For many years after its founding, Accept suffered constant changes to its line-up and was essentially kept on an amateur level, making sporadic concerts on festivals. Their professional career began in 1976, when they were invited to play on one of the first rock 'n roll festivals from Germany — Rock am Rhein. After the festival took place, the band received a recording deal and entered a professional studio for the first time, in order to record the self-titled Accept, an album which despite the band's efforts didn't achieve much success.

The first stable line-up of Accept was composed by vocalist Udo Dirkschneider, guitarists Wolf Hoffmann and Gerhard Wahl, bassist Peter Baltes and drummer Frank Friedrich. Friedrich and Wahl quit the band after the release of Accept, since they didn't intend to pursue a professional career in music. They were replaced by Stefan Kaufmann and Jörg Fischer, with this line-up, the band proceeded to record I'm a Rebel in 1980. This was the album which brought media attention to the band, which was subsequently invited to make its first televisioned show.