About Accept
Accept is a German heavy metal band from Solingen, formed in 1976 by lead guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, singer Udo Dirkschneider and bassist Peter Baltes. Their beginnings can be traced back to the late 1960s when the band got its earliest start under the name Band X. Their current lineup consists of Hoffmann, vocalist Mark Tornillo, guitarists Uwe Lulis and Philip Shouse, drummer Christopher Williams and bassist Martin Motnik. Accept has undergone numerous lineup changes; Hoffmann is the last remaining original member, and the only band member to appear on all of their albums. As of 2024, the band has released seventeen studio albums, five live albums and nine compilation albums.
Accept played an important role in the development of speed and thrash metal, and they were part of the German heavy metal scene, which emerged in the early to mid-1980s. Accept achieved its first commercial success with their fifth studio album Balls to the Wall , which is the band's only album to be certified gold in the United States and Canada, and spawned their well-known hit "Balls to the Wall".
Accept has broken up and reformed multiple times. They first split up in 1989, several months after the release of Eat the Heat , but reformed in 1992 and released three more albums before disbanding again in 1997. After briefly reuniting in 2005, Accept announced their third reunion in 2009, with former T.T. Quick frontman Mark Tornillo replacing Dirkschneider , and the band has recorded six albums with him: Blood of the Nations , Stalingrad , Blind Rage , The Rise of Chaos , Too Mean to Die , and Humanoid ; those albums renewed Accept's popularity in Germany and entered the top ten charts there. As of 2024, the band has sold more than 17 million copies of their albums worldwide.
Accept's beginnings can be traced back to 1968 when Udo Dirkschneider and Michael Wagener formed a local band called Band X. Band X later changed its name to Accept, influenced by an album by that title by the British blues band Chicken Shack. For many years, Accept went through numerous line-up changes. This instability essentially kept the band on an amateur level, making sporadic appearances in festival concerts. Accept's professional career began in 1976, with Udo Dirkschneider, Wolf Hoffmann, Gerhard Wahl, Peter Baltes, and Frank Friedrich, when they were invited to play at one of the first rock and roll festivals in Germany — Rock am Rhein. Following the festival, the band was offered a recording deal. Their first recording was the self-titled Accept album, which was released in 1979, but did not achieve much commercial success.
The first stable line-up of Accept was composed of vocalist Udo Dirkschneider, guitarists Wolf Hoffmann and Gerhard Wahl, bassist Peter Baltes and drummer Frank Friedrich. Friedrich and Wahl quit the band after the release of Accept and were replaced by Stefan Kaufmann and Jörg Fischer. This line-up recorded I'm a Rebel in 1980. The title track originally was written for AC/DC and recorded by the band but never released by them. The album brought some media attention, and the band was invited to make a televised appearance.
In 1981, their third studio album, Breaker, was released, and the band employed manager Gaby Hauke. The same year, Accept served as a supporting act on Judas Priest's World Wide Blitz Tour, and obtained attention outside of Europe for the first time.
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