Blistering.com: Herman [Frank] is back in the band, so it helps bring out the twin-guitar thing again. Was the chemistry still there?
Hoffman: Oh yeah, we go way back to the Balls to the Wall record. We know each other really well. The same with Stefan [Kaufmann]; we asked all of these guys to come back and they agreed. It didn’t take long – we found Mark, called the two guys and said we wanted to start the band again and they immediately said yes within a few hours.
Blistering.com: Lyrically, you’re tacking some more social commentary again, so it must have been like old times, right?
Hoffman: We’ve always had those type of lyrics – we’ve never been about parties, or chicks. This time out, Mark wrote all of the lyrics, which is a big difference from the past because my wife used to write them all. We figured, we should let him write the lyrics this time out. He stuck with the kind of things we’ve always talked about and did a great job. Like “No Shelter,” which is about the war, “Blood of the Nations,” is about bloodshed.
Blistering.com: Let’s backtrack a bit to the late 80’s and 90’s when you did Objection Overruled, Death Row, and so forth. Was it hard to keep the band going in that climate?
Hoffman: It was. It’s always easy for people in hindsight for people to say, “Oh, why did you do this? Why did you change?” We didn’t want to fade away to nothing, so we tried records that would have adapted to the times a little bit, but in retrospect, those weren’t the best albums we ever did. I don’t know what else we could have done – staying the same just wasn’t an option back then. We made some albums that were less than ideal. Death Row wasn’t that great, Predator was even less as good, but that’s what happens in the 90’s. That’s what happened to everybody. Nobody had an idea of where they belonged or what they should do. We just put out mediocre albums; no one was into classic heavy metal.
Blistering.com: Could it have been one of those things where you were so successful in the 80’s that you assumed that you’d always be successful?
Hoffman: No, honestly I didn’t. I was always aware of the fact that we had to push ourselves and not be happy with who you are like, “We’ll just make another one like that last one.” That’s when you go backwards without knowing it. You always have to push yourselves and try harder than the last time. That’s always easier said than done.
Blistering.com: Any thoughts of doing some type of celebration for the 30 year anniversary of Restless In Wild in 2012?
Hoffman: [laughs] It will be 30 years then? Wow.
Blistering.com: Yeah, I believe so. Came out the year I was born.
Hoffman: How does a guy like you, 28 years old, that knows this record?
Blistering.com: I started with Predator and ended up working my way back [laughs].
Hoffman: That’s amazing. I’m talking to a lot of people that weren’t even born when we quit the first time, they’re just discovering Accept. We just played over in Europe, we could see several generations in the audience. It makes me feel old sometimes [laughs].