U.D.O. / ex-ACCEPT frontman Udo Dirkschneider is featured in a new interview with UK-based Über Rock. An excerpt is available below:

Q: The album is out on May 23rd and there is an EP, Leatherhead, out at the moment and there's a video for that which is fantastic

Udo: "The E.P. is down to the record company they want to raise some awareness and to get people interested for the album, but the problem for us is when you put out an EP you have to come up with bonus material. It's like different versions or different packaging, so when you work on an album it cant be 11 or 12 songs you have to do 15, 16 sometimes for us it hard to chose which songs are the bonus ones."

Q: Do you wish it could be like the old days when an album was only 40 minutes long?

Udo: "Yes indeed, sometimes like when you have to put a bonus track on the Japanese version of your album you feel sometimes this song is maybe not as good as it could be. So perhaps a good idea maybe when nothing is happening between tours or making albums is to bring out a bonus album with all the bonus tracks on it. Then people will know the songs and you can perhaps play them live. We tried it once to play a bonus track live and people were like (raises hands in disbelief) no reaction. Oh what's this? Didn't know it. Never heard this song so.... but that's the way it is."

Q: Back in Accept's days you did some very successful albums, then suddenly you went solo, why did you do that and what made you want to put out a solo album at that time?

Udo: "After the Russian Roulette album the rest of the guys wanted to be more commercial and they wanted to break the American market, I don't know. I mean we, were already selling one and a half million records there, and they played me the songs and I said 'Guys, I cannot sing these songs this is too commercial.' But at that time you know there was always a lot of business people around and what can I say it was like they wanted to have another singer n with a more American style blah blah blah...."

Q: It was quite a big move on your behalf to go solo at that time, quite a big risk.

Udo: "Yeah, and so in a way the solo album was already written, the Animal House album, as they wanted to be friendly at this time it was made very easy for me to go solo. It was like yeah OK, you can use these songs, its OK we don't need them for the new album we want to do something completely different. So that was the start of U.D.O."

Click here for the complete interview.

have announced the following European dates for their Rev-Raptor Tour:

September

24 - Cracow, Poland - Kwadrat
25 - Wroclaw, Poland - Alibi
27 - Vilnius, Lithuania - Forum Palace
28 - Tallinn, Estonia - Rock Cafe
30 - Helsinki, Finland - DOM

October

2 - Vaasa, Finland - Royal Night Club
3 - Tampere, Finland - Klubi
5 - Malmö, Sweden - KB
6 - Gothenburg, Sweden - Trädgårn
7 - Uppsala, Sweden - Katalin
8 - Sundsvall, Sweden - Destroyer
9 - Mariestad, Sweden - KG5
27 - Paris, France - Divan Du Monde
28 - Pagney derriere Barine/Nancy, France - Paulette Pub Rock
29 - Las Pennas Mirabeau/Marseille, France - Jas Rod
30 - Pau, France- L'Ampli

November

2 - Madrid, Spain - Heineken
3 - Santiago, Spain - Capitol
4 - Valladolid, Spain - tba
5 - Bilbao, Spain - Rock Star Live
6 - LLeida, Spain - Cotton Club

U.D.O. have launched a video diary detailing the band's current Mexican and South American tour. Check out Part 3 below:

U.D.O. will release their upcoming Rev-Raptor album, on May 20th via AFM Records. Three of the songs - 'Rev-Raptor', 'Leatherhead' and 'Rock'N'Roll Soldiers' - are currently streaming at this location.