THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS
Accept
I’m A Rebel
How the German heavy metallers took a glam-rock-tinged stomper – a long-lost early AC/DC track written by Malcolm and Angus’s brother Alex – and made it their own.
Words: Dave Everley
WOLF’S PACK STILL HUNTING
Wolf Hoffmann is the only member of Accept’s classic 80s line-up left in the band. “I never expected to be the last man standing,” he says. “It feels weird, but that’s the way it is.”
The band’s new album, Too Mean To Die, is their fifth with singer Mark Tornillo, who replaced original squawker Udo Dirkschneider when Accept reunited in 2009. It was recorded partly before the pandemic, and finished remotely.
“It could go either way,” is Hoffmann’s expectation. “We’re not touring, so it could hurt it. On the other hand, people are stuck at home and they’re desperate for some fresh heavy metal.”
As 1979 drew to a close, Accept were in need of a hit. The scrappers from the then West German city of Solingen dreamed of following in the footsteps of fellow countrymen the Scorpions and busting their hi-octane metal beyond the boundaries of their home country. The problem was that their self-titled debut album, released earlier that year, had fallen on deaf ears.