Udo Dirkschneider believes record companies create problems for themselves by signing far too many bands, at a time when his son Sven looks with suspicion at the endless multiplication of metal subgenres.
“`Father and son spoke to «Rock Kommander» about how heavy metal has changed since the 1980s. Sven, 32, plays drums in both of his father’s bands, U.D.O. and Dirkschneider.
According to Sven, the biggest difference is that in the Accept days things happened more freely: they walked into a rehearsal room, someone brought a riff and the song took shape. Now, he says, everything is predetermined, with rules about what you should and should not do if you follow a genre, and with so many subgenres that they are hard to keep track of. He singled out «dwarf metal» as something that seems strange to him.
He also spoke about bands built around a concept — Sabaton, Powerwolf and Ghost — saying they give people masks, face paint and a way to connect with them, something that did not exist in the past.
Udo stressed that the most important thing for a band is to write songs that last, citing Accept’s «Balls To The Wall» and Deep Purple’s «Smoke On The Water» as examples. He remembered that in the ’80s there were far fewer bands — he named Scorpions, Accept, Mötley Crüe, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Motörhead — and concluded that labels create their own problems by signing far too many acts and that they «do a lot of things wrong».
Meanwhile, U.D.O. are preparing their 20th album, «Voodoo Ranger», out on 8 January 2027, and the «Triple Anniversary Tour 2027», which starts on 9 January in Leipzig and wraps up on 20 February in Tampere.
See also
See also: U.D.O.: New album «Voodoo Ranger» and Accept: The story of the German heavy metal band.
Source: https://blabbermouth.net/news/udo-dirkschneider-and-his-son-sven-weigh-in-on-state-of-heavy-metal-in-2026-record-companies-are-doing-a-lot-of-things-wrong
