ACCEPT – MARK TORNILLO
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Twinmusix caught up with Mark from Accept today to talk about their one off show in Melbourne to promote their new Album
YOU JUST RELEASED YOUR NEW ALBUM RISE OF CHAOS HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE ALBUM COVER?
We were working with an artist who was designing a stage set for us and if you look at the Brussels and Live Tour DVD and look at the backdrop it’s almost the album cover but everything is destroyed on the album cover, it’s a pretty cool concept if you ask me that absolute chaos took over.
YOU JOINED ACCEPT IN 2008, HOW DID THIS COME ABOUT?
We spent a year writing Blood of the Nations but it was really just a chance thing, they weren’t really looking to restart the band they were looking for a singer. It turns out Peter lives forty five minutes away from me. We didn’t know that for years, we were close enough to drive to each other’s house. They were living in a studio in New Jersey and Wolf would come up to do something with him, they started talking and the engineer said they should call me, they said, “Who is this guy”. They called me up, I went to the studio and jammed. Two weeks later they called me up and asked me if I wanted to make a CD and do a tour.
WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE LIKE PLAYING AT WAKEN OPEN AIR?
It was a fast one, but the orchestra was amazing. We did Waken back in 2014 as well and it was just amazing but this one was ridiculous, we spent three days in Prague rehearsing with the orchestra. Then we went and played the show and it really was a massive undertaking. I don’t even know how it all got pulled off without a hitch, but it did it was brilliant. It was raining but when we went on stage it stopped someone out there likes us I think.
DID YOU HAVE TO RESTRUCTURE YOUR SONGS TO FIT WITH THE ORCHESTRA?
A little bit, some things, but it was all orchestrated by a guy who also orchestrates Wolf’s classical solo albums. He took all the Accept music, wrote it out, orchestrated it, brought it to the conductor then the conductor brought it to the orchestra. It was amazing to me, I was listening to them rehearse without us. I thought this is a beautiful classical piece and thought what is it? then I realised it was Teutonic Terror.
WHAT CAN FANS EXPECT FROM THE SHOW IN MELBOURNE?
We are going to come and kick some ass, it gets harder with each record to make a set list because there are so many classics that have to be played, there are a few classics from the first few albums that I did with them. So it gets very difficult but we just want to play longer that is what happens. You would need two hours plus, for everything you want to hear. We will definitely focus on the new record, four or five songs off the new record and as many others as we can fit in.
IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY BAND PERFORM ONE OF YOUR SONGS WHICH BAND AND SONG WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WOULD IT BE IN YOUR STYLE OR THERE’S?
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I would like to see Motorhead do Bucket Full of Hate in their style, but that won’t happen of course, but that’s the first thing that came into my head.
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HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH YOUR MUSIC VIDEO FOR PANDEMIC?
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The same guy who did the Tectonic Terror video, Dave when we filmed that video if was filmed in a military junk yard, grave yard with tanks and that sort of thing out here on the West Coast. When we did that, we went back to his studio and filmed pandemic on a green screen, it’s basically all on green screen and we had no idea what he was going to do with it. He came up with that concept himself, the comic book that guy is a genius, he actually does production work for TV shows, builds sets and puts all that stuff together, he’s done some major TV shows, he happened to be a fan a lot of things fell into place back then.
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WHO WRITES THE MUSIC IN YOUR BAND OR DO YOU ALL WRITE IT TOGETHER?
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Peter and Wolf write the music and I write the lyrics for most of it. We will all come up with a title or an idea but at the end of the day I write the verses, they write the music. We will make suggestions to each other, we go back and forth a lot, Gabby still has some input on lyrics because she’s the one who wrote all the good stuff back in the day. Peter and Wolf sit in the room and write together, and I’ll go down and sit with them and we will collectively put our ideas together. You have to, when it’s in infancy stage in order for everyone to be on the same page, but after that we send things back and forth. Everyone has studio capability at home, you sent songs back and forth so you get it right, then Andy Sneep comes in cleans it all up then we go and record it.
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DO YOU PREFER PLAYING FESTIVALS OR SMALL SHOWS?
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I like them both, I like playing festivals and being on that massive stage, but I also like small shows where people are right in your face and you can really connect with the audience. It depends on the day and the show obviously, some shows are better than others, it’s all about the fans and how interested they are, you could play to one hundred people and if they are kicking your arse it doesn’t matter.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE CONCERT MEMORY?
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I would have to say when I saw AC/DC on the Back in Black tour and got back stage, we were signed to Island Records at that point, my old band that had some influence, we met Malcolm and Phil Rudd and that was amazing.
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WHEN YOU GO ON TOUR HOW OFTEN DO YOU CHANGE YOUR SET LIST?
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Not as often as we would like to, we always start out with the best intensions and have alternating set lists. The first two weeks we will play something different every night, but then it falls into the time zone and when you find a set that works time wise you don’t change it. You are always under the threat of playing so over now we are going to fine you. When you find something that works you stick with it. I prefer to sing something different every night but it’s not always up to me but we will try. We are flying to L.A and playing one set then flying to Japan and playing something different the first night in Japan, well I hope we will.
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DO YOU EVER CHANGE YOUR LYRICS IN A LIVE SET?
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Sometimes we do, in the old days you use to play songs before you recorded them, you can’t do that anymore because it would be on YouTube tomorrow so it pointless. We would always go out with new songs and play them live. That’s how you really got to work a song out, play it live to the audience and I would always end up changing the lyrics, now when I record things I think, I wish I did this or that it’s hard to change lyrics in a live set, I’ll throw a different word here and there.
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Check out Accept Press Release Link Here - Accept
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Check out more about Accept here - http://acceptworldwide.com/band/
