Udo Dirkschneider

Born:: April 6, 1952, he's 60 and German.
Birthname:: We're not sure - tell us?
Snapshot:: A member of 2 groups, and credited once on others' music. 1 collaboration.

Udo Dirkschneider (born April 6, 1952, Wuppertal, Germany) is a German heavy metal singer who was formerly the vocalist in German heavy metal band Accept.

After the demise of Accept in 1987, Dirkschneider formed the band U.D.O.. He consequently paused and restarted his band after reverting to Accept on occasion.

In 1999 Hammerfall recorded a version of Helloween's hit song "I Want Out", with Udo and Kai Hansen making guest appearances. Udo contributed back-up vocals, while Kai and Joacim Cans sang lead. Udo also appeared as a guest singer for Hammerfall on a version of Accept's "Head Over Heels".

Recently, Dirkschneider made a guest appearance on (Eurovision Song Contest winners) Lordi's 2006 album, The Arockalypse. Mr Lordi claims both "Don't Look Back" and "Blitz of Lightning" by U.D.O. as songs that changed his life in a Kerrang! magazine article. He also makes a guest appearance in the music video for the song Shtil' by Russian heavy metal band Aria .

Dirkschneider recorded lead vocals with NWOBHM-band Raven on their cover of "Born to Be Wild" on a 1983 single release. The song also appeared as B-side on "Break the Chain" from their album All for One. UDO is also famous for his duet rock ballad with Doro Pesch, "Dancing with an Angel". On Wacken 2008 he performed live with Lordi the song "They Only Come Out at Night".

The character Dark Schneider in the Japanese manga and anime series Bastard!! is named after Dirkschneider.

Udo is well known for his unique voice, short stature, camouflage clad image and short blond hair. Skid Row vocalist Sebastian Bach pronounced him as having "the most metal name of all time."

The Biography appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udo_Dirkschneider. Portions of this Biography may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.