David Reece sang on one Accept album, in 1989, and then did not speak to Wolf Hoffmann again for thirty seven years. He will now play two European dates with the band on the Teutonic Titans tour.
The way it arrived is the part worth telling. Reece was in Bulgaria, playing a festival in August, when a message came through that he almost dismissed as another spam call. He checked anyway and found an email from Hoffmann.
"Hi David, how are you? I wonder if you'd be interested. I'd be very honored if you would join Accept live and perform some songs with us on the upcoming Teutonic Titans tour," it read. That is the whole of it, and for a man who carried the Eat the Heat years as the awkward chapter in his biography, it closes something.
He told the story to Jimmy Kay of The Metal Voice, in a conversation that was mostly about Payload, the new Bangalore Choir album, which El Puerto Records releases on 6 November. That band's first record, On Target, came out in 1992.
The two of them had started speaking again earlier in the year, which is where this was heading.