During an interview with Jorge Botas, Accept guitarist Wolf Hofmann talked about his creative process of making Accept songs. He told that they started the album somewhere in fall 2022. they started jamming and collecting ideas/themes. He told during the interview that the process always starts with little simple ideas and demos that they use to develop all the songs by.
He also stated that he sometimes gets lost during the process, this is because there are so many ideas that its like a jungle of ideas. he told Jorge that they sometimes need guidance and Andy Sneap helps them with it. He calls it “plugging away”. They have a structure and they try to create song by song and not focus to much on the “big picture”.
Jorge Botas asked if it’s still a fun process for Wolf to create music, “You’ve been doing it for so many years! Some people might think it’s really easy to come up with a riff, rhythm idea, or a melody.”
Wolf replied, “No, it’s not that easy. He could never do that.” He knows people who work like this.
“they come up with riffs or chords on the spot. But he doesn’t work like that. “Here’s your song, just sing something on it. Thank you very much.”
The reason why it doesn’t work that way is because the vocals and lyrics are what the songs are about. He said that these are the most important things. “The riff is just the starting point, a little building block. A riff is not a song.” Wolf elaborated on what makes a great Accept song. He insisted a strong chorus, catchy hookline, and a clear theme are essential ingredients. He even used the riff from ‘Humanoid’ as an example. He acknowledged it’s a good riff, but it needs to be part of the total picture that makes the song great.
He also said that he never really clashed with members/producers. They go back and forth with ideas. Even when they have different opinions, he tries to understand their perspective and voice their ideas. Nobody rams their ideas through, and everyone feels comfortable expressing their opinions.
Wolf then said “I think you need a little bit of a pushback sometimes. that is for me very helpful. Sometimes I get a little lost in the jungle of ideas. Sometimes it hurts a little because you spend all day working on something and you think you have something great, and he tells you nah it’s not there yet, then its like [bleep], but thats fair otherwise you don’t need a producer and you might aswell do it yourself”
You can watch the full interview below, feel free to support the creator!
