne. Gotcha. Gotcha. What do you remember about the show? What was Bon Scott like as a as a frontman? He was all right. He wasn't a great show man for some reason. I think I always liked him better on on records than I did live. He wasn't like as captivating as you think.
I mean, back. He didn't impress me as I mean, everybody was just looking at Angus really. Yeah. It's always Angus' show. I mean, it was really. Even to this day I saw. I saw the show with Axel Rose at the garden. Right. And it was a great great show. Axel nailed it. But he still hung out at the amps with the other guys while Angus went and did everything. Yeah. Still Angus' gig to the band is show absolutely. Yeah. It's always kind of hard to upstage him.
Yeah, exactly. When you mentioned that when you did the Blood of the Nations tour as your first tour to Europe, what were some of the big differences that you noticed or things that were confusing to you or food or anything like that? Food. I eat anything. Whatever. I'll eat anything. You know, so I enjoy traveling for that reason. Food. I think the biggest thing for me was the fans. They're so different here than they are in the United States.
How do you mean in what way? I think they're just so much more into it. So much more involved in the shows. And there's still so many metalheads here. Right. It doesn't. It looked like it's 1985. Sometimes when you walk out there. Oh my goodness. Absolutely. I mean, especially when you get into more of these type of countries, the hungaries and the Czech Republics. Yeah. You know, those type of things. And everybody wearing that denim vest with all the patches.
Shit. I mean, this is almost a culture that you don't see it. It's a way of life. Yeah. You know, you're stupid. The crazy thing is it has never changed here. It's just sort of like a time warp. It's still still in it. Still like it was back then. It's my kind of time warp. Yeah. In the US, it sort of moved on and people add to different things. They threw away the denim jackets, I guess. Yeah. You know, it's amazing to me though. When you come to Europe and there's so many festivals here.
Like I've never heard of the Fessan festival. That's what we're played today. And then we're going tomorrow to like Rockland and Rock Planet and Rock World and Legends of Rock and all this. It's like every country. Oh yeah. Multiple places has them. It does. It's in Germany alone. Right. It's small ones. Big ones and everything in between. Yeah. But it's really cool to see the culture of heavy metal over in Europe. Like you mentioned, it's still so popular.
It definitely is. And people make an event of it. They almost use it as a minification. They really go for three days at camp and do all that stuff. So I think it's great. Yeah. Now when you first... It's almost like a mini woodstock type deal every weekend. At every one. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Now when you went to America for the first time. Yeah. What tour was that? That was Kiss. 1984.
I was opening for Kiss. That was our first show as ever. And that was a trip for us being the European band coming over to the, you know, big United States and everything. It was huge in comparison to your... Your big kiss fan, right? Big kiss fan. So that was our drummer who was... Oh really? He drives me nuts with it. He's a fanboy number one. He's over the top with it. Yeah. So how was that for you to tour with Kiss? Were they cool to you guys? Or did you see them at all?
Yeah. It was really two worlds clashing because here we are, this German band, very serious, taking everything super seriously. And you know, I don't know. It was all about the music. And then we play with Kiss. And it's all about the show. I mean, the musicianship is... You know, it's... But it was on a grand scale. Everything was with four cliffs and tracked the trailers. And we had a renaissance every night and fireworks and we had never... With the level of production.
We had never seen any of that in Europe. I mean, even when we watched other bands perform, but, you know, the US was still like two notches up from there. Yes, of course. Huge. So that was really mind-blowing for us. But I guess we sort of adapted and, you know, got to know it. And it was great. We stayed on the road for like eight months when we first came over here. Kiss over the head. And we went to the US. What did you notice the difference when you came to America?
Were the things that kind of you couldn't believe? We noticed that everybody, young and old and every way you went, every gas station, it was like, are you guys in a band? Oh, that's amazing. You know, that sort of thing. We're in Europe. It was like, well, these bombs, you know. Get a real job.
But that's the thing with accept, like if you're talking about that 80s time frame, you mentioned the show and all the bands went through the stage of almost even Judas Priest with like turbo, turbo lover, you know, a little bit glammy. Queen's right went through it. Except never did that. You guys always were just kind of like the leather and hair. You know, I mean, we had one phase where we tried out with a new singer in the 90s. Oh, yeah.
