Wolf Hoffmann (Accept)

Wolf Hoffmann is the guitarist and founding member of metal band Accept. The band recently released a new album “Too Mean To Die” and will be touring the U.S. for the first time in 10 years! In this episode we discuss the new tour and old tours, including KISS, plus the band’s portrayal in Stranger Things, Wolf’s solo albums and more! 

00:00 - Intro
00:40 - Accept's First U.S. Tour In 10 Years
02:30 - Old Tours
06:00 - New Lineup & Three Guitarists 
08:55 - Set List, Opening Act & VIP Meet & Greet 
13:33 - Package Tours & Management
15:35 - Touring with Kiss
17:15 - Tour with Kings X 
19:10 - Accept in Pop Culture 
23:05 - Solo Albums 
24:25 - Sebastian Bach 
25:53 - Big Fans, Sales & Critical Acclaim 
27:55 - Charity 
29:01 - Outro 

Accept band website:
https://www.acceptworldwide.com

Chuck Shute website:
http://chuckshute.com

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:00

Hey, coming up today we have the guitarist from metal band except wolf Hoffman is here. He's the founding member of the band. It was started in 1976. So they've been around for a while. They have a new album out right now called to mean to die. And they're going to be touring the US for the first time in 10 years. So we're gonna talk about the upcoming tour, talking about old tours, that connection with the band to Stranger Things, and influence they've had on some bigger bands like Metallica and Guns and Roses and much, much more. So stay right there we'll pop in thank you for doing this. Except his tour in the US for the first time that 10 years, right.

Wolf Hoffmann: 0:46

Yeah. And it's been forever. The last tour we did with was in 2012 was creator, I believe. I can't believe that's really 10 years ago, whereas whereas the time gone, man, nerds.

Chuck Shute: 0:57

Yeah, well, because it's interesting, because Don't you live in the US? Don't you guys all live in Nashville?

Wolf Hoffmann: 1:02

Yeah, we do. We do. Certainly. But you know, there was the last two years didn't really count. So, you know, it's really only been eight years, but still, that's a long time for a proper American tour. Yeah, I don't know why it's just happened. You know,

Chuck Shute: 1:16

okay. Yeah. So I mean, you're hitting all the big places New York, Texas. New Jersey Vegas. What about the the whiskey show though? That's the one I got my I'm in Phoenix. So I got to if I wanted to go I'd have to drive to Vegas or LA. But the whiskey ago goes, is there going to be a lot of special guests that that one? Maybe?

Wolf Hoffmann: 1:33

Probably yeah. We'll have to see. I have to wait and see. Probably you're going to be a lot. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 1:39

Because you'd I assume you'd have a lot of connections to people that live there's a lot of metal people that live in LA.

Wolf Hoffmann: 1:45

Well, not anymore, because they all live in Nashville now. So I guess we got a bunch. We have to bring them with us when we get to go there because nobody will be in LA anymore. Really?

Chuck Shute: 1:55

Isn't there some that like if you go to the rainbow like there's stuff like that. I thought there was like people that go there periodically.

Wolf Hoffmann: 2:02

I don't know. I haven't been there myself in years, man. I don't know. It was never really your guyses scene anyways. No, it wasn't certainly not mine. And no, I guess the LA scene has always been what it was, but we weren't a part of that beyond. Hey, come on. We're the German band. If you think about it, even though we're living in Nashville, but you know, we're not exactly la musicians.

Chuck Shute: 2:25

No, but didn't you guys did you too? Or are you was it just a handful of shows you did with Motley Crue in the 80s.

Wolf Hoffmann: 2:31

We did a bunch of shows with Motley Crue, I think we did a complete tour with them. We toured with Gaga. Anybody back then? A lot of main, you know, back in those days, it was usually one main act and someone unknown opening act. And then it's certainly shifted now towards multiple, I don't know bigger acts doing this package tours. But back in those days. Yeah, we toured with Ozzy with made in with case, our first American job was with kids. So yeah, we toured with all the big names back then, or seemed like,

Chuck Shute: 3:03

Yeah, I heard you say like, when you went with kiss that it was like you had to, like really work to win over the kiss fans, because they were just there to see kiss. And so you had to? I mean, how do you do that as an opening band, it's probably one of the hardest things.

