JUDAS PRIEST Guitarist: 'We'll Do Our Best To Satisfy Everybody Next Time Out'

Jesse Capps of RockConfidential.com recently conducted an interview with JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Glenn Tipton. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

RockConfidential.com: There's a lot of JUDAS PRIEST stuff coming out soon, too. There's the "Essential Judas Priest", a two-disc set. When those come out, do you have any input as to what's on there?

Tipton: "In this case, we've always got the say in what comes out. It's sometimes good to stand back and let other people pick what they want on an album. In PRIEST, you can get very close to tracks. You play 'em on stage and you've got your personal favorites. You tend to not see the wood for the trees. Everybody's got their favorite PRIEST tracks that they like and we sometimes ignore or shun on stage. For this one we stepped back and let everyone else decide what is the essential JUDAS PRIEST. I think they have pretty much got it right. "

RockConfidential.com: I guess picking tracks for a greatest hits would be like picking a setlist. You're gonna have the ones you're closer to. Casual fans have a certain set list they want to hear but there's always going to be the die-hard fan that wants to hear something a little more obscure.

Tipton: "Yeah, it's the most difficult decision on this Earth to put a setlist together. What we have decided is that next time we go out we're going to change it drastically. We're really gonna look back at songs we haven't played for years. Songs like 'The Rage' or 'Rock Hard Ride Free' or 'Saints In Hell'. It's stuff people haven't heard in a long time. But even when we do that we'll still disappoint some fans who want us to play their particular favorites. It's a no-win situation but we're going to do our best to satisfy everybody the next time out."

RockConfidential.com: I think you really satisfied the fans with your latest DVD, "Rising In The East". It was a definite statement that PRIEST was back.

Tipton: "It was difficult for us. After being apart for 14 years, when people heard we were gonna do an album the danger was overexpectation. Even if we did the greatest album, people have waited for it so long in anticipation that it's easy to get disappointed. We knew that so there was a lot of pressure on us. We just enjoyed ourselves. We got together and enjoyed the writing process. We wrote naturally and we enjoyed it. We revisited the past in places but there's also new ideas and new strenghts in there. We reached a nice compromise that just worked really well."

RockConfidential.com: What's on your agenda for 2006? Any touring plans?

Tipton: "We're doing a charity show on the 31st of March. That's about it for the live thing this year. The reason is, we want to really do something special for our next release. It's going to be difficult to top 'Angel Of Retribution' and we know that. We've got to put a lot of time aside to come up with something special. That's our aim and intention. It's not going to be a year off. Next year we'll be at full force: a new album and a new set. We don't want to rush this or put pressure on ourselves. We want to make sure we get it right. That's the plan this year."

Read the entire interview at RockConfidential.com.