JUDAS PRIEST Guitarist: It's Important For Us To Show 'Angel Of Retribution' Was Not A One-Off

Garry Sharpe-Young of Rockdetector.com recently conducted an interview with JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Glenn Tipton. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Rockdetector.com: So you took that short break after the tour to get these [solo] records out and now you're back to thinking about new JUDAS PRIEST songs?

Tipton: "Yes. I took that window to get these albums out and now we're all back in writing mode for the next JUDAS PRIEST album. We're going to be totally focused on that for some time. It's important for us to show our fans 'Angel of Retribution' was not a one-off."

Rockdetector.com: I spoke to KK [Downing] a few days back and he said quite boldly that JUDAS PRIEST was going to radically overhaul the set list next time around and play a lot of songs that have either never been played before or rarely performed. That created quite a stir and some of the feedback from fans was they they thought this might be a desire of KK's that might not be pushed through to reality. So, I have to ask you the same question. Are we going to see a whole new set next time?

Tipton: "Yes. We have decided that's what we want to do. When 'Angel of Retribution' came out we needed to do two things, promote the new music and remind everybody what JUDAS PRIEST was all about. Obviously we have a history there that has fortunately given us hit singles and particular songs, like 'Victim of Changes', 'Electric Eye', 'Metal Gods' and 'Beyond The Realms Of Death' that our fans keep voting as classics so we needed to put the focus on that. At the same time we did somehow find some space to put in a few songs people might not have expected to hear too. I think what happened was that we really began to notice on this tour in particular that people were coming up to us after the show and asking for their favourite songs. They've always done that and it's great to know we have made albums that can be appreciated in different ways by different people, but this time it was very noticable, all the way through the tour."

Rockdetector.com: What kind of songs were they asking for?

Tipton: "Just about everything! 'Rock Hard, Ride Free', 'Rapid Fire', 'Steeler', 'Jawbreaker' — the list is endless. It did get us thinking though. How can we do this?"

Rockdetector.com: You have enough strong tracks that you might rarely or never have played to still put on a great show with a lot of light and shade.

Tipton: "We do. Choosing a set list next time around is going to be incredibly difficult. There are some songs from 'Angel of Retribution' we still need to give justice to and deserve to be heard live. We'll have the new album too of course. Then we can start thinking about putting in a different mix so that we can include a lot of different tracks. We're thinking that our fans really need to hear us play a lot of these songs before we retire, whenever that might be. It's a kind of mission impossible really but we have decided we are going to make the time to put this together."

Rockdetector.com: KK said that the band can play every song from every album.

Tipton: "We can unfortunately! So it's going to make the choice very hard. I think we've proved that on the 'Angel of Retribution' tour. Rob is singing songs better than ever before and musically, a lot of PRIEST music is very challenging but we're still really enjoying it. That's really important for us to know the fans see us onstage and know the passion is real."

Reaad the entire interview at Rockdetector.com.