UDO DIRKSCHNEIDER
German powerhouse Udo Dirkschneider is a genuine metal legend. He did his time as a
powerful vocalist in hard rock band Accept back in the ‘80’s and even now, at the age of 63, is still giving it some hardcore on the regular on tour and recording with his band U.D.O. For one final time, in 2016, he’s going to be playing those Accept classics for the very last time, and
he’ll be bringing it at the Waterfront his month, along with support Anvil. I spoke to Udo about how Accept’s most famous track Balls To Te Wall came about and what it was like to tour with Judas Priest and KISS. Horns up and hair down, Norwich!
H
ow did you orginally get into metal music?
Oh, a long time ago, but it wasn’t called metal then, it was called hard rock. I was listening to the Stones, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Te Sweet, Black Sabbath, and they were the inspiration to make music. I had a few bands, then Accept formed and we went through many line up changes. We settled on a combination that
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really worked and we became professional. You grew up in Solingen, a small town in Germany. Were there any other bands around in your town at that time making hard rock in the 80’s? It was a small town but we had a really good music scene there, you know. Live music was very popular, but it wasn’t just rock, there was Krautrock as well. It was a
very interesting scene, and we all had a good time together but nowadays there’s nothing happening in my hometown, it’s more in Hamburg and Berlin. Do you have a favourite Accept album? For me, the most important Accept album was Breaker (1981). I think it was at this time we found our style; it really had an aggressive energy to it. Also a lot of musicians have told us that it was the album that inspired them to start learning the guitar or singing. It doesn’t mean I don’t like the other albums, but for me that was the start of us being a proper band. Accept’s album Restless and Wild, which came out in 1982, was one of the first speed metal albums. How did you discover this sound? Yeah, especially the song Fast As A Shark. We didn’t know at the time that we were creating speed metal, and we almost decided not to put it on the album in fact. Everybody says that was the first speed metal song ever! Very interesting! Who were some of best bands Accept toured with? We learnt a lot on our first tour around Europe with Judas Priest, and then we went to America for the first time and toured with KISS, which, for a German band, was something else. It took it to a whole other level for us. Accept’s most famous song is Balls To Te Wall. Can you tell us about the writing of that song and what’s it meant to you over the years? Tat song is about human rights. Wolf, our guitarist came up with the riff, and
“I still can do six shows in a row!”
then there was the hook line “Balls To Te Wall”, and that was all we had. Ten one night I was in the studio with Stefan Kaufmann, our drummer, and I was really drunk, started singing some verses and the next day everybody said “Tat’s it!” It’s funny, sometimes things just happen like that. How did you find it starting all over again with U.D.O after you were sacked from Accept? Well the other guys were writing songs which weren’t really my kind of music, and they were trying to become more commercial and take on more of an American style. Te next Accept album had already been written but they didn’t want those songs so I took them with me. So I searched for new musicians to play with which was, in a way, quite easy as everyone wanted to play with Udo! Ha ha! So I started working on the album, using those Accept songs, and then I went on tour in Europe, then America with Guns ‘n’ Roses and when the second U.D.O album came out I went on a big European tour with Ozzy Osbourne. Of course people have always said oh, you’re the voice of Accept, but I’ve been doing U.D.O now for longer that I was in Accept. Last year at Wacken you announced that this would be the tour where you play Accept songs for the final time. How come you have decided to draw the line here and now? I have been talking about this for a long time. My management told me that when they suggested I go out on tour and only play Accept
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