Wolf Hoffmann: 3:14

It was it was you can just feel the resistance. I remember, when you when you get go on stage, you can tell the people don't really give a rat's ass who's they're just there to see kiss, and they can't wait. But you know, if you work hard, and you, you put on a good show, and you really you can win them over. And we did just about every night. I mean, it's never gonna be that they're all on your side. But you can definitely win their respect. And I think we did. You know, he was, you know, an opening act is just a warm up for the main act. But like I said, if you work hard, you can win them. And you can do what, you know what you want to do.

Chuck Shute: 3:53

Yeah, well, you don't have to worry about that as much now. But I would think that you start to do that like that those festivals, because so when people go to a festival, who knows what band, they're there to see, there's so many bands. So yeah, there's a chance to win over a lot of new fans there.

Wolf Hoffmann: 4:07

Yeah, we do. And we always, you know, I always judge it by I wasn't at the end of the night is everybody's singing along and all the arms in the air. And, you know, we have some songs that everybody knows, and especially in Europe and these festivals, we usually have great reaction, and especially on this run. I mean, it's been fantastic. We've played all summer long here in Europe. But 20 Something shows all the major festivals. It was fantastic. Yeah, so it's a situation because the people aren't there necessarily, to see just you, right? Definitely not. Of course not.

Chuck Shute: 4:41

Yeah, that's Is that is that the most lucrative gig that you can get as a band right these days is the festivals.

Wolf Hoffmann: 4:48

It depends on your slot. You know, if you're playing sometime early on in the day, usually not. But if you're one of the main or main acts and yeah, it can be good. Absolutely. It's great because you The downside of playing these festivals is of course that only they only happen on the week ends. Normally Friday, Saturday, Sunday and sometimes on a Thursday. So you usually have Monday, Tuesday Wednesday's off somewhere. So you got to wait for the next run for the next weekend, which doesn't really feel like a regular tour. And you end up having a lot of off time. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 5:23

the it's just harder to tour these days because of the cost, right? I mean, you guys actually getting a bus for this one on us?

Wolf Hoffmann: 5:30

Yeah, we will. Absolutely. Yeah, I can't wait to that. Because we've done individual shows in the in the last 10 years, this isn't the first shows that we're doing. But those were usually like two or three here and there. When we happen to be in the US, and when we happen to win when it worked out. timing wise, we did a few shows. But this is actually the first tour where we actually getting a bus and we're traveling from city to city for 30 days. And I'm really looking forward to that. And another thing we have never brought to America is the fact we now have three guitar players. So it's a basically a complete new lineup and a new sound. And it sounds killer. It's a lot of fun. We love it. The fans love it. And it is it makes a difference. It's great.

Chuck Shute: 6:14

Yeah. How does that work? So I understand the story is that Philip was subbing in the band, and then you decided to keep mine and have three guitars. So is somebody's is your guitars the loudest since you're the member? Or how does that work?

Wolf Hoffmann: 6:28

No, it's not quite like that. We want to make sure we've got a great sound team sound guy we met wondering, make sure that you actually hear all three guitar parts. And it's not just one guitar dominating everything for sure not. And Phil and I do doing a lot of dueling leads, I share a lot of the lead stuff with Phil. And then who's mostly doing rhythm stuff in the background. But he also comes forward for a few leads where we actually tripled leads during fast as a shark. So there's a lot of interesting parts for all of us, and it works out fantastic.

Chuck Shute: 7:01

Do you ever do like the same exact parts or you're always doing all three of you are always doing something different.

Wolf Hoffmann: 7:06

Not always something different. Sometimes we all riff on the same riff. And it sounds incredibly power powerful. But when appropriate, we found a lot of new parts for Phil to play that were originally overdubs and the album's that we could never quite reproduce. Because the only you know you have to make a choice. There's more than two guitars, you know, usually pick the most important or the most prominent stuff. But having the luxury with our third guitar player, now we can actually dedicate some of that stuff and come up with new over, you know, new sounds that are complementary or like even different voicings sometimes on the same port make it more interesting. So we took our time during rehearsals to make it as interesting for everybody as possible, and it opens up everything quite a bit.

