Accept
Metal Heart
They no longer play together, but in a unique retrospective, four-fifths of the Accept that released »Metal heart« in 1985 talk about the classic album.
Meet guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, singer Udo Dirkschneider, drummer Stefan Kaufmann and bassist Peter Baltes.
BY JANNE MATTSSON PHOTO MICHAEL JOHANSSON
– During the summer of 1984, we were on tour in the USA together with Mötley Crüe and Ratt, remembers drummer Stefan Kaufmann. Even then, we were tossing around ideas on the theme »metal heart«. Someone had read about artificial hearts and it felt exciting. In mid-June, the tour was over and we went straight to a cabin in Vermont. We had rented it so that we could work on new material undisturbed. Was it a smart move after spending several weeks crammed into a sweaty tour bus? Well, we have been smarter, but there were still no internal problems. We were so far apart that we only had each other to hang out with and then work with! »Metal heart« was a song that we worked on a lot. It was very difficult to get right. We changed the tempo and melodies every other day. In the end, I came up with the main riff of the song that we could work from. Bassist Peter Baltes and guitarist Wolf Hoffmann then added their ideas. However, Wolf was not entirely convinced of the song's qualities. Likewise, today I can think about producer Dieter Dierks (Scorpions) ability with the editing scissors. I say that with a twinkle in my eye. If you listen very carefully, you can hear that the band comes into the wrong tempo after Wolf's awesome guitar solo. It's probably an eighth note too late. If no one has thought about it before, everyone will after this article. That Wolf was initially dissatisfied with the song is an unexpected statement that is supported by singer Udo Dirkschneider. Wolf himself, however, does not agree with that at all.
– It was with »Metal heart« that I came out of the closet as a big fan of classical music, says Wolf with a laugh. Considering how much energy I put into making the two classical pieces Tchaikovsky's »Slavonic march« and Beethoven's »Für Elise« fit into the song's intro and solo, it doesn't make sense that I would have disliked it.
How did you come up with the idea of pairing Tchaikovsky and Beethoven with hard rock?
– After previously sneaking more and more classical music into my solos during our concerts, I completely exposed myself here. In my eyes, it's even about taking a stand. I had already seen the response the audience gave us live and that could only mean one thing. Classical music wasn't just for old culture groups – it was for everyone! Something that was also proven as soon as the song was released.
MIDNIGHT MOVER
– A very interesting song, says Peter. The verses are actually eighth notes and that's what the song is entirely based on. There's no natural swing at all in it. Everything was carefully calculated. Everything to keep the stops together in the verses. It took a little while to master them, but once we had it under control, it became the song's great strength. It's the stops that give the song its drive.
- It was a difficult song for me to sing, says Udo. At first, I had difficulty with the rhythm of the song because it's difficult. I got a lot of tips from Dieter to learn to see the pattern that it's based on. Thanks to that, I learned that I'm not as limited a singer as I thought. He showed me that there was more to pick from than I had previously known.
»Midnight mover« was the first single from »Metal heart«. Does its commercial appearance and what Peter says about calculations make it sound like a predetermined move?
- It certainly was, says Wolf. Stefan had a title that consisted of two words that worked well together. He also wrote a melody that suited them. After he had presented the idea to me and Peter, he took the initiative to delete everything except the song title and we started over. Right from the start, »Midnight mover« was the decidedly »commercial song«. I wouldn't say we sold out, but rather that we wrote it with an ulterior motive. It's still not a bad song at all, but it has a good nerve that rubs off on the audience.
The single also became a video that, with its »bullet time« effect, was way ahead of its time. It would be 14 years before the same technique would become known to the common man via the first »Matrix« film.
– We were ahead of our time, Wolf continues. Or, more truthfully, it was the Polish producer Zbigniew Rybczyński who was. He set up a lot of cameras around each of us in the band. Each camera took about ten still images per second which he then cut together at a furious pace. The video was very popular in the US.
– I remember a funny story that Twisted Sisters Dee Snider told me, says Udo. He was a host on MTV for the program »Heavy metal mania« and the video made him throw up! The clips were so fast that he got motion sick, haha! Good old Dee. The video was a bit too strong for him.
