Udo Dirkschneider states two former U.D.O. and Dirkschneider guitarists were not team players
Udo Dirkschneider states two former U.D.O. and Dirkschneider guitarists were not team players
Former Accept and current U.D.O. frontman Udo Dirkschneider was recently interviewed by Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice and spoke about former U.D.O. and Dirkschneider guitarists Kasperi Heikkinen and Bill Hudson as well as the search for a replacement for Hudson. Back in February 2017, it was announced that Heikkinen was leaving the band for personal reasons while Hudson‘s departure from the band in February 2018 was initially explained as “due to a difference in their individual visions for the future.”
In terms of the status of the search for a new guitarist as well as the qualities that they are looking for, Dirkschneider stated (as transcribed by The Metal Voice with slight edits): “The last two guitarists I had were Kasperi Heikkinen and Bill Hudson and both of them were not really team players. In U.D.O., I am not a solo artist, we want to work as a team and that is what we did on this new album and this is very important for us. These two guys were definitely were not team players. Bill was not interested in coming up with ideas when we were recording the album. For me, I didn’t want to have the same situation again and I needed more time to look for a new second guitar player. So I asked Stefan Kaufmann to fill in and help us out. We now know which guitar player it will be but we will announce this in the middle of September 2018.”
With respect to bringing former Accept guitarist Herman Frank (1982–1984, 2005, 2009–2014 as per Wikipedia) in the band, Dirkschneider opined: “No, I don’t want to have these old memories, I want to keep going forward. I can tell you our new U.D.O. guitarist is 26 years old and unknown and this is what I am looking for someone more modern and someone young so they can add fresh blood into the band. Nothing against Herman; he has his style but I want to have fresh blood into the band.”
Earlier this month, Dirkschneider was interviewed by United Rock Nations at which time he stated that Hudson was no longer in the band because the latter was not a team player and not interested in songwriting and recording a new album. This prompted Hudson to release a subsequent statement stating that Dirkschneider‘s representations were false and inaccurate. Hudson‘s statement stated in part: “I acknowledge there were musical differences I experienced with the project/band during the European tour in late 2017 which, resulted in the conclusion that the project/band was not a good fit for me. Additionally, my resignation from the project/band was influenced by previously confirmed show dates with I Am Morbid that conflicted with newly scheduled show dates for Dirkschneider, as well as my desire to focus more on my own band, Northtale.”
You can listen to the interview with Udo Dirkschneider with The Metal Voice below.
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