Chuck Shute: 7:54

Yeah, so some of the songs might be sound more like the originals, because there was three guitars on the recording.

Wolf Hoffmann: 8:01

For instance, songs like like princes of the dawn, there's a bunch of overdubs on that album that we never were able to play live, but now we can.

Chuck Shute: 8:08

And that's a really popular song live, right? You said it simple.

Wolf Hoffmann: 8:13

It's so super simple, but it's it's a lot of fun. The audience always gets into it. It's funny, man, sometimes you have these really intricate, sometimes even hard to play songs, and you're really proud of them. You think, oh, man, they're awesome guitar player has lifted licks after lake after fun of them. But then something as simple as princes of the dawn and the audience, you know, is like, on your side right away, as soon as that opening riff happens, and that shows you sometimes, you know, simple is better or like, but it's not just simple. It also has to be catchy. And it has to be the right tempo. So simple alone doesn't do it either.

Chuck Shute: 8:51

Yeah, so what you've got the newest album to mean to die? How many of the songs from that album, will you be playing live,

Wolf Hoffmann: 8:59

we actually played up to five during this last festival run, which is a lot. And now that we're going to do in a long set of 90 to 120 minutes, we could probably even play five or maybe even six, I don't know as much as many as we feel the audience wants us to play. You know, it usually we judge the audience participation or the audience reaction during the tour and see why that, you know, people aren't so crazy about that when we try something else. Because, you know, at the end of the day, we play the show for the audience and if they aren't getting into it as much as we were hoping then that's fine. You know, we're not really forcing it down anybody's throat you know what I mean? It's just, you know, they're there to enjoy it if we if we have the feeling that people would much rather hear some of the older stuff and then Soviet you know, you

Chuck Shute: 9:51

can change the setlist within the show then.

Wolf Hoffmann: 9:55

Not during the night. Usually we make a preset list and that's what it is. I mean, we don't really do like the, hey, oh, well, this one oh, no better idea. We don't do it that way, you know, we sort of have a setlist and we'll stick to it but we'll change it quite often from time to time from time. You know, day to day.

Chuck Shute: 10:12

Okay, so it's got maybe like five from the new album and that how many total songs like 20

Wolf Hoffmann: 10:18

at least Yeah, I would think so that sounds about right. Okay.

Chuck Shute: 10:21

Wow so it's gonna get there's gonna be a lot of bang for your buck and is it? No Is it just you guys headlining tours are going to be an opening band are you gonna use a local bands for open?

Wolf Hoffmann: 10:29

There's going to be where for most for most of it's going to be? The name escapes me right now booked sorry, but there's gonna be an opening act. You probably haven't. Okay, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 10:42

cuz I was looking. I didn't see I don't think I saw it on the unless I just didn't read it. Right. But yeah, just I think it just says, Except so that's how I was. Well,

Wolf Hoffmann: 10:50

that's gonna be an opening act. Okay, it's kind of embarrassing right now. I should know that happens. me off guard. Sorry.

Chuck Shute: 10:58

Yeah, no, that's fine. We'll figure it out. I'll put it in the notes. I'm sure that it'll be on there somewhere. It's, I probably just missed it too. So you got the opening act. And then you're also going to do the VIP experience. So tell me about that. Because it sounds like pretty cool. It's a meet and greet. But also, I heard something about an exclusive gift. Can you say what that is yet? Or

Wolf Hoffmann: 11:17

we have a list of goodies that we're gonna give away. I think there's gonna be a laminate a pass, like sweatbands key, right? I'm not exactly sure I don't have it in front of me. But we have a few items that we are included in, you know, into the VIP pass experience the VIP experience as it is called, you know, so you basically get to meet the band, you get to take get your stuff signed, if you bring any, you get a band photo and a bunch of goodies. Basically, some

Unknown: 11:46

merch sounds like a Yeah. Sounds like a good deal. Yeah, yeah.

