Accept

Accept is a German heavy metal band from Solingen, formed in 1976 with their first consistent lineup featuring lead singer Udo Dirkschneider, lead guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, bassist Peter Baltes, rhythm guitarist Jörg Fischer and drummer Stefan Kaufmann. Their current lineup consists of Hoffmann, vocalist Mark Tornillo, guitarist Philip Shouse, drummer Christopher Williams and bassist Martin Motnik. Accept has undergone numerous lineup changes, with Hoffmann being the only constant member. To date, the band has released seventeen studio albums, five live albums and ten compilation albums.

Accept played an important role in the development of speed and thrash metal, and they were part of the German heavy metal scene, which had emerged by the early to mid-1980s. Accept achieved its first commercial success with their fifth studio album Balls to the Wall (1983), which is the band's only album to be certified gold in the United States and Canada, and spawned their well-known hit "Balls to the Wall".

Accept has disbanded and reformed multiple times. They first broke up in 1989, several months after the release of Eat the Heat (which was their only album with Dirkschneider's initial replacement David Reece), but reformed in 1992 with Dirkschneider and released three more albums before disbanding again in 1997. After briefly reuniting in 2005, Accept announced their third reunion in 2009, with former T.T. Quick frontman Mark Tornillo replacing Dirkschneider (who declined to participate), and the band has recorded six albums with him: Blood of the Nations (2010), Stalingrad (2012), Blind Rage (2014), The Rise of Chaos (2017), Too Mean to Die (2021), and Humanoid (2024). Those albums renewed Accept's popularity in Germany and each reached the top ten of the German album charts. As of 2024, Accept has sold more than 17 million albums worldwide.