Eat the heat and we sort of glammed up a little bit for that. But we realized it's not working. It's not really for us. The whole thing was a failed attempt anyhow. Yeah, yeah. But it was really in those moments or in those days, it was really all about hitting the million album sales, really. That's what everybody told you. I mean, we were with CBS Sony and all the successful albums on there. We're like 10 million, 5 million. And we were like the little band from Germany that never hit that.
That huge commercial success. So we were constantly pushed into that direction. If only you did a little more radio friendly songs and a little more commercial this. And we said, all righty, then we're going to give it a try. Can you see someone else? Yeah. That was our attempt. Because nobody had ever, this was like pre alternative pre Metallica being so huge. So at that point, it was commercial banjovi style or nothing. Either you went with a mainstream or you weren't successful pretty much.
That's true though. I mean, it was the time of MTV. Everybody was pretty had to great here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those were the bands that were selling. Well, not to mention that, you know, this singer was not a good looking guy, shall we say? You know, put it mildly. Yeah. So we didn't fit that, that, you know, that mold, that mold. And that's why we were always the outsider. We always had a huge sort of underground following cult following amongst musicians and all that.
But never really the sort of the masses who buy records. Did you ever see except back in the day? You did? Oh, yeah. He never knew. I didn't know. I saw the metal heart tour. Oh, shit. And a capital theater in New Jersey. Uh-huh. And then the night you guys played at Le Mans. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Did you quit? Yeah, really. Were they nice to you? Probably not. Probably not. The only person I met was Udo. Uh-huh. And here and I had a very short conversation.
Gabby came downstairs and looked at Udo and went, Udo, get away. I'm the bus. That's it. He goes, I must go. That was it. That was my whole interaction with him. The sterical. You know, it's funny mentioning Gabby is that you mentioned Ed, his ex-wife Tammy. Yeah. When my son was born, Tammy came to visit my son and Gabby was in tap of visiting her. Oh, right. So she came. I never met Gabby, but my wife met Gabby when she just had Gabby met my son when he was a little baby. So there you go.
It's a small world. A little small world. Yeah, exactly. The holidays are here at the Home Depot. So let's get to decorating. Find your perfect tree in our huge assortment of shapes, sizes and styles. Like the easy-to-assemble Jackson Noble Fur, with pre-lit branches perfect for styling with all your favorite ornaments. Or the flock starry light-frazier fur, with over 1900 pre-lit memory wire branches that keep their shape. So it's ready right out of the box.
Find the perfect tree now at the Home Depot. I just want to ask a quick, teedy, quick question. Did you guys ever do any touring at all? Back in the 80s. Back in the 80s. We were out with motorhead for a while. We did an extensive tour with Raven at the time as we were at label mates. That's right. But that was mostly at 86, 87, somewhere around there. And mostly all North America. Gotcha. Canada and the US. Gotcha. Mexico. I'm talking about the 80s time frame and balls to the wall.
I remember I was probably 13, because that came out in 84, right? Yeah. And it was like balls to the wall. It was so controversial. Like you couldn't play that song too loud, because if your mom and dad heard it, you can't say balls in a song. Was that a kind of a controversial move to put out a song called that? Yeah, absolutely. It was on purpose. And we always did these slightly shocking things. And prior to that, we had a song called Son of a Bitch. It was full of bad words.
And it was just part of the rebellion. And let's shock the parents. That was the vibe back then. This is when metal was still meant to shock. Now it's just mainstream. Now it's anything goes. Well, it's also hard to shock people now. That's the other thing too. And they were kind of slightly shocked by it. So did the record company say, OK, let's do it? Or were they like, hey, you got to wash the balls to the wall, buddy? No, they were into it.
I mean, they were aware that it was outside of the mainstream. But they were, you know, there was something cool about it that they liked, apparently, as they wouldn't have signed us, you know. They played on MTV. So that's true. Yeah. You know, big hit on MTV, wasn't it? Beaves in butthead too. Yeah, mate. I was just kidding. You're right. What did they show forget? It's a badge of honor, man. He was on the wrecking ball or something. Who do you was?
And they were talking about him being on the wrecking ball. It was this guy. Yeah. He was in Elf. Talking about, uh, about, except in being, um, playing as long as you have. Also too, like I saw a TV special. It was like a music thing. And it was a festival that you guys did. It was, Motley Crew was on it. Quiet Riot was on it. Except Night Ranger. Probably don't remember his a million years ago. Actually, Kalamazoo. Kalamazoo. That's it. Kalamazoo rock fest or something.