Wolf Hoffmann: 11:50

Cool experience. And people love it. I mean, we've done this, not too often in the past, but whenever we have done it, it's really been well received. Because people like the like the fact that they can take their time and it's, you know, they're something that's exclusive, and they get, you know, get into the venue first, and sometimes we even make it so that they can go to the merch stand without all the hassle, you know, beforehand.

Chuck Shute: 12:16

So all sorts of thing before you meet you before the show. Yeah, usually it's before the show. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, cuz I would think I've heard that for a lot of bands. Like after the show, the last thing you want to do is do meet and greets, like, you just are like done at that point, right.

Wolf Hoffmann: 12:30

Yeah, I mean, we would, but I think the fans would also like to do it before the show, just in case they don't want to don't stick. You know, stay right there last minute and a lot of people want to get home. Yeah. So yeah, easier to manage before the show, but yeah, I personally wouldn't care. Okay, but after the show. Yeah. totally exhausted. And, you know, I can't be talked to right now. It's not like that.

Chuck Shute: 12:54

Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, a lot. Autumn metalhead super, probably older. So it's like Friday. It's

Wolf Hoffmann: 13:00

exactly the little stone old at this point. Yeah. We're not men. Metal keeps you young. Don't you know that? What's that? Metal keeps you young issue? Don't you know that? It does. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 13:13

you go to a show. I find myself still even in my old age. I'm singing along and I'm headbang. And and it's just it makes you It energizes you.

Wolf Hoffmann: 13:21

I think, you know, all of a sudden we're all 16 again. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 13:26

It's like we want to feel young. It's it's fun. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. So what now? Are you guys have any other like package tours? Like, is that something you would do? Don't later down the line with some of the other bands? Because they didn't you did a lot not in the 80s. Like you toured with Judas Priest and, and do and all these kinds of things. Would you ever do those kinds of packages? Yeah.

Wolf Hoffmann: 13:46

I mean, we would, I gotta tell you a secret. That's probably not a secret to you. But it's really not up to the band to decide on these things. We basically we just want to play wherever it makes sense that we're waiting for offers through booking agencies and management and all this kind of stuff. And they usually put this stuff together. So it's not like that we sit there and who would like to tour with tubes, please. Let's call it Judas Priest. Oh, yeah. Great idea. Yeah, guys, we'll see you on tour. It's not like that at all. You know, it gets negotiated beforehand. And what's the draw? And what's the what's the pay? What's the what's the dates, and so there's a lot of financial finagling going on behind the scenes before it ever is publicly announced. And sometimes we just find out almost towards the end when everything is like, well, I'm more involved than the others but still, it's usually the musicians have the least pay say in all this kind of stuff.

Chuck Shute: 14:47

Okay. Yeah, I didn't I guess every band is different. A lot of the some of the metal acts are just doing a lot of the manager that management themselves so you actually have a manager to take care of Yeah, we do. That's nice. Yeah.

Wolf Hoffmann: 15:00

I'm sort of the lone dinosaur the last man standing of the original lineup, so I'm naturally more involved than than the others. But of course, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 15:10

yeah. Because you guys influenced so many massive bands, I would think that would be nice to take advantage of some of that, like the, you know, the Guns and Roses and the Metallica's that our fans. Have you guys like try to find a way to jump on do some shows with those guys.

Wolf Hoffmann: 15:26

Yeah, we'd be totally open to it. I mean, it'd be fun, fun as hell, we'd love to do it.

Chuck Shute: 15:30

Yeah, very cool. Yeah, like I said, the 80s. I mean, those shows like you kind of use so many Motley Crue rat, Ozzy Iron Maiden dokkan. Is there any of those tours that stand out to you as well? Which which ones were the most fun? Are you thought were the best packages?

Wolf Hoffmann: 15:45

Oh, God. Well, for the one tour that still sticks out the tour we just mentioned kiss because it was the first American tour for us. Because we were just 20 something year old Germans that had always just toured in Germany and neighboring countries, maybe Holland, maybe England. But going to America was a huge deal back in those days, especially. And it seems like very, very far away on the other side of the planet. And here we come into it with Kiss and it's all everything is on a much bigger dimension than we've ever seen. Because everything was marinas, and we're talking tractor trailers and forklifts and Pyro, and, you know, it was everything was? Yeah, very impressive.

