Music / Accept

Influences:

• The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Kiss, Motörhead, Queen, T. Rex, Thin Lizzy, Scorpions, UFO, Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Rush, Jethro Tull, Rainbow, Blue Öyster Cult, Uriah Heep, Styx

Fast as a shark he'll cut out of the dark
He's a killer — he'll rip out your heart
On a one way track and you're not coming back
'cause the killer's on the attack!

— "Fast as a Shark"

If Judas Priest and AC/DC had a baby, we would just have to Accept it.

— Michael Casale, commenting on "Balls to the Wall"

Accept is a German Heavy Metal band. Initially started as Band X in 1968, Accept is one of the oldest and most influential German metal bands. Accept no substitutes!

They were successful in the mid '80s until the creative differences and failed attempt at mainstream with their album Eat the Heat broke the band in the late '80s. They reformed in the early '90s with a Darker and Edgier sound but after a couple of years broke up again. Proper reformation didn't happen until 2009.

Despite never achieving the same level of popularity as some of their contemporaries (namely Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Scorpions), the influence that Accept had on a number of genres such as thrash, speed and power metal (thanks to such hits as "Fast as a Shark" and "Balls to the Wall") has secured their place as one of the most important bands in heavy metal music. As such, they have influenced a plethora of hard rock and heavy metal acts like Guns N' Roses, Mötley Crüe, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus, Testament, Overkill, Cannibal Corpse, Helloween, Metal Church, Pantera, Skid Row, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Celtic Frost, Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Grave Digger, Doro and Gamma Ray.

---

Accept's current lineup:

• Wolf Hoffmann - lead guitar, backing vocals
• Mark Tornillo - lead vocals
• Uwe Lulis - rhythm guitar
• Christopher Williams - drums
• Martin Motnik - bass
• Philip Shouse - third guitar

Former members:

• Udo Dirkschneider - lead vocals
• Michael White - lead vocals
• Rob Armitage - lead vocals
• David Reece - lead vocals
• Gerhard Wahl - rhythm guitar
• Jörg Fischer - rhythm guitar
• Jan Koemmet - rhythm guitar
• Herman Frank - rhythm guitar
• Jim Stacey - rhythm guitar
• Peter Baltes - bass, backing vocals, occasional lead vocals
• Frank Friedrich - drums
• Stefan Kaufmann - drums, backing vocals
• Stefan Schwarzmann - drums
• Michael Cartellone - drums

Discography:

• Accept (1979)
• I'm a Rebel (1980)
• Breaker (1981)
• Restless and Wild (1982)
• Balls to the Wall (1983)
• Metal Heart (1985)
• Russian Roulette (1986)
• Eat the Heat (1989)
• Objection Overruled (1993)
• Death Row (1994)
• Predator (1996)
• Blood of the Nations (2010)
• Stalingrad: Brothers in Death (2012)
• Blind Rage (2014)
• The Rise of Chaos (2017)
• Too Mean to Die (2021)

---

"TV TROOOPES!!!":