For some reason, some music channel was there and shot a bunch of stuff and put it to you. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember they would just show clips of the band's play and they showed except, and it was a song that I'd never heard. Really? But it was super fast and it had this amazing Harmony guitar solo. It took me years to figure out what song it was because I didn't have any accept records before balls to the wall. I had them all after. And it was fast as a shark.
And could that possibly be the first thrash song? So they say. I mean, that's the way we understand it. Because that what people say. I'll tell you what, I remember hearing that song for the very first time at Le Mans. In Brooklyn. I mean, that was, we were like a house band there for a while. And DJ played that. And he goes, I didn't have something to, because we had already had, you know, the breaker album. I played all that stuff. Right?
Also, Nives, he goes, I have a brand new record from except when you hear this, puts an album going. What? High D. High D. And then it just started and we were like, just went back shit crazy. So tell us a little bit about that. Like if it is the first or one of the first, obviously it's not something that you were hearing a lot of at the time. No. It really, I clearly remember how we wrote the song and how it all came about.
It was really the drummer, Stefan, who came up with a crazy idea of playing double bass, double kick all the way through. And we'd never done that. And so he came up with that basic idea of the concept. And we sort of had the riff. That was fairly easy. And then I wrote all that weird middle section for it. But then at the very end, or like we wanted to really have an intro for it or something. And I thought about it and I came up with the idea of having, like, to put on a record.
And that's completely the opposite of what's what's about to happen. Just to fool people and think in something else they put in. I thought everybody was biased. A record thought that they might have bought the wrong record. You know, you're right. Well, that was the idea. You know, you go, you go to the store, you buy the new except record, you put it on and say, what the hell? Somebody put the wrong record in the sleeve. Yeah. That was the idea.
And I thought maybe we used like an opera part or something. And then we didn't, we already had recorded the basic track. And we were looking for any sort of intro to use. And we went actually through the record collection of the studio owner's mother. We recorded a Dirk's studios at the time where the scorpions used to record and all that. Is it Deeter Dirk's studio? Deeter Dirk's studio. And there was grandma Dirk's, she had a record collection. And we said, what kind of records do you have?
This is great. And in the records, we can possibly steal and abuse and scratch up because we wanted to rip the needle off. And she hadn't had some children's records that Deeter Dirk has a kid actually sang on. So there was all these German traditional folk songs that everybody heard as a kid. And there was the one song that's called Anhella und Anbutzen that had this middle section where there is no lyrics.
Because we thought like German lyrics now don't want that again because we didn't really want to sound too German. You know, we wanted it to be international and that little segment is Heidi Heido, which that's what we used. So we borrowed that album and put it on and ripped the needle off and kind of destroyed the record for Mama Dirk's. There you have it folks. The story was a video of that. I never heard that story before. Yeah, it's cool, isn't it?
When I was in high school, we used to do these, they were called like lip sync competitions. Oh yeah? And we put together, but we never did just normal. Like some guys just do like Metallica or you know, some pop. We would always splice together different songs. And we did this one that we used Heidi Heido and Scratch the record to go into the thing that we were doing. And remember we had this guy wearing like a children's dress with a wig and it was a guy.
And he came and danced around to that Heidi Heido and people in the crowd were like, what the hell is this? And then it scratched off and then we started into it. And the same thing that you guys did. But it's really the inside knowledge is that Dieta Dirk is singing on that piece. That's the funniest part. Sorry Mrs. Dirk's for destroying your record. You're talking about lyrics for the last four records that you've done. Rise of chaos and blood nations and the other ones.
Do you write all the lyrics? Are you still writes? I know, I know Defi. I mean, sometimes still contributes. You still write. And then you come up with some ideas that are just, you know, that so out of the ballpark for me. I would have never thought of it. And go, well, okay, let's run with that. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes they're, you know, the hook show there and sometimes they're not. But for the most part, I write most of the verses and the lyrics and stuff. Does that make sense?
Because, you know, he's the one who has to sing it. Right. His language, I mean. Yeah. It's not our job. Come on, man. You're busy. Why was she called Defi back in the day? Because to have a female writer's song, Balls to the Wall, would have been looked at slightly strange, you know. And we didn't really want people to know that, you know, she's a man and her and my wife. Well, she wasn't my wife at that time yet. But, you know, we thought, keep it a secret. And just sort of went with it.