Chuck Shute: 16:31

Did you learn a lot from watching kiss they I mean, I know Gene Simmons, like he's probably the guy that gives you a lot of advice and things

Wolf Hoffmann: 16:38

will actually tell you the tools. We hardly saw the guys in person, they they sort of just limit out the door, right? They were hardly around ever. They were doing their own thing. But we got to talk to them, of course on a few occasions. But it was also good to watch them on stage. And no matter who we toured with, you always learn a little bit of something. How do they do things? What did they say to the audience? How are things backstage? I don't know, I was the catering. I mean, all kinds of stuff. You always you know, you get you get to experience opening up all these bands, which was great.

Chuck Shute: 17:14

Yeah, well, in the later years, and it was like the 2000 10s. You did a tour with King's X. How was that? Because I missed that one. I would have totally loved to see that show. That sounds amazing.

Wolf Hoffmann: 17:25

Yeah, that was that was good fun, because they're amazing musicians. It was great. You know, it brings you back to the age old debate. Is it good to have two bands that are have the similar audience where the audience overlap? Or is it good to have different audiences still with it can almost learn or like, get new fans, you know, where their audience gets to know except and our audience gets to know King's x. So I'm still not quite sure what the best way is. But with King's x, it was definitely a slightly different audience on their part than it was for us. And I'm not sure how much they enjoyed each other, if you know what I mean. We're like, with creators was probably more of an overlapping audience. So you know, sometimes, you know, these tour packages you don't really know what to go for. I personally think it's probably easier if it's somewhat similar, but not exactly the same, you know?

Chuck Shute: 18:27

Now that makes sense. Yeah. For me, I love I'm so eclectic with my music tastes I love accept and I love kings EQ so to me, but I get what you're saying some fans are more a

Wolf Hoffmann: 18:36

lot of metal fans that just like the middle stuff, and maybe fans wouldn't care so much about except I don't know, man. You almost have to do a survey after the tour. I went personally for us. It was great. We had a blast. Yeah. got along great. And we loved each other. I mean, personally, it was great.

Chuck Shute: 18:55

Yeah, I had Doug Pinnick on the show that he's such a fascinating guy. Do you ever have like conversations with him? He's kind of really interesting person to talk to you.

Wolf Hoffmann: 19:02

Yeah, we chatted a little bit. Absolutely. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 19:05

He's a cool guy. Hey, I was gonna ask you about this too. I don't even know if you know about this. But I know because except like the band is in pop culture. Like you guys are in like some of the video games like Grand Theft Auto and you're in Guitar Hero. But in the biggest thing right now in the metal, one of the biggest things is Stranger Things. There's a character in that show. And he plays he played a Metallica song and it just blew up for Metallica. But he also the character also wore in except pin on his vest. Did you know about that? And did that help the band at all? Or is it was there any? No? Really?

Wolf Hoffmann: 19:39

I'm so out of all that pop culture and No, and I don't even know what that is. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 19:46

well, yeah. That's so no, yeah, no, that clearly no one has talked you about it. But yeah, Stranger Things is Big Show and this character Eddie Munson. He plays with Metallica master puppets, and it just the whole younger generation discovered Metallica but he also was Like I said he had except on his jacket, but so he must be a fan of your band too. So maybe next season, I don't know. But

Wolf Hoffmann: 20:08

I bet some of the guys like Phil and Christopher in our band, they will probably know about this, you know? How the two of them are talking about stuff like that. And I just sit there like, like, because I'm just not in the loop with all that

Chuck Shute: 20:23

content stuff does help you like if you're in the video game. I mean, you get a check for that. Right. Like, is that is that pretty lucrative? Or does it bring you new fans? At least you think?

Wolf Hoffmann: 20:32

I think it does. Yeah, I think it brings us exposure, and any exposure is good. Yeah, by all means, and I thought it was great that we were in that movie, The Wrestler that was uh, yeah, yeah, that was cool. So definitely, it's not as lucrative as you might think. It's not like you get a check for, you know, a million dollars. Right. Right. It all adds up. Beautiful. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 20:51

yeah. And it helps like younger, like I said, the younger generation, because I think that's how a lot of these young kids are finding Metallica. So maybe they'll find accept to that way.

