Sven Dirkschneider on what it’s like to have a famous dad

By STEVE MASCORD

WOLF Van Halen, Daxx Nielsen, Jackie Barnes …. Sven Dirkschneider.

On one hand it might be fun to be in a band your dad but then again, probably not as much fun – at a certain age, anyway – s being in one without your dad.

Sven Dirkschneider’s dad Udo is not just a bandmate but a metal icon. Few of us will ever be in a position where strangers shake when they meet one of your parents.

Hot Metal recently spoke to Sven, the dummer in UDO – who have a new album out soon called Touchdown – about what it’s like to have a famous dad.

Of people being star struck around his 71-year-old father, the former singer in German band Accept, Sven says: “That’s something that still fascinates me, to be very honest.

“We meet people, they shake, they’re shaking asking for a photograph.

“I’m not that person who dies for someone, you know?

“I mean, I love people, I love music, I love musicians, I love actors or whatever.

“That’s something that differs from back then to today. Today people think ‘that’s .. this guy’ –  you know – ‘I might get an autograph but I’m not that fanatical…

“If a person or a voice or an actor had such a big impact on your life and it sort of decided your route which you took back in the day, I sort of understand why people are so excited when they meet him.:

Asked when he first became aware that strangers knew his dad, Sven answered: “During my time in school, when everyone sits down and does the typical ‘tell us … what your parents do for work’.

“You just sit there and go ‘he’s a musician’.

“What kind of a musician? ‘Oh, he’s playing heavy metal and he’s the singer’ and they Google him…”

At 29, Sven is definitely from the age where kids had Google in school..

“And people would say ‘I know him …. I listened to Accept throughout my whole youth’.

“I never thought about joining the band, you know? I was making my way … a. very normal life.

“And on the side I started to work in the music industry as a drum tech … I went on tour … there was a point in my life where I decided I wanted to do this part time.

“There was a point where Dad was looking for a new drummer in the band and that’s when he asked me.”