Everyone has a regret or two in their lives. Bands are no different. Any band has an album, or albums, that they regret doing. Accept‘s “Eat the Heat” the only and solely recorded with vocalist David Reece. The bad blood between him and Accept lasts 30 years now. David complained to Spreaker:
“I’ve thought about this, of course, my whole life,” he said (hear audio below). “That was 30 years ago. And I don’t think ACCEPT were thoroughly prepared to make that choice. They were being pulled by the ring in their nose by the labels in America. ‘This band is set up huge in Europe. Let’s cross over the pond and really break this thing.’ So they were, like, ‘Yeah, we wanna be more famous and richer.’ I don’t really think they considered how big Udo really was. Now, you’ve got [current ACCEPT singer] Mark Tornillo. He’s a soundalike — I mean, he’s an Udo copy — and that sound works inside that German thing. But I never really heard them admit that they were prepared for what they really did, and they blamed me for a lot of things.”
“If you think about the comparisons, a guy named Ronnie James Dio joined [BLACK] SABBATH and sang circles around Ozzy [Osbourne], but Ozzy is a character,” David said. “And the same thing happened. And Ronnie said one time to me about it, when we talked about ACCEPT, ’cause he knew those guys, and he said, ‘You know, when I joined SABBATH, it was kind of the same thing’ — but on a bigger level, obviously. People were holding up sheets, ‘Go home. Where’s Ozzy?’ And he said, ‘I just went out there every night with the attitude that I’ll stick my head in the lion’s mouth, and if he bites down, there goes my effin’ head.’ And I just looked at him and I went, ‘Wow!’ And he was doing his solo thing again, and I went, ‘Man, you made some records that are just unbelievable with SABBATH‘ — I think better than anything they did with Ozzy; I mean, musically. But he was crucified for joining. And they changed [their name] to HEAVEN & HELL and all that c*ap.”
“Why can’t they just say, ‘Hey, it’s part of our legacy’?” David asked rhetorically. “I’ve heard Wolf [Hoffmann, ACCEPT guitarist] going as far as [telling journalists], ‘Don’t ask me about David Reece in interviews. Don’t bring up that part of my history.’ You know what, pal? I’ve got a couple of stinker albums in my collection in my life too. It gives a story. It’s a story to talk about. You don’t have to badmouth each other. You can say, ‘It just didn’t work. It was a great experience.’ ‘Cause I think Wolf Hoffmann actually got to play some pretty impressive guitar stuff [‘Eat The Heat’]… On that album, you get some David Gilmour tones with ‘Generation Clash’. He’s one of the greatest metal guitar players in the world, but he got to show that he can actually play. And I give him credit for it.”
Listen to the audio here:
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