Interview с U.D.O. : DARKSIDE.ru

“Mission No. X” is your 10th album with U.D.O. Looking back at the band’s career, which album was the easiest one to make, and which one was the toughest?

Mmm, the easiest one… With U.D.O. it was definitely “Animal House” (1987), because all the songs had already been written, all the songs were written by Accept. And the hardest one, I will say, was the second U.D.O. album “Mean Machine” (1989). It was the first time I had to write songs with different people, and I didn’t know them very well composing-wise and stuff like that. It was quite hard after all the Accept years.

You release albums with U.D.O. very regularly, the break in between CDs is never longer than two years. What do you do to keep working in the studio enjoyable and interesting, to prevent the recording sessions from becoming a routine?

We are a working band. When we are finished with touring, normally we do a small break, and then we start working on the next album. We just have to continue what we always do.

Do you ever plan your albums in advance? I mean, do you think like, “This album should be heavier than the previous one, so we gotta write more faster tracks, or more mid-tempo tracks?”

No, definitely not. (laughs) We never think about stuff like that. When we start working on a new album, it’s just how we feel at the moment. I never can say that the new album is going to be more melodic, harder, faster or whatever. We never plan anything.

On this album everything was written by you and guitarist Stefan Kaufmann, second guitarist Igor Gianola only contributed to one track. Why are Igor and bassist Fitty Wienhold not as active in songwriting as they used to be before?

It was not planned to work on this album that early. Originally it was planned to record the new album during the whole year, but then Accept came up and asked me if I wanted to do summer festivals. So I had to start earlier with the U.D.O. album than I thought, we started directly after the “Thunderball” tour last year. In a way, I think Fitty and Igor were not really prepared. (laughs) They were sending us some songs, but they did not fit with the rest of the songs that I was writing together with Stefan. This time they are not really involved in songwriting, but they are still involved in the arranging and producing process.

For the new CD you re-recorded the song “Way Of Life” from the album “No Limits” (1997). What made you do it? Are you dissatisfied with the original version?

We always thought that this song was a bit over-produced. We had wanted to do this song in a rougher and easier way for a long time, and that’s why we did it on this album.

On this re-recording your former guitarist Matthias Dieth plays a guitar solo once again. Is there any chance that he will return to the music

scene one day? A lot of people miss his playing…

No, definitely not. He is a very busy lawyer, and he’s long been out of the music scene. But we are still friends, he’s doing some stuff for us, and when we are in the studio he sometimes comes to visit us, and we play together. When we did “Way Of Life”, he was in the studio and listening to the song, and he was like, “Aaargh, let me play the guitar!” He wanted to play a little bit just for fun, but then he did this solo, and we said, “Hey, come on! The solo is very good, why don’t we leave it as it us and then put it on the album.” There was no special reason for his participation.

The first single from the new album is “24/7”. What is this song about? Is it about yourself and the music you are playing?

Yeah, it’s the same stuff lyric-wise that we had on “Way Of Life”. Don’t take it too seriously, but in a way we are on duty with our music 24 hours a day and seven days a week. What we are doing is also a way of life.

Another interesting track is “Cry Soldier Cry”. Was there anything specific that inspired you to write it? Or do you watch the news regularly and hear reports of what’s going on at battlefields around the world?

This is an anti-war song. We always write songs against the war, and this one was specifically inspired by the Iraq war. I think it’s one of the best lyrics we have done so far.

You have a new drummer for this album, Francesco Jovino. How did you find him, and what happened to his predecessor, Lorenzo Milani?

There was a very sad reason why Lorenzo left the band - his sister died. She was just 30 years old, and she had three little kids. He said he didn’t want to be a musician anymore, he was selling his drums, so we had to look for a new drummer. It was two weeks before we were to start a Scandinavian tour, and Igor came up with Francesco. He knows Francesco from joint studio work in Switzerland, and they did some cover stuff together. In a way, we are lucky to have found Francesco, he fits perfectly to U.D.O.

