JUDAS PRIEST Guitarist Is Keeping His Ear To The Ground

Jeff Kerby of KNAC.COM recently conducted an interview with JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Glenn Tipton. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

KNAC.COM: Do you ever get the sense as someone who has been around as long as you have been, that the best period for someone to make a life long impression on rock has passed?

Tipton: "Yeah, well, I think when you've been in the business as long as I have which is a long time that you actually just evolve and accept that there are going to be changes. You not only have to accept that, you have to go with it because if you don't, the sands of time are going to cover you over. We've been around for thirty years in PRIEST, and we wouldn't still be here if we hadn't looked around us and kept our ear to the ground and checked out the younger bands and the competition and moved along with it. You have to do that. You have to accept that. For me, the great era was the mid-'80s to the mid-'90s, but I still enjoyed every year since then. You've got to go with the flow or you're going to be left behind. There's a spine or backbone of metal, and there are a lot of offshoots, but things usually come full circle and back to strength usually."

KNAC.COM: As a father who has children interested in music with a son who plays drums on "New Breed" [on Tipton's solo album, "Baptizm of Fire"] with you as well as a daughter who co-wrote the same song, what advice have you given them?

Tipton: "I don't say much really, Jeff, because as you go through life, I think you have to learn your own lessons. Obviously, I give them advice when they need it, but when you're young, you don't really want to listen to advice. If I see them heading in a direction where I think I should mention something, then I'll mention it. I don't labor the point though because if you labor the point, kids don't listen to you — kids don't listen to you anyway. (laughs) I mean, my daughter is 25 and my son is 19, so they're both pretty much adults now. They just see me as a father, really, or a friend. It was great to do all of this together though. My daughter came into the studio and started messing around on the keyboards one day, and I thought there was a song there. We started writing it together and weirdly, my son, who had been away at the university for a year, came back. Well, he left a guitar player and came back as a drummer — and he's in three bands now. He ended up putting the drum tracks right down with shades of Keith Moon in there, and I was real proud of him. It's a good thing to do to work with your family. It's really not a nice song that we did though…it's quite nasty really."

KNAC.COM: Sometimes, when you're at the studio recording the new album, do you sit back in the studio and say, "I can't believe we ever broke up."

Tipton: "There are various ways of looking at it. One is that when Rob made the split from the band, we'd been working long and hard up to that point and through a lot of arduous years, so in that respect, we needed a break. Obviously, we didn't need a 14-year break, but we did need a break. Life goes on though, and if we hadn't had that break, I would have never done the solo project, which was good for me — I got to work with other musicians and enjoy myself. I'm proud of what I've achieved just as I'm sure Rob is proud of his solo stuff as well. I think that time apart made us really value JUDAS PRIEST. When we got back together, we had more energy and enthusiasm than ever. Absence does make the heart grow fonder or so they say. I think it is important to look at the positive side of it rather than the negative, so that's what I try to do. You have to take fate for what it dishes out and take the positives from it. I think that's what everyone needs to do. There are a lot of people who look back or go 'We should have done this,' or 'We shouldn't have done that.' I just think you need to take what you can get, and take it in a very positive fashion. I think at the end of the day, that is what I try to do."

Read the entire interview at KNAC.COM.