Just with the background with, I just popped him ahead the sleeve for balls to the wall. You guys are all I think you're all with no shirts on. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, baby. Except for Udo. Yeah, no, he keeps the show. That was not a good idea. We told him to keep the shirt on. That was also Gabby's. I mean, she, she is so much the creative motor behind this band or the motor in general in this band for like 40 years almost.
And she was always the one who made all these cover concepts or had the ideas and was there at the photo sessions and had the ideas for pictures and, you know, was was was Peter the hand model on that one as well? No, no, he was not the cover with the ball. No, that was actually a guy that the studio, the photographer knew he was a boxer. So he was in pretty good shape and this ball, hold this ball. That was actually a rock. Yeah, when you, I just want to ask a couple more questions here.
You mentioned Lamor and we had the pleasure of playing Lamor. Right. It's such an iconic. Tell us a little bit about that place and how much it meant to the New York heavy metal. It was the New York heavy metal scene and we actually played there. I played there a TT quick in 1979 when it first opened. It was a totally different lineup for us at that time. And then about I guess around 80 in 1980, we started playing there every Thursday night on a weeknight.
And it was just, I mean, it was a crazy, crazy thing. You know, like that then you could do that kind of stuff. And everybody came through there. We opened up for everybody and did you could possibly imagine in that building and then some. I remember it being tiny and stinky and jammed. It was, well, it was big at that point. Was it? I remember it being. The more I held about 3,000 people. Really? A couple of them broke the record that night. Really? 38, 300 people in there. No shit.
I remember it being tiny. Maybe you're thinking of a different place. It's long and deep. You probably didn't see it. Or maybe at that point you were playing just the stadiums and arenas so much. It just seemed small for you. What? It felt small on stage. Maybe the stage was small. It wasn't gigantic. No, maybe that was it. It was the entire scene. There was nothing like that anywhere else. They actually opened up one in Queens after that.
It was Lamore East. And then one in Long Island, Lamore's far east. But they never really had the impact that the one in Brooklyn did. Who was the craziest night you ever had there? We're playing on a Thursday night. The next night was priest and maiden at the time. What a build. So we're at the getting ready to go on. And the owner comes in and he says, you know, the guys from Iron Maiden are here. They want to, they want to know if they can hang out in the dressing room.
We're like, yeah, what we're going to say. No. Yeah, come on. Bring them in. So they all came back. We hung out. And this is how we asked them if they wanted to play. Now, then I want to get up. Okay, no problem. We can on stage. About halfway through the set. My guitar. Look at me. I'm going to play it. I'm going. Really? They want to play. Okay. Well, let's bring them up. The next song. I said, tell them come up next song. And I introduced them. I go walking off stage. Steve Harris crashed.
And he goes, where you going? Bruce isn't here. I went. What? So I sang. I sang, uh, Rothschild would Iron Maiden tonight. Place. You want to talk about a place going. Batch it. Crazy man. It was insane. I made a little more. Yeah, it was a ask kick, and man. And my sound man captured it on a cassette tape. So I still have it. Still, no, I've never seen any video of it, but I have the, I have the recording. That's one thing back in those days. It wasn't like it is. Everyone has a video.
You want to see it show from last night. I miss all super. Yeah. I mean, you could be so much more. I mean, you could be so much more, so much more. Adventure is in ball. You could try the new shit out. And you'd always thought, well, you know, the moment you play it, that note, it's gone forever. Who cares? Let's be, you know, let's have fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now you always think in the back of me, oh, they're going to tape this. And oh, you know, that's true. I've stopped.
So it's going to be out there. You know, let's play a new song tonight. Well, what if they film it and it gets out there and maybe it doesn't sound great. Yeah. It's a shame that a lot more pressure in this day is for that sort of stuff. Yeah. Because they don't get you if you do something wrong, you know. We actually played one night on one of the very few days. Maybe if ever. Or a career that we did two shows in the night, we played with KISS at Radio City Music Hall on that tour.
And then we played the same night at Le Mans. Yeah, that was when they did a lot of the same fans followed us from that show to that show. And that talked to a lot of people over the years that were at both shows. Yeah, that's cool. That night. And it was one of those at the moments that stand out because we'd never done anything like it. Yeah, I remember we played at Le Mans. We did that in the 80s as well. We opened for Ted Nugent at a show called The New York City.
We did that in the 80s as well. We opened for Ted Nugent at a Stabler Arena drove into New York and played a headline show afterwards. Yeah. That's a surprise. Yeah. You've done the before Manchester Liverpool play the Manchester show in the afternoon. From the gear. Don't even take your shit off. Sweaty and wet. It's great to the next gig, right? It's great. Rich Ward guitar player. Actually, yeah, I just saw him. Yeah, he wanted me to ask you a question. Oh, he said when he saw you guys.