Wolf Hoffmann: 20:59

To me, it's, it's always a fascinating subject when I when I see in the audience, as a bunch of, you know, people kids and, you know, under 20, or just a bunch, you know, in their 20s. And I wonder, gosh, I mean, they weren't even born when we were starting, when we, you know, start started? And how do these people even know about Excel? And is it about? Is it from their parents? Or is it because they do research online and see what's current right now? And then they go back? Where did this all come from? What are their influences? You know, it's an interesting thing to think about how Yeah, well,

Chuck Shute: 21:39

I think that's the thing, though, the only that's got to be at least one of the positives of all the streaming and everything is that you can discover bands. Yeah, easily now where it's like, yeah, maybe you're not being played on the radio, but people can just google heavy metal on Spotify or YouTube and, and your band probably comes up and they go, Oh, let me check this out. Except I never heard of this. And then they could discover. Yeah,

Wolf Hoffmann: 21:59

well, you said it back in the 80s. Or when we grew up, it was all about radio. If something was played on the radio, you were aware of it? If it wasn't, you basically didn't know. I mean, unless you went to a record store and bought some obscure stuff. And by chance, but other than, you know, before the internet, kids, there was a time before the internet. Yeah, that's all I sound so old when I say

Chuck Shute: 22:27

no, because I remember when I was a kid, I would, I'd how you'd have to make decisions. You'd look at an album cover. And maybe you heard one song and you're like, Well, this looks cool. I don't know. I guess I'll try it. And sometimes it worked out. And sometimes it didn't. That was just the way it went.

Wolf Hoffmann: 22:41

Yeah, of course you bought album was based on the cover?

Chuck Shute: 22:45

Yeah, we're like you'd heard one song on the radio. Or maybe you saw one video on MTV, but you definitely usually had not heard every song on the album, you kind of had to take a chance.

Wolf Hoffmann: 22:54

But nowadays, you can just, you know, check out whatever Spotify or whatever your your thing is. And then it's all right there. It's amazing.

Chuck Shute: 23:02

Yeah, it's really cool. Um, now you have two besides except you do two solo albums. I heard there was a third one is there? Is that coming out soon or ever?

Wolf Hoffmann: 23:14

I don't know about soon. But I'm definitely working on material collecting stuff. You know, making a solo album like I did with these classical ideas and these classical themes. That's an incredible amount of work. And unfortunately, also my collaborator, myeloma Foley, a good dear friend who was responsible for the orchestration and you and I worked on these songs together over the years. He passed away from COVID Not too long ago. So it's kind of a sorry to hear that. Yeah, it was terrible terrible low. And so that you know everything I have to look for the currently searching for a new partner and use things because I'm, you know, I love classical music, and I love playing this kind of stuff. But I'm, of course not an arranger, and I can write orchestration parts, and all these kinds of things. So, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 24:10

okay, so that's more on the backburner.

Wolf Hoffmann: 24:13

Yeah, well, I'm you know, hopefully I'm currently actually I'm about to meet with somebody and hopefully that's gonna turn out to be good and then we'll see. Okay, on the show must go on. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 24:24

cool. Well, you also have done some I want to ask you about this because you did some cool guest spots on other people's albums and tributes and things but working with Sebastian Bach Tell me about that because I feel like everyone's always got a good Sebastian Bach story you played on his solo album and then also on a tribute album with him.

Wolf Hoffmann: 24:42

Gosh, I guess you've done your wiki pedia sir. Here's the thing that pisses me off about this. If Can I be honest? Yeah. It was fun with Sebastian and we had a blast. I played on his wrote a song with him. We played on it, but Man that lasted like a day and a half, if that long, you know, and yet it is mentioned on Wikipedia, as if it was a major part in my life, you know, I mean, when I'm making except the album, it takes me six months or a year and we to work on it. And it gets mentioned in one sentence. And there's this little thing with Sebastian gets also sentence, you know, mentioned at about the same length and I'm thinking like, wait a minute, this was such a blip. I mean, it was just just such a minor thing yet it appears to be a collaboration, but really, it was just a bit of fun for one day and a half. But it was good. I mean, we I think it was great. I liked the guy. He's a little crazy, of course, and everybody heard these stories about. So Sebastian, you may know, but man he was. He was he was cool to me.