• Album Title Drop: In the chorus of "That's Rock 'n Roll", for the self-titled album:
  Hey little woman, Accept tonight
  Come rock and roll and feel allright
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Line from the song "Fast as a Shark".
• Audience Participation Song: "Balls to the Wall", "Son of a Bitch", "Fast as a Shark", "Princess of the Dawn", "Losers and Winners"... they have a lot of these.
• The Band Minus the Face: It felt kind of weird to see Accept reforming without Udo Dirkschneider. To some fans, it still does.
• Book Ends: The Stalingrad album: The first part of the song Hung, Drawn, and Quartered and last part of the song The Galley sound similar.
• Break Up Song: Parodied Trope with "Losing More Than You've Ever Had", which mocks these songs for their overwhelmingly male perspective. In the song, the boyfriend is clearly at fault but won't take responsibility for his actions, won't stop talking about losing his girlfriend, and won't accept she left for good.
• Careful with That Axe: The studio version of "Fast as a Shark" has an intro section^note which, since that song is track 1 on Restless and Wild, also acts as an intro to the album as a whole that goes like this: "Heidi heido heida, heidi heido heida, heidi heido heida a a a a a a a a, hei— *scratch* AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!".^{additional details} The part before the scratch sound effect is the chorus of a 19th-century drinking song titled "Ein Heller und ein Batzen". According to some interviews with band member(s), the specific recording of that song that was sampled here featured studio owner Dieter Dierks as a singer (he was very young when it was recorded); this was meant to be an in-joke.
• Chainsaw Good: On the cover of debut album.
• Cluster F-Bomb: "Son of a Bitch" from Breaker. Just look at the chorus:
  Son of a bitch - kiss my ass!
  Son of a bitch!
  Son of a bitch - you asshole!
  Son of a bitch!
• Cool Shades: Likewise, he's clearly a big fan of aviators.
• Darker and Edgier: Their first reformation in the early '90s took this direction.
  • Breaker was this to their first two albums, with the rationale being "we're not getting anywhere by being commercial, so let's just play what we want to play".
• Dizzy Cam: Whoever directed the music video for "Midnight Mover" definetely believed so. The result is somewhat nauseating.
• Doesn't Like Guns: "Guns R Us" make it very clear that the band is NOT fond of guns (or at least not being able to get them so easily).
• Drugs Are Bad: "X-T-C", "Bulletproof"
• Epic Rocking: "Heaven Is Hell" and "Mistreated".
• Failure Is the Only Option: "Bound to Fail", from Metal Heart.
• Hell of a Heaven: "Heaven is Hell"...in name. More a generic Take That! against religion than this trope, though.
• Heavy Meta: "That's Rock 'n' Roll", "Burning", "Shake Your Heads", "Slaves to Metal".
• Hell-Bent for Leather: The album art for Balls to the Wall.
• I Am the Band: Wolf Hoffman, currently.
• Instrumentals: "Pomp and Circumstance", "Drifting Away" and "Just by My Own".
• Intercourse with You: "Donation" from Objection Overruled.
• Last Note Nightmare: "Take Him in to My Heart", from the self-titled album.
• Large Ham: Udo Dirkschneider and Mark Tornillo both, bringing to the table wailing, scenery-chewing high notes and Brian Johnson style gravel-grinding respectively.
• Letters 2 Numbers: "Stand 4 What U R" from Eat the Heat, which sounds more like something out of an 80s Training Montage than the band's hard rock/metal sound.
• Lighter and Softer: Though Eat the Heat gets bad flak for being commercial, the few people tend to forget that band's second album was also very commercial, it even featured a disco track.
• Longest Song Goes Last:
  • Restless and Wild closes with "Princess of the Dawn" (6:15).
  • Eat the Heat closes with "Mistreated" (8:52).
  • Stalingrad closes with "The Galley" (7:21).
  • The Rise of Chaos closes with "Race to Extinction" (5:24).
• Manly Tears: "Man Enough to Cry", from Russian Roulette.
• Market-Based Title: The 1990s-era live album All Areas – Worldwide went by the alternate title The Final Chapter in the U.S. and Japan, apparently because the band was on hiatus at the time it was released in those territories (which was in 1998) and no reunion was anticipated at that point. However, that alternate title is somewhat misleading, because it was recorded during the tours in support of the Objection Overruled and Death Row studio albums (which were released in 1993 and 1994, respectively), thus putting it prior to the recording of the Predator studio album (from 1996); this explains why it does not feature live versions of any of the songs from Predator.
• Mercy Kill: The lyrics of "Monsterman" (from Russian Roulette) are about the controversy over whether or not euthanasia should be legal, taking a pro-euthanasia stance, and mention this trope by name in the first verse ("They call me mercy killer 'cause I did it right").
• Non-Appearing Title: "Russian Roulette" (the title song). According to here, it was originally supposed to be titled "War Games" (a phrase which is in the chorus), but was changed because of legal threats from, well, guess who...
• The Noun and the Noun: Restless and Wild, and the songs "Losers and Winners", "Rich & Famous", "Sick, Dirty and Mean" and "Thunder and Lightning".
• Numbered Sequels: "Generation Clash" from Eat the Heat got numbered continuation on Death Row.
• Power Ballad: Prominent in the earlier albums.
• Professional Killer: "Sick, Dirty and Mean" from Objection Overruled is about hitmen and The Mafia in general.
• Rhymes on a Dime: So, how do you actually eat the heat?
• Rock Me, Amadeus!: Rendition of "Sabre Dance" appears in the middle of "Sodom and Gomorrah" from Death Row.
• Rock-Star Song: "Rich & Famous" from the limited edition of Objection Overruled.
• Self-Titled Album
• Slave Galley: "The Galley" from Stalingrad is about them.
• Speed Metal: One of the Trope Codifiers with "Fast as a Shark".
• Spiritual Successor: Udo's first solo album is seen as an Accept album in all but a name, as it was written his former band members.
• Spoofs "R" Us: "Guns 'R' Us" from their Death Row album.
• Start My Own: Original singer Udo Dirkschneider has his own solo career on U.D.O. Guitarists Wolf Hoffman and Herman Frank also have released solo albums.
• Step Up to the Microphone: Both Accept and Predator have songs sung by the bassist Peter Baltes instead of Udo.
• Subdued Section: "Russian Roulette".
• Textless Album Cover: Balls to the Wall
• There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: "The Quick and the Dead" (Stalingrad).
  There's two kinds of people... The Quick and the Dead.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: "Winter Dreams", the Power Ballad from Balls to the Wall, has three verses, and goes up a key at the beginning of the second verse and again at the third verse.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: The lyrics of "Metal Heart" (written in 1985) begin with "It is 1999 [...]"
• V-Sign: Used ironically on the cover of Blood of the Nations◊ album.
• Why Am I Ticking?: "Metal Heart" is about a disease in 1999 which turns human hearts into timebombs.

---