Rich, what is it? It's not too bad. He said you replaced Motley crew with Ozzy. That Motley crew was touring with Ozzy. And Motley got too big. And then accept Kimberly. He wanted to ask what is it like touring with Ozzy? Did you have any experiences with him? Of course we did. I mean, it was fun. He was pretty hammered a lot of times. Remember that? What? That's to be expected. That's Ozzy. Yeah. And he's sometimes wonder off stage. I remember that.
Sometimes when he wasn't in the mood, he just sort of left and... Like, we just leave him in the song? Before the show, and Ozzy was nowhere to be found. I remember those kind of stories. He came into our dressing room dressed up as a woman in Sharon's clothing. So I remember that. Still a little picture of that in a dress. Just for the hell of it. Yeah. That was great, man. We had a lot of fun. Like you said, too, just in America at that point in time, heavy metal was so big. It was. It was.
We really jumped from tour to tour to just stayed in America for like... I believe in that first year, eight months, and next year, six months, we played with everybody. Like, kids and Iron Maiden, forever, and Ozzy Osborne, and even then, with Motley Crew, with Dio, all these bands. It was great. What tours have you done since you've been in the band that you really enjoyed? All of them, I hope. I think every night Wolf, the highlight probably, was the two ACDC shows though.
Yeah, that was good. Oh, wow. Tell us about that. Where was that at? That was the first tour, 2010. We opened for ACDC on two open airs. And one was the Hanover. And it took out, I believe. It took out, like, two stadium shows. She was open airs, 80,000 just ACDC and excess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it was strict, man. They were like, they were getting around. I mean, not the band. The band was never there, but the whole organization was like, don't do this.
Don't do that. Don't even think about that. And get up. No sound check. And don't step on the ego riser. Yeah. Well, nobody told me. Me, asshole. I got this little cable right out on the catwalk in first song. And I see Gabby's side. His stage was going, no, no. Frank's going, oh my god, you're going to get thrown out. You're going to shut us off. Nobody told me. Well, that's, I did that a download last year when Aerosmith played. And the catwalk is there.
And you're like, I'm not going to ask because I know what the answer is going to be. So I'm just going to grab the mic at the beat and run as fast as I can down there. Yeah. And at least you know you've got it done. And then they didn't say anything. But I know afterwards like no other bands are allowed to use the catwalk. Right. You can't use the catwalk. So how was that? I mean, so they're very strict, but was the show good?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was weird because it wasn't really the crowd full of metal fans. It was really mom and pop. Yeah. And their audiences are notoriously there just to see AC. Right. Yeah. They can give two shits about the opening act. Yeah. We did, we did really well. Yeah. We did actually. How did you get those gigs? This is whatever. Here we got this call. Here it is. Somebody did somebody did something and we got them. I don't know how it.
Yeah. It's amazing when you play like, you know, as big as as you guys are. And then you go play with ACDC, which is as big as it gets. Pretty much. Well, you see the difference, you know, it's like going from a club band to this. Right. And then going from this to seeing that and you're like, oh, we're like, we're like, we're like, uh, we know. I mean, just the whole production is insane. You go under the stage and I got the tour of just all the amp. I mean, there's this amp city.
I mean, like 10 Marshall heads and they're all running and there's a guy just servicing the head. I mean, there's a guy just in charge of only the amplifiers. That's it. That's it. It doesn't do anything else. Just the amplifiers. Yep. There's a role of generators and transformers and freaking huge. I'm going, oh man, we can get some power back here. To talk about, you know, big production. Oh, that's the thing. Our crew is five and your crew might be 10 and there's like 100. Oh, yeah, totally.
Like, you know, with 18 semis and like you mentioned, they don't know who's working for them. And they stay on the road for like three years. Yeah. Two years or something. You know, it's, yeah, it's a different level altogether. Just a couple last questions as we wind down here. I was going to ask you. You just had to, you just got a new guitar player and accept. Yeah. How is it? It's the uve. Uve. Midnight uve. Midnight uve. But it's funny because I saw Kai Hansen.
