Talking to No F*ckin’ Regrets With Robb Flynn, Accept guitarist Wolf Hoffmann said that the relationship with the German hard rock band Scorpions was somehow unusual.
Here’s what the guitarist said:
“The Scorpions were already up – when we got started, the Scorpions were already big. They had already released [the 1978 live album] ‘Tokyo Tapes’ and then it was [1979’s] ‘Lovedrive’ – they were huge in our minds.
“They were touring America, and they were always way ahead of us, so we always looked at them as our goal or our hero. ‘Maybe one day we could be half as good as they are…’
“And they never mentioned us, oddly enough, and they never talked about us – they never acknowledged us, in a way, or so it felt. And we always felt it a little odd that they almost were a little afraid of our competition.
“It almost felt like they maybe wanted to be the only German successful band, and they resented the fact that we were even recording at the same studio with the same producer.
“We always had this idea that they were thinking like, ‘Who’s this other band? Who do they think they are?’ They wanna be the only ones. I don’t know.
“This might be total speculating on my part, but it felt a little bit like, ‘Why are they so…? They don’t have to be afraid of us. We’re doing something completely different. And they are huge. Why are they afraid of this little other German band in their footsteps?'”
He added:
“I tried to at one point because eventually, we played one show with them, and this is only recently – I’d say four or five years ago.
“We played one show with them, and I never got a clear answer out of them because they are always very friendly on the surface and they’re great guys – and I like them – but there’s never any deep conversations like that.
“They always stick to themselves, and they never hang around and open up and have a beer or two. They’re always a little bit distant, and they’re the stars, and they’re in their own little world.
“I have probably the best connection to [guitarist] Matthias Jabs and, of course, I admire [guitarist] Rudolf [Schenker] – he’s my hero, he’s amazing. But they never come down to our level, or so it seems. [Laughs]
“The cool thing is now we’re all a little bit older and we can chuckle about it and have a good laugh about this stuff. They probably might open up a little bit more.
“If we ever had a little bit of a sitdown or whatever, they might tell me a little more of the truth. But they always kept their distance, and they never spilled the beans. They never were the talking kind. I don’t know why. It’s always been that way.”