Chuck Shute: 25:51

Yeah, I mean, because like I said earlier, like you have all these bands that are fans of you like who's the biggest fan that you've met? That's like a famous band. Would you say like anybody that maybe even was gonna such a diehard they're gonna listen to this interview.

Wolf Hoffmann: 26:05

I'm not gonna drop I'm not a Name Dropper, sorry. There's a few people that we've met over time where you think I already liked your except fan, or you grew up listening to accept. And some of them that blew my mind where you know, wow, they're big, big dude. Major dudes. But, yeah, I'm not gonna mention any. It's stupid.

Chuck Shute: 26:29

No, no. I mean, I think I know who most of them are. So, but that is, that's got to be a big compliment. I mean, what do you do you take that more as a compliment? Or were you looking at like record sales and things like that? No, I

Wolf Hoffmann: 26:42

mean, when I have the feeling or when people tell me these things, it makes me very happy. Very proud. I've got to be honest, you know, of course, it's nice to sell millions of albums. But we've never had that luck that we've been, like, sort of the, you know, the, the act that were the mainstay that wasn't the mainstream and sold that had this massive Radiohead and sold like the gazillion albums. But that's cool. I mean, we've we've made our mark in the history of metal or rock or whatever. And that's, that's a lot. I mean, it's it's more than we could have ever hoped for. And that it's something that's yeah, it makes me at least as happy as having sold a gazillion albums. I mean, we're doing okay, so but yeah, still, you know, you're doing

Chuck Shute: 27:29

and like I said, that respect from your peers. I think that's so huge that, to me, that can mean more because there's a lot of bands that sell out albums that suck in my opinion, to have that, I think is more important. So

Wolf Hoffmann: 27:40

yeah, I mean, to me, it is. Everybody might think differently about this, you know, some people are laughing on the way to the bank, but I'm, I'm happy where I am.

Chuck Shute: 27:49

Yeah, no, I love it. Girl. You're on tour, the new album is out now to mean to die. I always end each episode promoting the charity. Is there a charity or a cause that's near and dear to your heart?

Wolf Hoffmann: 28:00

Oh, wow. No, he put me on the spot. Sorry, nothing comes to mind. Okay, cuz

Chuck Shute: 28:10

I know they have like, savor stages and things like I mean, if there's something like that that's related to music or something else, or if you think of something, just send it to me. I'll put it in the notes along with your website. So people have a few extra bucks after they buy a ticket to your show and the new album, they can throw a few bucks that way.

Wolf Hoffmann: 28:26

Alaska. Oh, no, that's the other guys. I'm sure. We'll come up with something.

Chuck Shute: 28:30

Okay, cool. Well, I look forward to hopefully being able to see you on tour and one of these shows the whiskey one sounds like that would be a lot of fun. Maybe make a trip,

Wolf Hoffmann: 28:37

wherever you want to want to find out if there's anything in your area. Just go to accept worldwide.com. And, you know, check out the tour days.

Chuck Shute: 28:45

Are you going to be adding any dates or is this pretty much the whole US tour is out?

Wolf Hoffmann: 28:50

This is what we have so far. There might be stuff added? Absolutely.

Chuck Shute: 28:53

Yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, thanks so much. Well, it was a lot of fun. Yeah. Awesome talk. Thanks very much. All right. Thank you, again, so much to wolf for coming on the show. Make sure to support these guests by following them on social media, sharing their stuff, going to shows, buying merch, et cetera, all that great stuff that we can do so that we can keep music going. I love live music and I try to see as many shows as I can. Thank you for listening or watching this interview. If you enjoyed this one, check out some of my other interviews like Biff Bidford of Saxon lips from anvil Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, tons more great heavy metal icons. And again, make sure to Subscribe on YouTube or wherever you listen or watch if you haven't already, so that way you can keep up with future episodes. Have a great day and shoot for the moon.