Somewhat ACCEPTABLE

Somewhat ACCEPTABLE

FEATURES

Andy Hughes

James Bond was told in the novel Moon raker that if you "scratch a German, you’ll find precision." The same applies if you talk to one as well.

As I arrive, chaos reigns, which may be the norm. Accept are in Britain, rounding off three days of world tour rehearsals with one day of intensive press coverage, where various band members shuffle from room to room for interviews with the world’s rock press, who make sure that every utterance is captured by tape or telephone.

Stefan Kaufmann, Accept’s drummer, is ushered into a small but comfortable anteroom for one more round of questions about why Germany is more famous for the metal it puts into its cars than the metal its bands put into the world’s stadiums. I decide to brighten his day by injecting a degree of cultural overview into the proceedings—viz., the American style of metal, which is make-up and lace, and the British style, which is leather and studs, and the Germanic method of color and style. Why do the German bands have this clean-cut look? If Stefan is having his day brightened by this variation on the “you’ve got a new album out, haven’t you?” opening, he keeps it well-hidden, and launches into a detailed reply that sets the style for the interview, precision with a capital P, the way I like 'em.

“I think it’s because the European music scene is not as widespread in Germany as it is here, or in America, and there are not as many bands; there isn’t the club scene for young bands to play and develop.

“In Germany, rock bands are not treated that well. To be a musician in a rock band is not seen as having a proper job, so to be accepted in Germany as a musician, you have to look that much cleaner in your image, and be that much more serious about it. When we are here or in America, where people are more used to behaving as they want, we still appear to be a little more serious than the rest.”

So that's it! It also appears that the serious outlook stretches to the day-today running of the band. You won’t be surprised, having read thus far, that Accept run their own affairs, as far as possible, and keep a very close eye on anything that’s outside their own direct control. Rock as business, right, Stefan?

“I think so, yes. We always found that when we had people to organize things for us, it was never quite as good as when we did it for ourselves. We’ve always said that we are own best employers, and we know that if a mistake has been made, then it’s our mistake, and no one is to blame but us.” Doesn’t that take up an awful lot of time?

“Yes, it does. Obviously the ideal would be to concentrate on just the music, but even if we did that, somewhere in the back of our minds would be a doubt that something may not be right, so that creates the same stress anyway. We take it on ourselves; it causes less problems in the long run.”

Accept are very, very popular among rock fans in England, they are very big in the States, but they are massive in Europe, where, as Stefan has already explained, rock is not so much a domestic industry. One of the reasons for this adulation is the way that Accept have plugged into the basic attitudes of European rock fans, and made it a feature of their own career. It manifests itself in Accept’s method of making each album a total concept package, with a theme running through the set of songs, which can be extended to the stage show, the lights, clothes for the band, publicity, and so on. The theme can then be ditched, and an entire new system can be worked on for the next album and tour and so on.

This plan has been in use for the last three Accept albums, and it has proved to be such a success that it may well prove to be a formula other bands can copy. For one thing, it prevents Accept from ever becoming a basic rack an’ rawl band—as if they’d ever want to!

“No we don’t,” says Stefan with a wry grin.

“Years ago, we used to write songs about girls and cars, but those things can become very boring very quickly. We soon found that travelling ’round the world as we do, there are plenty of themes to be written about, and that’s what we’ve done for the last three albums.

“For the Balls To The Wall album, we talked about oppressed people: homosexuals, blacks and so on. The Metal Heart album was about the human race staying human, whether it wants to keep a human heart, or have a metal heart, and our latest album, Russian Roulette, is about the war games that are going on.”

A pretty far cry from standard jeans and beer belly bar-room bust-up bands that eventually evolve into people like AC/DC. Accept are working on more of a cerebral level, which in no way detracts from their ability to whip it up onstage, when thoughtful conversation is shelved in favor of a good guitar sound and a strong stage show. Fact is, Accept love to dress up, as guitarist guitarist Wolf Hoffmann was keen to point out as he joined us from his own interview somewhere else in the depths of the building.

“Maybe you didn’t see the picture we did in America,” says Wolf as he settles himself down on the sofa next to Stefan.

“It was one of those tourist things, where you dress up in Civil War uniforms and they take a picture of you. We decided to dress up for the album, once we thought of calling it Russian Roulette. We were going to call it War Games but there may have been trouble over the film of that name, so we switched it.”

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Fine, no argument from me, but what about people who love to pin Germans down to the image of a race of people with no sense of humor? I mean, is there anything worse than a rock band that takes itself seriously? Stefan and Wolf have different ideas.

"It’s a serious subject isn’t it, the thought of war?” Stefan asks. "We’ve found that a strong visual image is useful, and even if people do think it’s funny, that may not be such a bad thing.”

"It’s a British problem, this idea that Germans have no sense of humor,” reckons Wolf.

"What the English have is a certain type of humor which is hard for foreigners to follow. But we deal with a lot of English people, and we’re learning to follow what goes on. I don’t think the Americans find us so serious, just the English.”

Stupid they are certainly not—Accept even have the good sense to avoid playing the media game of being naughty rock ’n’ roll stars, even if this does give them a reputation among some British hacks of being humorless and boring. But then, they’re used to that.

"We’ve never tried to give journalists a false impression,” affirms Wolf slightly aggrieved.

"When people ask us what we do in our spare time, or after the show, some of them feel very disappointed that we don’t have wild backstage parties. But we don’t do that, why pretend we do? We do the best live show and the best albums we can. We don’t have those personalities. You have to come from L.A. to do that kind of thing. There will be those who say we’re just a load of humorless Germans, but we think it’s better than writing songs about blue jeans and cars. We just want to be known for being different.”

OK, guys, point taken. Different you are.

For the record, there’s nothing humorless or boring about Accept live or on record. But I was left with one nagging doubt—those great ideas for "Balls To The Wall,” what could they have been?

It’ll have to wait until next time.