Bands that record just one studio album with a particular singer are an intriguing phenomenon. While not always fan-favorites, such albums hint at an alternative path for the band, a forking road, a history that never was. Consider Mötley Crüe’s Mötley Crüe (John Corabi), L.A. Guns’ Shrinking Violet (Jizzy Pearl), and Van Halen’s III (Gary Cherone). Black Sabbath score multiple entries on this list with Born Again (Ian Gillan), The Eternal Idol (Ray Gillen), and Seventh Star (Glenn Hughes).
Up until Eat the Heat, Udo Dirkschneider was the only lead vocalist to record with Accept. They parted ways in 1987, a couple of other vocalists sang with Accept, but when the time came to actually record a new album, the band settled on David Reece.
When a plane crashes, it is sometimes due to a single catastrophic failure. All engines fail. A wing snaps off. Other times, the crash is due to a combination of factors, none of which by themselves would cause a crash. One can argue that Eat the Heat has a single source of failure, that it is a fundamentally flawed album and a pig for which there is no lipstick. No, Eat the Heat may not be top tier Accept, but I’d argue its lack of love with much of the fanbase results from multiple issues; it’s a flawed album but not a failure. Reading various interviews and articles, I’ve come up with the following reasons to try to explain, at least in part, why the Eat the Heat didn’t work.
The band and/or their management decided that in order to take the band to the next level, Accept should become more commercial and that they needed an American or British singer to break into the United States, so Udo was out. The remaining members either wrote his solo album or gave what was going to be the next Accept album to Udo. Either way, Accept was lean on material when Reece joined. The lack of material and musical crossroads they were at led to a disjointed album. Sometimes album display range and depth, but Eat the Heat sounds more like a band just trying stuff and throwing it against the wall to see if any of it sticks; it lacks a cohesive identity.
The band released just one single, “Generation Clash.” Despite Reece’s MTV-ready image, the video did not push the song up the charts. Various members have said that they released the wrong single and should have picked “X-T-C” or “D-Train” instead. The issue with “Generation Clash” is that is straddles the line. It’s not super-heavy, and it’s not pop. It represents a refusal to commit. The band might have been better served by reversing the commercial direction it was considering and releasing the heavier “Hellhammer” instead. Or they could have leaned into the poppier side of Eat the Heat and released “Stand 4 What U R.” “Stand 4 What U R” is light, poppy, undeniably cheesy, and sounds like the title song of some formulaic 80s teen movie in which the protagonist finally realizes their worth and comes into their own by hitting the winning shot, overcoming the school bully, getting their crush, and/or saving the day. While contrived and somewhat hollow, it’s also undeniably catchy and would have given Accept the best chance to test the pop-rock waters.
Since the band wanted a larger presence in the American market, they toured almost exclusively in America. However, the crowds were small compared to what they previously were in Europe. They played just one European show in Cologne, Germany. Drummer Stefan Kaufmann injured his back and had to quit the tour. If there was any hope of the band mounting another tour or making another album, that ended when Accept dismissed Reece and cancelled the rest of the tour after bassist Peter Baltes and Reece got into a physical altercation.
All that and they ended up losing ground. Eat the Heat peaked ten spots lower in the German charts than Accept’s previous album, Russian Roulette. And what of the American charts that all of this was work was supposed to conquer? Russian Roulette peaked on the US Billboard at 114. Eat the Heat reached 139.
Eat the Heat appeared in 1989 and the more commercial pop-metal sound Accept were aiming for was on the way out. Udo returned for 1993’s Objection Overruled, an overall grittier, heavier album hearkening back to harder days. Unfortunately, by then, metal’s popularity reached a nadir. We always wonder what if. Maybe another album with Reece would have been a masterpiece that sold ten million copies, destined to be enshrined in top ten lists of metal albums. However, it’s most likely that Reece was doomed. If Eat the Heat had been a success, presumably Accept would have continued in that more commercial vein. Quite likely, a follow-up would have been released on the edge of or after the musical tide had shifted from hard rock and heavy metal to alternative, and that audience would no longer have been there as was the case for many rock and metal bands that crossed as they moved into the early 1990s. Metallica made it—albeit with a major change in their sound—but most bands trended downward in sales and popularity. Let’s assume, in another alternate reality, Eat the Heat was not a success but Accept stuck with Reece and made another album. Realizing that poppier sound was definitely not the route to try again, Accept make a heavy and more classic-sounding Accept album and release it in late 1991 or early 1992; again, metal was just not as popular at that time. I’m not suggesting Accept should have given Reece another album, but I think it’s quite likely Reece was not the reason the band didn’t get to the next level.
So what else could Accept have done once Reece was on their radar but before they recorded Eat the Heat with him? There are several possibilities. Accept record Animal House with Udo and give Reece Eat the Heat as a solo album (without the context and expectations of being in Accept, perhaps Eat the Heat is better-received as a Reece solo record). Accept record Animal House with Reece and give Udo Eat the Heat as solo album (maybe Udo uses the tracks as a start but makes Eat the Heat heavier). Accept take the best songs off of Animal House and Eat the Heat and make one album from them titled Animal Heat, Houses of the Hot, Eat the House, or something like that (the other tracks appear on an expanded reissue years later). In that scenario, they either tell Reece, “Sorry, we changed our mind; don’t knock the Pilsner over on the way out the door,” or they tell Udo, “You’re out. Why are we helping you? Get your own material.”
Like a lot of other one-offs, Eat the Heat may not be Accept’s peak, but it deserves more credit than it gets and Reece sounds great.
TRACKLIST
1. X-T-C
2. Generation Clash
3. Chain Reaction
4. Love Sensation
5. Turn the Wheel
6. Hellhammer
7. Prisoner
8. I Can’t Believe in You
9. Mistreated
10. Stand 4 What U R
11. Break the Ice
12. D-Train