I saw Halloween last night and he said that it was excellent. Yeah, excellent. Good. Well, I think one of my all-time favorite bands for what they do, they're the best. Wait, I mean, and I thought we are not. You're up there. It's just one of my all-time favorite bands. Oh, good. It's three favorite German bands, Scorpions, Halloween, except. There you go. Thank you. Back pedal. But he was talking about how he knows, was that? Back pedaler. Oh, that's not true. It's true.
He was talking about uve. Which is a uve. Which is spelled uwe. Right. For him, it's not German. Uwe. Yeah. It's not Uwe. Uwe? No. Uwe's a new guy. How was it for you? You've had to do this a number of times. Yeah. You've had to start working with a new guitar player. Because as a two-guitar band, there's chemistry that you have to have. Yeah. How is that? How do you decide on how to use or who to hire, should I say?
Well, basically, you just sit down and play the songs together and see how it feels. Does it feel like it gels or doesn't it? Because some players have a totally different technique. But the way that we play, we have to dig in pretty hard. And you've got to play those riffs in a certain manner, I would say, with a certain attitude. You can't just sort of have the guitar on your chin and do it really softly. You've got to man up and dig in. This is power, right.
Yeah. So it's a matter of attitude. And I guess within a few minutes, you know right away whether it's going to work or not. Do you speak German at all, Mark? Sourcrack. Nine. So do you ever get this? So I worked in Japan quite a bit. I wrestled there all the time in the 90s. It was the one Canadian American guy on the Japanese kind of evil team. Right. And they spoke English, but sometimes they would all just start speaking in Japanese. And I wouldn't have a clue what they're talking about.
But I know that they're talking about me because they look horrible. Oh, that's just you paranoid American. Is that you ever get that? I'm sure the crew. I understand a lot more German than I let on. I actually took four years of German in school when I was in. Did you? Yeah, I wish I had a paid attention. Is it what happens when you drop out to be a rock singer should have paid attention. Yeah, exactly. Well, the final couple questions.
And so now with except being as big as you guys are continuing on for sure. And we already thinking about the next album, you know, it's just going to continue. The train is rolling and there's no stop. We're a little too old to take a break. So you really can't write so much now. One of the next things that we're scheming on right now is to do a few more shows with an orchestra because we played last year at Wacken for the first time with an orchestra.
And we have the DVD coming out with the orchestra now. That's what we're going to start on. November 23rd. We'll release this when it comes out. Yes, please. So what's it called? It's called Symphonic Terror actually. Nice. It's like you know, take up on Tautonic Terror. They always used to call you that in circus magazine. The Tautonic Terrorism. Is it what the f**k is Tautonic mean? Is that it? I don't know. It's us. It's part of our marriage. But so how was that playing with the symphony?
That's insane. It was a trip. It was killing. Yeah. Obviously we'd never done it before. And we only had a couple of days to rehearse everything. But it took months to prepare everything to write the scores. And so there was a lot of preparation that went into it. But at the end of the day, it was something that we'd never done before. And here we are. It was fantastic. And for not like 80,000 people in worldwide streaming. And shit, this was the big moment. And it went really, really well.
So are you doing like like balls of the wall? For example, with the fast of the shark and shit like that. Wow. We are with the symphony orchestra. Who transposed it and who conducted it? Well, different people. The scores were written by a guy called Meloma Fali. He's sort of a pianist and very all-round genius kind of guy. He wrote the score. And then you had an orchestra from Prague, 50 people. We shipped them up to Vukken. And yeah, they came with a conductor.
We went there rehearsed with them in their studio. How much did you have to rehearse? Not that much. It was only a couple of days, right? Yeah, two days, but really only they were so good. I mean, literally these guys used to it. They used to it. I mean, they get the scores. They go a little, take five minutes. Okay, let's do it. Boom. Perfect. It makes you realize like, I mean, there's people that actually play. That's what we were. I was just saying, were there real musicians?
Yeah. But then you see those guys and you're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. What the hell is that? They were way cool, though, man. Yeah. And especially for Christopher and I, we had both played in orchestra when we were kids, you know, really? Yeah. So I mean, he's always been a concert drummer. And I actually played tuba in the orchestra when I was a kid. For years. Dude, that was a drum boom player. There you go. Brass, brass, brass section unite. It was just a great thing. Yeah. So it was great.
So we're going to have that out on DVD. And then we're going to play some more shows like that next year. On a smaller scale indoor shows, regular venues, like nice venues. But when you did the the the Valkenshow, was it, were you headlining? Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, yeah, the first night is called the night to remember. Yeah, usually the first night is whether you do unusual, whatever, special stuff. And that was our night. I mean, that's 80,000. I know. It's insane.
