Wolf Hoffmann

Wolf Hoffmann is Accept's founding guitarist, its principal composer and the only member present throughout the band's history, from 1976 to the present. Born in Mainz, Germany, in 1959, he is directly responsible for the feature that sets Accept apart from any other band of its generation. That feature is art music. Hoffmann adapts classical themes for electric guitar explicitly and systematically — Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Dvořák appear transformed into riffs and solos across the whole discography, and the track "Metal Heart" (1985) carries a Beethoven quotation played at maximum distortion. It is not highbrow ornament glued onto metal: it is thematic material treated with the same seriousness as the original riffs, and it created a lineage that European power metal would follow afterwards. His guitar has a cutting tone and clean execution, with harmonies in thirds and phrasing that puts melody above speed. Much of the writing on Restless and Wild (1982), Balls to the Wall (1983) and Metal Heart (1985) is his — the records that made Accept the most influential German band before Helloween. He took that vocation to its extreme in a solo career, with albums devoted entirely to adaptations of the classical repertoire — Classical (1997) and Headbangers Symphony (2016). Away from music, he worked for years as a professional photographer.