The new CD comes with a videoclip for “Mean Streets” as a bonus. The video is really explicit, and we don’t think any TV channel in Germany will dare to play it. What is the reason for making it then? Making videos is very expensive, as far as we know…

We have some TV stations that play it, not nation-wide, but privates ones. And I know that we are in heavy rotation on MTV Headbangers’ Ball in South America, we have had some rotation in Slovenia, and a lot of other countries are coming in. Germany is a very important country for us, but it’s not the only country we are known in. It wasn’t our own idea to make a videoclip, but then the record company said, “We want to have a videoclip from the latest album.” We said, “OK, but we don’t wanna do a normal videoclip, we wanna do something special.” We looked at the son

gs, and the most interesting lyrics for doing not a normal video, not the band standing and playing, was “Mean Streets”. The video depicts all the bad things that happen in the streets – people are assaulted, raped and even killed. The video is not very normal for a heavy metal band, but if you wanna do something special these days, you have to do it in a different way.

It was a nice surprise for us to find out that you will appear on the new CD of the Finnish band Lordi. How did it happen? You don’t make guest appearances very often…

Oh yeah, I just came back from Finland, I was doing a song together with Lordi. They look very weird (everybody laughs), but the music is different, you don’t expect this kind of music from a band that looks like this. They are very nice people, and they had a very nice song, so it was interesting. They just asked me to do a song together with them, and it worked out very well.

Apart from Lordi, you will be doing duets with two Russian bands, Anj and Factor 2. Let’s start with Anj – how did you get to know each other? Did you watch them onstage when they opened for your last Moscow gig?

I know their singer. They asked me to do some lines for them (in the song “Pugachev” from Anj’s next album – ed.), and we will see how it comes out. I am waiting for the mix to hear what they did with my vocals. The other thing with Factor 2 is developing like this: they are in Germany, and with them I will sing the song from the new album, “Cry Soldier Cry”, completely in the Russian language. We want to do something special with this song, and we tried to get pop singers to make it more interesting. We will see what happens when the song is coming out, at the moment we are looking for a label which will make use of the two guys. But it was very good work, and the song will be very interesting.

When you did the song “Trainride In Russia”, some of the fans in the former Soviet Union were a bit confused. We have heard that in Ukraine you eventually dropped this song from the setlist…

Yeah, I think they had a problem with this. (cracks) In some cities, mostly in the eastern part of Ukraine, they don’t have any problems with it, but in Kiev we did have some problems. So we said, “OK, we won’t play this song in Ukraine,” but in Russia it was fine.

The lyrics to this song – are they all true stories? Were Igor and Fitty indeed naked in the car somewhere in Russia?

Yeah, that’s true! (everybody laughs) All the stuff we are talking about in this song is the stuff that we really experienced.

By the way, how much are U.D.O. lyrics based on personal experience? On an album like “Mean Machine”, such songs as “We’re History” or “Sweet Little Child” – are they talking about what indeed happened?

With “Sweet Little Child” it’s true –

the song was written when my daughter was born, so we wanted it to be a tribute to my daughter, so to say.

And how did you end up recording the ballad “Azrael”? It’s one of our favorite U.D.O. songs ever…

The song was not written by U.D.O., it was written by somebody else. We have a very famous writer of science fiction books here, his name is Wolfgang Hohlbein, and the guy who composed this song is working together with Wolfgang. (“Azrael” is, by the way, the title of one of Wolfgang’s books – ed.) We found out that Wolfgang was a very big fan of mine, and he asked me to sing this song. We loved this song very much, and that’s why we put it on the “No Limits” album.

We saw you live in Russia with Accept this spring. But this reunion tour is still a bit confusing for many people. You previously rejected all proposals of that kind. What made you agree this time?

I did not agree directly when they asked me, but they got on my nerves so much… (laughs) It had been going on for three years already. As I said in the beginning, our plan was to make a break with U.D.O. for this year, but they found this out and said, “Oh, now you have the time, maybe we could do some festivals together.” On the other hard, the reason why I said “yes” to the whole thing was because I wanted to find out if there’s something left between us. But I can tell you after these shows that we did in 2005 that on the personal level everything is OK, but it’s not possible for me to work with those guys as musicians.