Plus some bazillion online, because it was all streamed out right. Right. So talk about a little bit of a pressure there. Especially when we're talking about when having their phones and filming and stuff too. Yeah, exactly. So it was way cool. Let's go. Now you're going to use sleep again. Yeah. You're going to have to pay more money now, because he's in Judas Priest. Fuck that. He ain't getting more. He's going to do it for free. We got him to kick. Yeah, that's right.
And you got him in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, exactly. Last question. What's your favorite song to play to play live? Or the thing live? Of yours and of the past. That's hard, man. Damn. Probably of mine, I would say, uh, shadow soldiers. Yeah, just because it's too nice. That's a fun song to play. Actually get the sing. Don't get the single. Wow. I was a lot more screaming than singing going on. Yeah. The old stuff. Wow, man. That's even harder. I don't know, man. Demon's night. Yeah, yeah.
That's obscure. Yeah. Actually, I really enjoy singing up to the limit because it's just so much fun. That's a good two-million digs it. Yeah. It's just by that time I'm usually, you know, firing on all cylinders. But, you know, people always ask me, aren't you tired of playing balls to the wall and Princess because you've done it like two million times, but the answer is no. I mean, usually those songs are actually the ones that I enjoy the most because you don't have to think about it.
It's almost autopilot. Yeah. And it's fun to get into the, you know, to have the interaction with the audience. Because those songs are so simple, but their audience gets into it. But the thing is to anybody that says that doesn't understand the real power of music because okay, you've played it a thousand times, ten thousand times. There's people that have never heard except, I've never seen except play. I'm going to watch you guys tonight.
So for the first time ever, I get to hear balls to the wall. So anybody that says, are you sick of it? I hope not because I'm super excited to hear it. Right. You know what I mean? And that's the beauty and the magic of being a musician and doing it. And at the end of the day, we're not there to entertain us. Yes. We're there to entertain the audience. If they're digging it, it's fine by me. Well, I got you on that one because I've seen you wrestle more times than I could ever count, right?
Really? My son and I were such, but when he was a kid in the late 90s, early 2000s, all Y2J thing man. Right on. We were lands are where. Yeah, metal. Every time he came through was either, you know, Monday for, uh, Friday for Smackdown, whatever came through. I know, but we watched religiously. You never know every week. You never know. I was going to be out there.
Like I said, I have a Medal of Honor on cassette and album because I didn't just have it on album because I couldn't travel with it when I got a shitty car when I was 18. So I bought on cassette. So there you go. You ride your fanboys, another that now. I have a shoulder plate. You guys got a shoulder plate. Hey, go. Typical German. Get out of here. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Thanks, guys. Yeah, man. It's a pleasure. All right, thanks to Wolf and Mark.
Remember, accepts new records, Symphonic Terror live at Vokin 2017 is available now wherever you buy music, you can also order it on their website and accept worldwide.com. All right, Foszy still rock in Canada. We're doing the final dates of the entire Judas Rising tour. We've been to over 20 countries. Canada is the final one and the final shows are happening this week.
Tonight, Wednesday, November 28th at the Rock Pile in Toronto, come check it out Friday, Thunder Bay at Crocs Saturday, December 1st, Winnipeg at the Burton coming theater, home coming for me. December 2nd, Regina at the Exchange, December 3rd, Edmonton at the Starlight Room in December 4th, the final show of the Judas Rising Tour is in Calgary at the Gateway. We will see you there.
Go to FoszyRock.com for all ticket information, including how to buy tickets for one of Foszy's legendary VIP meet and greets. It is one of the best of the business. Everyone who does it says they love it and says it's the favorite VIP they've ever had. You get a free mini concert. We take pictures, we sign an 8x10 through, we hang out and chat. It's a great, great time. Everybody across the world loves Foszy's VIP program. If you want to join us, go to FoszyRock.com.
The chat's to meet Jax play as well. All right, thank you so much. And coming up on Friday, Nikki Novak from Fandango returns to talk as Jericho for the Christmas movie preview special. She's breaking down the box office hits and telling you what to see and what to skip at theaters this holiday season. Always a great time with Nikki, we always have a blast.
So we'll see you on Friday for the Christmas movie preview in the meantime and to be featured on Stay Hard, stay hungry, peace, love and hugs and a big... You'll get your balls through the wall man.