(2 articles, same mag and author)
Doin' The UDO
(Kerrang! No.341 May 18, 1991 pp 26-27, Auth.-Paul Elliot, Pub- EMAP Metro)
Back in 1990, rock 'n' roll almost killed Germanic Metal maniac Udo Dirkschneider. "I was overworked," sez the stocky, superanimated one. "the stress got too much..." As a result, our hero suffered a major heart attack. But now he's recovered and has just released his forth album, 'Timebomb'. Paul Elliot reports from the bunker
Udo's fourth album is just out. Titled "Timebomb", it's an hysterical full Metal racket, unrelenting heavy shit, stampeding like Accept's killer song 'Fast As A Shark'
"This is the hardest album I've ever made," says a proud Udo on a dicky phone line from Germany, where the band are preparing for a world domination tour (which began at London's Marquee club on May 10).
"'Timebomb' is a real band album, most of it was recorded live in the studio, and you can hear the energy in the songs. We approached this album from the same as the last one, 'Faceless World'. We don't say, 'Let's do a ballad' or, 'Let's do a fast one'. we just write what we feel. There are no ballads on 'Timebomb' because everybody in the band felt very frustraded, aggravated, aggressive. All those feelings came from last year, when everything went wrong for us."
Things went especially badly for Udo himself. Stocky, superanimated and smoking like a Ruhr Valley steelworks, Udo suffered a major heart attack in 1990. Rock 'n' roll nearly killed him.
"I was overworked," he grunts through a smoker's cough. "I was handling the business side of the band too. We had no management when we were making 'Faceless World', so I was working every hour in the day. The stress got too much for me. Three of the songs on 'Timebomb' are about my heart attack: 'Back In Pain', 'Kick In The Face' and 'Burning Heat'. They're very personal songs. When I was in the hospital people were saying, 'Udo will never go onstage again'. The song 'Timebomb' is about what's happening to the world, to nature, the rainforests, but it's also saying that there's a timebomb inside all of us."
Udo's just went off early.
"Now," Mathias interjects, "we all take a little bit of the strain away from Udo. This is a group where everybody needs and helps each other. Maybe 'band' isn't the right word for us, but we're a team. Musically, we know each other very well. Udo was managing us because he's been in the business for 10 years and he knows more than us youngsters, but it's important that he doesn't try to do too much."
What do you mean when you say that UDO isn't a 'band', Mathias? Is it it an autocracy? And is Udo a bastard to work with?
"Exactly!" the guitarist chuckles. "He's very hard to work with, but when Udo's angry, he's the best. Udo has to be taken very carefully..."
Five years ago, traditional Heavy metal was in decline as kids got off on Speed and Thrash. Now Queensryche are in the Top 20 on Billboard's US Albums listings, and Judas Priest are reborn. It's a real pep for UDO.
"We're doing traditional Heavy Metal." reckons Udo. "All the traditional Heavy Metal bands are coming back- Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Quality Heavy Metal. That's what I listen to, things like the current Judas priest album. Heavy Metal without compromise."
"'Timebomb'," pronounces Mathias, "is pure Heavy Metal, not more, not less. We don't analyse our music, we don't take elements of other music and put them in ours. We just do what we like, and so what? Our first album, 'Mean Machine', was heavy, but 'Timebomb' is way heavier, total, non-stop Heavy Metal."
Much of the imagery on 'Timebomb' is militaristic. songtitles include 'Soldiers Of Darkness', 'Powersquad', and 'Thunderforce'. However, Udo no longer dresses from army surplus stores, and for all his Cleese-like posturing, he's no war nut.
"We're not a militaristic band," argues Mathias as Udo retires for a crafty fag. "We think a lot about what's going on in the world. When we're in the studio, we always take a break in the early parts of the evening to watch the TV news. The lyrics on 'Timebomb' are aggressive, but lyrics have to fit the mood of the music. It's better to call an aggressive song 'Powersquad' than 'Lying On The Beach'."
Timebomb is heavy shit alright, but it's not that these hard rocking Germans lack humor. Two tunes on 'Timebomb' poke fun: 'Metal Eater' and the outrageously-titled 'Metal Maniac Master Mind'.
"Udo came up with this title for a song: 'Metal Eater'. We said, We love the title, but what is a Metal Eater? Is it a machine that goes down the street crunching up cars and eating them?' Udo says, 'No, it's a gambling machine, a one-armed bandit'. He's lost a lot of money on those machines.
"'Metal Maniac Master Mind is about praying to a god that isn't a god, like a film star. And, of course, it's kind of autobiographical. Udo is a Metal Maniac Master Mind too! But, " he laughs, "you shouldn't take that song too seriously!"
Accept: No Substitute!
UDO DIRKSCHNEIDER made his name with the argh!-sters
ACCEPT. Here we recall the career of these barking mad Metal merchants
"Udo was awesome, like this Sherman Tank rolling across the stage..."
Mathias Dieth, guitarist with UDO, is recounting the mid-1980s when he was a teenage Heavy Metal fan, and his current employer Mr. Dirkschneider was singer with Accept. Accept were EuroMetal gods, Dirkschneider a dumpy deity in military fatigues and heavy rubber boots.
A little outmoded by Thrash, Accept were traditionalists, playing the kind of taut, hard, barking mad Heavy Metal that had Xavier 'FA Cup Runners-Up 1991' Russell spouting capped-up, boiled-up superlatives like KRUNCHING, AGGRESSIVE and SKWASH RAKKET FRENZY.
Stealing licks from the Scorpions and Judas Priest, Accept were the first German Metal combo to go global since the Scorpions- and almost the last before Helloween.
"Accept were huge in Germany," Mathias recalls, "and they were a big inspiration to young German heavy Metal bands."
A run of three classically Aryan and boisterous albums- the formative 'Breaker', the watershed 'Restless And Wild' and the major label debut 'Balls To The Wall'- thrust Accept to the forefront of European Heavy Metal.
Amid suggestions that the homo-erotic leather fetishism on the cover of 'Balls To The Wall' was the first, uh, fruit of the New Wave Of Gay Heavy Metal, Accept played at the 1984 Castle Donington Monsters Of Rock fest and came on like born heirs to Judas priest. But they blew it.
The next two LPs- 'Metal heart' and 'Russian Roulette'- were cruddy and soft, and a live-in-Japan mini- 'Tokyo Tapes' didn't help.
Accept's star waned. Udo quit; the band made one more crap record with a terrible American singer, then split for good.
Udo formed a new band and got back to making the sort of uncompromising, superheavyweight f**k-you Heavy Metal typical of Accept's best years. the new band was titled, humbly, UDO. (Topical gag...Q: How many lead singers does it take to change a light bulb? A: One- they just hold up the bulb, and the whole world revolves around them!)