BLABBERMOUTH.NET
IRON ALLIES, the new band featuring former
ACCEPT members
Herman Frank and
David Reece, has entered
Horus Sound Studio in Hannover, Germany to begin recording its debut album. The LP, which is being co-produced by
Arne Neurand, will be released later in the year via
AFM Records.
Joining
Frank and
Reece in
IRON ALLIES are bassist
Donnie Van Stavern (
RIOT) and drummer
Francesco Jovino (
U.D.O.,
PRIMAL FEAR,
VOODOO CIRCLE,
JORN).
Last October,
Reece discussed his collaboration with
Frank in an interview with the
"Heavy Metal Mayhem" radio show. He said (as transcribed by
BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "The ironic thing about
Herman and I, we played festivals many times and not even met each other. And here we are, part of the same band and their history. And we would miss each other by, like, two minutes. We always wanted to see each other, but something came up [and] we never really got to meet. So Herman and I started talking, and we said, 'Yeah, let's put a band together. Who do you wanna get?' Well, my manager suggested
Donnie from
RIOT on bass,
Donnie Van Stavern. And we talked to [drummer]
Mike Heller from
FEAR FACTORY a few times, and that didn't really work out. And then I said, 'I've got
Francesco Jovino, dude, on my [solo] album. This guy is a beast.' So then we got the band together. So right now we're sitting on about 22 songs that are recorded."
Regarding the musical direction of
IRON ALLIES,
Reece said: "It's got some of those elements of old [
ACCEPT circa]
'Restless And Wild'. It's got
Dave's voice — [as heard on my solo albums]
'Cacophony [Of Souls]' and
'Blacklist [Utopia]'. It's ripping shit, man. I'm really excited about it."
According to
Reece, part of the motivation for putting
IRON ALLIES together is the negative publicity surrounding their respective departures from
ACCEPT. "They badmouth him, they badmouth me, there was this back-and-forth all the time, and then [
Herman] said, 'You know what? Screw it. I'm gonna call
David Reece,'"
David explained. "And I'd never really talked to him. He just came down to Italy about two weeks ago, and we got to actually meet face to face. We went out to a great dinner, hung out for about six hours. He was just driving around Europe, relaxing, 'cause he had just finished another
VICTORY album and his solo album, so he needed a break."
David said that he is excited about the prospect of hitting the road with a seasoned veteran like
Herman.
"This is a band of guys who have been around and done it all," he said. "So we're not gonna have that, 'Oh, I don't wanna go there. Do we have to get up so early?' We know what we've gotta do. We've gotta travel and we've gotta rock."
He added: "I'm hoping we can release that in the early part of '22, 'cause that's really good."
Frank broke the news of the collaboration in a June 2021 interview with
Justin Smulison of
Jace Media. He said: "I'm working right now — already working since a couple of months [ago] — on another project I wanna do with a singer, a well-known singer. He played in the same band as I did, but we never played [in the band] at the same time." When
Smulison guessed that
Frank was referring to
Reece, the guitarist said: "How do you know? Good guess."
Herman joined
ACCEPT in 1982 shortly before the release of the band's
"Restless And Wild" album and exited the group for the first time after the arrival of 1983's
"Balls To The Wall" LP.
When
ACCEPT reunited for festival appearances in 2005,
Herman handled second-guitar duties alongside founding axeman
Wolf Hoffmann, with
Stefan Schwarzmann sitting behind the kit.
Frank and
Schwarzmann were involved in
ACCEPT's comeback with singer
Mark Tornillo and appeared on the reunited group's first three studio albums: 2010's
"Blood Of The Nations", 2012's
"Stalingrad" and 2014's
"Blind Rage".
Two years ago,
Herman told
All That Shreds about his decision to exit
ACCEPT in December 2014: "It was just time to leave the band. Let's put it this way: I wanted to do music the way I started to. I wanted to have my own band. I wanted my own music and just wanted to just play my own leads. Not to follow somebody's guitar. I was getting too old for it. It's fine to be a backup, but after a couple of years, it's time for a different thing."
Reece was recruited for
ACCEPT's
"Eat The Heat" LP in 1989 following the departure of
Udo Dirkschneider.
Reece's higher-pitched delivery was in sharp contrast to
Dirkschneider's distinctive style, and overall, the album was a critical and commercial disappointment. Midway through the
"Eat The Heat" tour, differences between the band and
Reece had come to a head, leading to the altercation between the singer and bassist
Peter Baltes in Chicago. By the end of 1989,
ACCEPT had hung it up.
David spoke about the circumstances that led to his dispute with the bassist during an interview with
Metalliluola. He explained: "
Peter had told my girlfriend I was having an affair. And I asked him, 'Did you tell her?' And he said, 'Yes.' So I slapped him. That ended it. It was bad before that, the communication. Ticket sales weren't good. We were opening for
W.A.S.P."
He continued: "I think they really thought that getting the American [singer] in, they were gonna break the United States. But
ACCEPT aren't really huge in America, like [in Europe]. That's why they hired me — they wanted a change. And the tour was going kind of slow. We did a headline tour first in the States, [playing in the] clubs. That was good. And then we went out with
W.A.S.P. and
METAL CHURCH, and it was half[-filled] rooms. So they were feeling the stress of that, and the communication was bad. So it was building."
David went on to say that he is sorry for assaulting his former bandmate. "
Peter and I are friends now," he said, adding that "it was a bad decision" that was made while he and the rest of the group were under "a lot of stress. Being in a band, it can be a lot of drama. He had no right to tell her, and I had no right to slap him. So, I regret it."
Francesco Jovino just finished all Iron Allies drum tracks onward people and greetings from Hannover at Horus studios new album on AFM announcement coming soon
Posted by David Reece Official on Saturday, March 12, 2022
With the great Arne Neurand Co producer of the new Iron Allies album coming out on AFM records
Posted by David Reece Official on Saturday, March 12, 2022