Ok.Ok. Downing says that getting onstage with Judas Priest once more at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will likely be like driving the proverbial bicycle, even after a dozen years away from the band. “It’s what I’ve done so many times,” the guitarist tells UCR. “It’s almost like cracking a beer, let alone riding a bike. It’s embedded in me. It’s what I do. So it’ll be quite something to look forward to, just to get up there and crank the amps up and just do it once again, for that short moment in time.”
Downing’s feedback are probably the most strong affirmation but that he’ll be a part of the efficiency phase when Priest receives their Musical Excellence Award in the course of the induction ceremony on Nov. 5 in Los Angeles. Most of the current feedback from the Priest camp have hedged a bit; just lately, singer Rob Halford instructed UCR solely that “there’s been a lot of emails going on. I’m as much in the dark as anybody else. I hear some things one day, then it’s completely the opposite the other day. I’m just like, ‘Let’s get it on! Let’s all go there, let’s all be there at blah, blah o’clock and we’ll see what happens. And that’s great, ’cause it’s rock ‘n’ roll. It’s chaos! It’s going to be a great day.”
Downing confirms the e-mail exchanges – he hasn’t spoken to anybody in individual, nonetheless – and says that each he and Les Binks, Priest’s drummer from 1977-79, will likely be performing. “It’ll go by in a flash, won’t it?” notes Downing, who performed on each Priest album from their debut, Rocka Rolla, in 1974, to A Touch of Evil: Live in 2009, “I think we’ve probably got eight or nine minutes. I’m not even going to be able to break a sweat. The main thing is to represent the attitude and hopefully the legend of what Judas Priest is and has become and what it means to everybody who’s been on that very long journey through the decades with the band. And hopefully, it will just kind of remind people and bring back some cherished memories of the heavy metal parking lots all around the world.”
The reunion will come after some durations of acrimony between Downing and Priest since they parted methods in 2011 attributable to – based on a press release at the time -“an ongoing breakdown in working relationships between myself and elements of the band and management for some time.” Halford, in the meantime, shed some mild on the scenario in his ebook, Biblical, which publishes Nov. 1, noting, “It’s common knowledge that in Priest there was always some friction going on between Glenn [Tipton] and Ken as writers, as people. … I think every band has those kinds of episodes, and it’s usually from a source of great creativity.”
Downing, nonetheless, expressed disappointment that he wasn’t invited to return when Tipton retired from common touring in early 2018 attributable to Parkinson’s illness. The guitarist vented a few of his grievances in his 2018 memoir, Heavy Duty: Days and Nights in Judas Priest, however he expects all to be sweetness and light-weight – and musically heavy – at the Rock Hall ceremony.
“Obviously a lot of things have happened and stuff,” he acknowledges. “But we’re kind of all old people, you know? A lot of water’s gone under the bridge, a lot of miles have been traveled, a lot of notes have been played. The thing is we can all kind of be there, have a few beers together, a glass of wine and perform and enjoy ourselves. At the end of the day, it really is an accolade, and I think, if everybody were to be honest with themselves, they would all like to have that accolade.”
Downing does contemplate Priest’s award important not just for the band however for heavy metallic within the Rock Hall, which is to this point represented solely by a number of acts: Black Sabbath and Metallica and, relying in your definitions, Deep Purple and Rush. “Judas Priest have always been proud to fly the flag for metal and open as many doors and pave the way for as many new artists as possible,” he says. “Hopefully we’ve been great ambassadors of doing that. And in respect of [the Rock Hall], if Judas Priest wasn’t or couldn’t get in there, well possibly nobody would be able to. I would like to see the mighty [Iron] Maiden and Saxon and everybody else get in there. Hopefully, the doors will open to those guys as well. It’s taken us a long time, so the only message I would say to everybody that’s in the wings is, Be patient because it seems that you have to be considerably old and considerably, dare I say, a legend before you even get a sniff of this accolade.”
Don’t count on to see Downing in black tie at the ceremony, although. “I’ll be wearing something … hopefully, good enough for them to let me in,” he jokes. “As long as they let me go ’round the back and bring my stuff in, that’s OK. I’ll find something, but it definitely won’t be a tux, that’s for sure.”
While the ceremony will finish the yr on a excessive be aware, Downing is already plotting a busy 2023. His present band, KK’s Priest, is ending work on its second album, the follow-up to 2021’s pandemic-hampered Sermons of the Sinner. He says the group can also be planning an intensive world tour that is now being plotted.
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