UP TO THE LIMIT
– Dieter drove us crazy during the recording of the song, says Wolf with a big smile. It wasn't just during the recording but also while we were rehearsing it! If I close my eyes, I can still see him standing in the middle of the room and talking about the guitar phrasing in the song. There was a lot of pointing and clasping of hands on his part to mark the different starts and stops.
– Despite, or maybe thanks to, Dieter's pointing with his whole hand, this is where I am at my finest, says Peter. This is exactly what I do as a musician. I slide into the song and lie there with a pumping bass that gives it a pulse. In this way, the guitars get a lot of space to play on. This was exactly what was Accept's strength. I did selfless things with the bass that could highlight the nuances of the others. I have always been like that as a musician.
Dieter's leadership is also something that Stefan remembers.
– I will never forget Dieter’s first time we played the song for him, says Stefan. He couldn’t for the life of him understand what we presented to him. You could call him directly uninterested in the song. We had to convince him that it should be included and it was recorded. I think this was the first song we finished writing for »Metal heart«. The riff is Wolf’s, I’m 100 percent sure of that. That was mostly how it was. 90 to 99 percent of the riff was Wolf’s and the rest of us contributed melodies.
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| ”Dogs on leads” is the song that is the most Udo! This is how I sing. |
WRONG IS RIGHT
– Peter calls this a »simple, straight rock smoker« and that’s exactly how you can sum it up, says Udo. It was also one of the songs that we didn’t write in Vermont, but this one came about first in the studio. The lyrics are about the eternal search for what is right or wrong. How can you ever know? The only thing that is real is the search for the answer. Everything else is secondary. This was another one of those slightly more difficult songs for me to sing. I had no problem singing lead, but all the background vocals were difficult. I was not used to that. Previously it had mostly been gaping and screaming. Was it frustrating to spend take after take trying to get the vocals right? No, not really. Dieter taught me a lot of things here too. If you are not open-minded and ready to learn new things, what is the point of having a producer on hand? What Dieter taught me, and the others too, I still benefit from today.
– “Wrong is right” was initially a completely ordinary double-track song with no frills, says Stefan. A song like Dieter, and now I have to think about what I am saying, was perhaps not the best suited to recording. He came up with several different suggestions for arrangements and especially for the final part of the song, where the title is repeated in the most unrhythmic way. When we played the song live, we played it straight and without fuss. None of us remembered how the ending went, and we didn't care either. It's Dieter's work, after all.
Despite its simplicity, this is one of the songs you experimented with quite a bit, isn't it?
- I recorded the guitars through a Leslie cabinet on an organ, says Wolf. It gave the verses and their open chords a cool effect. How did I come up with that idea? It wasn't me, but the recording engineer who had recorded another band that way. He thought the result was so cool that he wanted to continue with it. It wasn't just "Wrong is right" that was subjected to Dieter's and our experimentalism. That applies to the entire album in general. Never before or since have there been so many different guitars and amplifiers involved in an Accept production. Although now I was about to forget the album "Eat the heat", which was released in 1989 and which we also recorded with Dieter. We were probably even worse there.
SCREAMING FOR A LOVE-BITE
– When we wrote the song, the lyrics felt a bit taboo, says Udo. Now it's 2020 and is it fucking obvious that it's about getting a blowjob? The lyrics aren't so subtle that you could miss it. The funny thing is that none of the guys in the band wrote the lyrics.
– To this day, I'm not particularly happy with the lyrics, sighs Wolf. I remember Dieter thinking the lyrics were awesome, while the rest of us weren't as convinced. He thought we should trust him. We did. Our lyricist (and Wolf's wife) Gaby wrote a bunch of fantastic lyrics for Accept. This one doesn't belong to that group. I don't have any problems with the song itself at all. It's really good.
– Given its commercial aura, this should be one of the songs that was written during the stay in Vermont in 1984?
– That's right, says Peter. In this case, we more or less wrote something catchy to order. It was an unusual experience, but it's nothing I think I hear when I listen to the song today. It sounds more like a band that knows with certainty where they're going.
Peter's memory of it not being heard is not something Stefan agrees with. When he remembers the time they heard the song played on American radio, the story is different.
– We went on our tour bus and listened to college radio, because college radio played the best mix of music, says Stefan.