When we learned the line-up for this tour, it was a big surprise for us. When Herman Frank was in Moscow with Victory in September last year, he said he would smash Wolf Hoffmann’s face if he met him, but only four months later these two people are in the same band…

You should ask Herman about this, not me. (laughs)

But in general, were there any problems on the personal level within the band?

What can I say about Herman? I have always been in contact with him, he’s a producer here in Germany, and I have never had any problems with Herman. I was a little surprised when Wolf came up and said that he was talking to Herman Frank and that Herman said “yes”, he wants to be the second guitarist in Accept. We first tried to find Joerg Fischer, the original guitar player, but nobody knows where he is. And then Wolf called Herman, and I don’t know what he told Herman to persuade him to join Accept. Don’t ask me! (laughs)

Why wasn’t Stefan Kaufmann involved in this reunion? We know that doctors forbid him to sit behind the drum-kit, but in U.D.O. he plays the Accept stuff on the guitar, and it works out fine…

When they came up with this idea to do these festivals, Stefan had already signed contracts to produce two bands. So he was busy, and he couldn’t cancel the contracts, b

ecause it was very important for him to produce these two bands.

With Accept you have appeared on the biggest European metal festivals this year, including Wacken Open Air and Sweden Rock. What performance during the reunion tour did you like the best?

For me the best concert was definitely at Sweden Rock.

What made it so special?

I don’t know, for me it wasn’t anything special. The songs that I was singing – I had already been singing them with U.D.O. Maybe for the rest of guys it was more special than for me.

Actually even in Moscow, where you did the second show of this festival series, we had the impression that this tour was more important for Wolf and Peter Baltes than for you…

Yeah, definitely! I personally was a little bit scared of doing this whole thing. There were all these rumors – “Accept is coming back, U.D.O. is gone, and blah blah blah”, so for me it was not easy to say “yes”. But I made it very clear in the beginning when I did say “yes”, “I will promote a new U.D.O. album, and there will be a single out in summer.” I made it clear in all the statements and interviews that there will be no reunion and no studio album from Accept. Maybe a live DVD will come out next year, I’m not sure. But that’s the only thing.

Wolf has also said he would like to release a DVD from that tour, but he’s not sure whether you will agree to it…

They filmed the whole Wacken show, but I’m not involved in all this stuff. Don’t get me wrong, but I’m not Accept. (laughs) They have to deal with record companies and all that, and if they come to me, I won’t say “yes” straight away. I will first check out the material that they have collected, and then we will see.

How did you like Wacken this year? We have been told that it was very chaotic…

Yeah, it was chaotic! (laughs) It was raining like hell, and a lot of things were getting wrong.

How do you see the future of Accept?

There’s no future! I don’t know, maybe they will get another singer, but that won’t be me, definitely not! My future is with U.D.O., and this is the most important thing for me.

So what is in the plans for U.D.O.? When will the tour begin, and when can we expect you back in Russia?

The tour will start on January 6 next year, and I think we won’t be coming to Russia before October. First we will do the whole western part of Europe, then we’ll go to South America, over the summer we will do a lot of festivals, and then we’ll head for Ukraine and Russia. We also plan to go to China and Mongolia for the first time, and we will end with Japan in 2007.

You’ve been visiting Russia regularly since 1993. Have you noticed any changes in the country?

Of course, the cities are changing, there is a lot of rebuilding, and the organization is changing for the better. But the fans are still the same. We love to come to Russia, we still feel this special atmosphere during the concerts, and we are very much into Russian mentality.

Special thanks to Irina Ivanova (CD-Maximum) for arranging this interview

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov, Natalie “Lynx” Khorina
November 14, 2005
© Russian Darkside E-Zine
13 дек 2005 the End

U.D.O.

Man On A Mission