Wolf Hoffmann Live

Wolf, on 15th August, the new Accept album will be released. Tell us a little bit about the new songs.

The new album is called “Blind Rage”. All songs were written as usual by Peter and me with Mark contributing the final lyrics. The song writing process took about 6- 8 months total, starting in the summer of 2013. Recording was done in January and February in the US, mixing in the UK in Andy Sneap’s Backstage Studio.

After a longer break, you have been active again for about four years now. What is different compared to the past?

Well, some things never change , others change all the time. What hasn’t changed is the musical identity and direction. We still sound like Accept – Peter and I have been working together for close to 40 years now as a songwriting team. So we automatically know what the other is thinking without much need for words. To me it feels it getting tighter and tighter and more defined with each album.

What has changed concerning your equipment ?

Back in the ‘old days’ (especially the 80′s) we used to carry so much more gear with us, wherever we played. It was almost ridiculous by today’s standards. I am talking containers full of backline and instruments! Back then it was still affordable, nowadays… forget it. Only when we do longer continuous touring with night liners and truck will we carry our own backline and drums set etc.

For fly dates we travel only with the personal items like guitars and pedals etc. Getting your sound out of rental guitar amps can be really tough though, almost impossible sometimes. So the Kemper amp is perfect for me. I can now take my sound with me wherever I go. My setup is ultra portable and very flexible. I use two Prostage X05 boards to trigger the program changes on the Kemper Amp. One for my guitar tech and the other one is on stage. It worked well for the last 100+ shows and I see no reason to change it for this upcoming tour.

Have you ever used a pedalboard?

I have used a poedalboard for as long as I can remember. I was the guy with the most intricate pedalboard designs you could find. I wanted to have more sound possibilities but without destroying the main sound, that was always the main challenge. Over the years I  went from having pedals on the floor to pedals in a rack to no pedals. Nowadays I have all the effects I need (delay, overdrive and Wah, mostly) built into my presets of the Kemper. With the exception of one pedal: it’s a replica of my old Mutron Octave divider pedal, It;s called a vivider, made by Salvation Mods. Everything else comes right out of the Kemper and is controlled through the X05 foot controller.

Wolf, do you know the situation when you are performing on stage and suddenly the guitar rig fails? What does a guitarist do in this situation?

Heck, yeah, I know that it can be pretty scary! The more gigs you have under your belt though the more you realize it’s something that’s bound to happen once in a while and you learn to deal with it. Luckily it does not happen very often.

What can be done to prevent such a situation?

Have good gear, know you stuff really well and if you can, have a backup plan.

When and where can we see you live on stage again?

We will start touring in August and September, Europe, Japan, Australia and also a few US shows… can’t wait to play the new songs live! I hope to see you on the road !!

Wolf, many thanx for the interview.

You are welcome !

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