Immediately when »Screaming for a love-bite« started playing, I felt that it was way too hard. Despite its melodies and thoroughly commercial appearance, it was still the hardest thing we had heard in several hours. That's when we realized that even though we try, we don't have the commercial vein in us. However, it didn't dampen our spirits too much. We were still on a successful run together with Dio. Every single night was a new success. After »Screaming for a love-bite« we were on the radio. The album »Metal heart« wasn't our American breakthrough, but »Balls to the wall«, which was released in 1983. I don't remember if it was Peter or Wolf who came up with the magnificent and grand riff in »Screaming for a love-bite«. The problem was that after that we didn't know exactly where Udo would go, because the riff is so melodic. In the end it worked out and another single was released. One thing that frustrates me is that the fans think this is a so-called "easy song". They don't understand how complex the song is. For a "commercial single" it is difficult to play on both drums and guitar. Also, Peter's bass line is very different from what he usually plays. I like the arrangement of the song. We have Dieter to thank for the arrangements. Without him the song would have been much more straightforward and less meaningful.
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| >Band members names< minutes before they go on stage in Scandinavium, Gothenburg, Sweden, May 2, 1985. |
TOO HIGH TO GET IT RIGHT
“Another song from the Vermont forests and it smells like AC/DC so it's great,” says Stefan. It was the first song we recorded together with Dieter. Here too he was moderately impressed with what we came up with. Or moderately... To quote him exactly: »This is crap!« After scratching his head and sighing about our AC/DC interest, he suggested lots of bar changes and odd fills. It ended up taking me two whole days to record what seemed easy on paper, although nothing is actually as difficult to achieve as AC/DC's patented hang. Dieter wasn't happy with the swing or my way of playing the song. To explain what he meant, he jumped around like a little witch in front of the drums and showed me what to do and when. That kind of thing can make people go crazy, but I held my ground. When I listen to the song today, this is the only thing I hear and see in my mind, how Dieter pushes me in the right direction. It's funny how everyone can think that AC/DC's music is so damn easy to play, but yet no one else can do it. Can I do it? No, really not. Phil Rudd is one of my drum gods. For me, he is the only one who should be behind AC/DC's drum kit. I remember the first time I saw AC/DC, it was on their »Highway to hell« tour in Essen on November 16, 1979. Judas Priest was the opening act. I hadn't joined Accept yet, but I was there with them. Judas Priest were so over the top that we didn't think anything would ever top them. Then AC/DC stormed onto the stage. What a lesson we learned! To this day it is the best concert I have ever seen. None of us could stand still, it was a constant headbanging for an hour and a half. That's the effect you get from AC/DC. Your head can't be still. I know they have a new album ready and that Phil Rudd is on drums. That's all I need to know. I'm going to buy it and it's going to be good. Maybe not all the songs, but the swing will be there.
Stefan speaks highly of the AC/DC swing in the song. Do you agree with him?
– Absolutely, we've always had a bit of AC/DC in us, says Wolf. It's not something I'm denying. »Too high to get it right« has a bit of the same character and tempo as »Up to the limit«. It's a formula that we noticed early on worked well for us. Not to copy AC/DC outright, that's never been an issue. But including a song like this is a given. This type of song also worked very well with Udo's way of singing.
DOGS ON LEADS
– The song that screams »Udo!« the most, says Udo. That's how I sing. This was also a song that Dieter had trouble getting to. He didn't know what we were doing and especially not what I was doing. He questioned me once and I couldn't give him a good answer to the question. But then he accidentally called me Klaus after the Scorpions' Klaus Meine more than once, hehe. He was so used to recording the Scorpions. Luckily Stefan was in the studio while I was recording the song and he was able to explain our vision to Dieter more easily than I could. Imagine how it would have turned out if Stefan hadn't been there. I wonder what Dieter would have made me do then.
– Yes, poor Udo, chuckles Stefan. He was at a loss when Dieter went wild. We always made these kinds of songs with pumping bass and sneaky riffs. Although I remember that I had problems with the timing again. I kept wanting to pick up the tempo, so it took me a while before I could visualize
lis the tempo and play it the way it was supposed to be played. For me, this is one of the most boring songs on the album. The chorus is not fun, »dogs on leads« only four times.
However, one person who disagrees with Stefan is Peter.
