U.D.O.

U.D.O. took shape in the late 1980s as a German heavy metal band founded and fronted by vocalist Udo Dirkschneider after his exit from Accept. Dirkschneider and a changing lineup of musicians launched the group with Animal House in 1987 and proceeded to issue roughly one full-length album each year, reaching their eighteenth studio effort, Touchdown, in 2023. Their catalog of European power metal, which also encompassed Accept staples such as “Balls to the Wall” and “Fast as a Shark,” sustained extensive touring activity.

Dirkschneider assembled the original lineup with guitarists Peter Szigeti and Mathias Dieth, bassist Frank Rittel, and drummer Tomas Franke. Accept members wrote the material for the debut album Animal House; by the 1988 release Mean Machine, Szigeti, Rittel, and Franke had been replaced by guitarist Andy Susemihl, bassist Thomas Smuszynski, and drummer Stefan Schwarzmann. Susemihl departed before Faceless World in 1990, yielding his spot to guitarist Wolla Böhm. The same personnel recorded Time Bomb in 1991, after which the band dissolved following a tour and Dirkschneider rejoined Accept from 1992 to 1996.

He revived U.D.O. with Dieth, Schwarzmann, guitarist Stefan Kaufmann, and bassist Michael Voss to record a contribution for the Judas Priest tribute album Legends of Metal. Only Schwarzmann and Kaufmann continued into the 1997 album Solid, which introduced guitarist Jürgen Graf-Biardi and bassist Fitty Wienhold. No Limits appeared the next year, followed in 1999 by the intense Holy. Man and Machine arrived in 2002 and included the duet “Dancing with an Angel” with Warlock vocalist Doro Pesch. A sequence of aggressive studio albums ensued: Thunderball in 2004, Mission No. X in 2005, Mastercutor in 2007, Dominator in 2009, and Rev-Raptor in 2011.

Guitarist Stefan Kaufmann exited in 2012 for health reasons and was succeeded by Andrey Smirnov, whose first studio recording with the band was Steelhammer in 2013. Decadent, their fifteenth long-player, surfaced in early 2015. Later that year Dirkschneider announced a large-scale tour devoted exclusively to Accept material, which he planned to retire afterward. The 2017 double-live album Back to the Roots: Accepted documented those performances. U.D.O. delivered their sixteenth studio album, Steelfactory, in 2018. Two years later they issued We Are One, an orchestral collaboration written and recorded with the Concert Band of the German Armed Forces. The group maintained its commitment to classic fist-pumping heavy metal on Game Over in 2021 and Touchdown in 2023.