New York, NY (Top40 Charts) BILL HUDSON, who is currently on the extensive "Back to the Roots, Part II" tour in
Europe with DIRKSCHNEIDER, has issued his tour update and year end summary, read below. Furthermore, Bill has prepared the first part of the tour documentary, watch here: https://youtu.be/jqjQjjJ9Moc.
"As the end of this tour approaches, I look back at how busy 2017 has been for me... what a crazy and blessed year! Between DIRKSCHNEIDER and I AM MORBID, I've played around 100 shows in over 20 countries!
Back in March I received the offer from Mr. Udo Dirkschneider to join his DIRKSCHNEIDER project and help him bring the classic ACCEPT material to the stage. I flew out to Germany and got in the room with the band within 24 hours of talking to the management. I was immediately incorporated into it and was a part of the songwriting for what would become the new U.D.O album, which is coming out in August 2018.
From then, I "put my death metal boots on" and went back to California to join my friends
David Vincent, Tim Yeung and Ira
Black for I AM MORBID rehearsals. I also had a chance to do videos for some of my endorsers ESP Guitars, Peavey Amos and Traveler Guitar. Quite a bit of work to be honest....It was a total change in musical approach, but one that makes me happy to know I can do as an artist.
In mid May we flew out to Russia to start the first ever European tour. We played songs that
David wrote for the first four MORBID ANGEL records. We did several shows throughout Europe, and parallel to that I did festival dates with DIRKSCHNEIDER. I had to constantly switch gears between the death Metal of MORBID ANGEL and the classic Metal of ACCEPT, but few experiences in my musical career have been that satisfying, especially considering I had just come from the ProgMetal of the TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA (even if I didn't last years tour, I was involved in rehearsals).
After the summer was done, I went back to the US to work on some of my original music as well as to get some rest... but I was also a guest of U.K. Power Metal band POWER QUEST, on their first ever US show, at the PROGPOWER USA festival so not much rest for me...
On Sep 20 I was back on a plane to
Europe in order to get together with DIRKSCHNEIDER again, this time for a 3 month long, 58 date European tour, the one I'm currently on. Back to Russia I went... and this time I saw a lot of it! We went as far east as Vladivostok! Most Russians I know haven't even been there! Just insane!
And that is where I'm still at... I'm tired, I miss my family, but god damnit am I having the time of my life! The past few years have been exactly how I envisioned my life would be when I was a teenager.
I have also gotten together with some amazing Swedish musicians and we're starting a new band. MY band for once. Where I write the music and make decisions. This is coming next year but that's all I can say for now!
Thank you Udo Dirkschneider,
David Vincent and Jon Oliva for making all my dreams come true. And thIs is only the tip of the iceberg!"