– Boring and boring, sighs Peter. »Dogs on leads« is a tough bastard thanks to its tempo. How do you play such a slow and monotonous song without making it monotonous yourself? Its pumping bass was very difficult to achieve. People think that the slower the song is, the easier it is to play. Bullshit. The lower the tempo, the more is required of the musicians. Live, however, it was not possible to keep that tempo and to speed it up was doing it a disservice. But all albums need album songs. You can't write ten hits in a row and think that it will be a good album.
Please report dead links!
TEACH US TO SURVIVE
– Here we are talking about an odd number that was intended for the movie »The Teacher«, says Stefan. With its jazzy swing, it is without a doubt the strangest moment of the album. I am not a swing drummer and Peter is not a swing bassist. With all the syncopations in sixteenth notes and the shuffle swing, it was incredibly difficult to play. I realize I say that very often now. I may not be as sharp a musician as I pretend to be, haha! It is fun to listen to but it is a song that we could have deleted from the album. People talk about it, but I am not one of them.
How did you get in touch with the film company and why was the song rejected?
– It may have been someone from the record company who got in touch and said that they needed songs for a film, says Wolf. We wrote the song but they never took it. I guess it was too strange for them. I understand them. It is strange. That is why I like it. It has a kind of spy movie feel to it. I don't remember who wrote it, but I guess the guitars came from me. It's a bit like Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" in terms of groove. I think we might have even played it live. God knows why. I guess we just wanted to have fun.
- I understand that the musicians were amused by it, says Udo. However, I wasn't involved in it any more than I sang what they told me to sing.
Peter agrees that it was a song for the musicians in the band.
- "Teach us to survive" is a song of the more unusual kind, where a band with a distinct identity goes far outside its framework, says Peter. I played an eight-string bass and that wasn't the norm. I was forced to get out of my comfort zone and explore different terrain. In a way, it's an eye-opener precisely because of that. I wasn't as limited as I felt. I was good at my instrument! 35 years later, I'm making music for films and TV series and maybe I never would have done it if it weren't for this particular song.
LIVING FOR TONITE
– My favorite song on the record, says Peter. In those days, there were no click tracks to follow when recording music, but it was about being really good at your instrument. It was me and Stefan. Together we were so tight that you couldn't even get a coin in between us. That's something I love about Stefan's playing. We were a unit, a pulse and we shared the same heartbeat frequency. This song would have even worked without a guitar, we built such a good rhythm. The funny thing is that we never rehearsed just the two of us together, but we were so in sync anyway. We could have been brothers. The start is different, everyone comes in at the same time, no intro, just bang on. It takes good musicians to succeed with something like that live and we succeeded. Night after night after night.
– Yes, this is a song that was one of the cornerstones of our concerts for a long time, says Wolf. I liked it then and I still like it today. Its rhythm makes it the perfect live song.
– I can only agree with that, Stefan continues. The backstage clichés about brides and bears are aplenty, but I still love it. I came up with the riff and that's really all that happens during the song. The riff is there all the time and it's a definite one. I described earlier what it was like to go to an AC/DC concert. I imagine the same kind of reaction here – you can't stand still!
BOUND TO FAIL
– It's a typical studio song, Udo begins. We didn't have a demo for it, it was created entirely in the studio under Dieter's supervision. It's a special song, but it's never been played live and I can't see how that could ever happen.
What Udo calls a "studio song" is actually two songs that, for some unknown reason, were intertwined into one. Something that neither Wolf nor Stefan were particularly impressed with.
– We had the riffy opening, says Wolf. Why it was decided to pair it with the majestic outro is nothing but a big mystery. I think Dieter is the only one who can answer that. I'm still not sure. Why we didn't question him? I don't know. I didn't think it was as bad then as I think it is now. I like the second half when the chorus fades out. It creates a kind of euphoric state, which was exactly what we were looking for.
– Although that doesn't excuse the first part, Stefan continues. The last few minutes are nice, I stand by that. But the music before that, what the hell is that? We should have split everything up. The outro should have been its own song with a psalm-like feel to it. I still have the lyrics somewhere. When it was lumped together with the intro, I completely lost interest in the song. I have a hard time seeing anyone actually liking »Bound to fail«. As far as I know, no one has told me that, anyway. Despite that, I like the album a lot. Together with »Breaker«, »Restless and wild« and »Balls to the wall« it forms a magical four-leaf clover. I'm not the only one who thinks that, all the old members agree.