JUDAS PRIEST Singer Says New Guitarist RICHIE FAULKNER Is A 'Phenomenal Force In Rock And Roll'

Graham Hartmann of Loudwire recently conducted an interview with vocalist Rob Halford and bassist Ian Hill of British heavy metal legends JUDAS PRIEST. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Loudwire: After K.K. Downing left the band, it left you looking for a new guitarist. How was Richie Faulkner chosen as his replacement?
Halford: It was difficult, wasn't it, Ian?

Hill: Yeah. He actually came from somebody else. We asked another guitarist if they were interested but their schedule wouldn't allow it, they had already committed themselves to something else, and he suggested that we should listen to Richie, and we did. Then he came up to see Rob and Glenn [Tipton]. He made an impression on Rob and Glenn, so we gave him a go and we're glad we did.

Halford: You never know how these things are going to work out, because primarily you're looking for someone who can play the parts and boy, he can play those parts. He just really tears it up, because he also injects his own style and technique. I think we all agreed that we didn't want a copycat version of K.K. We wanted somebody to be their own person and to take the stage and do their own thing. When we play "Rapid Fire", he's literally in the front row; he's on the edge of the stage. He's just this phenomenal force in rock and roll. I can't wait to see where he's going to be after the American tour because he's already elevated himself through Europe and South America, but America because of its cultural prestige as a rock and roll country is about to be taken by storm by Richie. He was on fire the other night in Monterey. It's been very interesting watching him and listening to him. Richie Faulkner from Tilburg in Holland, which was our first date to Richie Faulkner on stage in Monterey, Mexico all those months later, is a different guy. He's just blossomed in a tremendous way and he's brought a really important, invaluable dimension to this band. It's given us a lot of thought about what we're going to do next.

Loudwire: You've revealed that you are several songs into a new album that is slated to come out next year. What's the latest you can tell us about the album?

Hill: The three songs we've recorded don't include Richie yet; they were done before he was officially announced, so we'll have to include him in some way, shape or form. Rob and Glenn do the majority of the writing. Richie, of course, probably has some ideas of his own, which we'll utilize.

Halford: He just brings another metalhead into the writing process. We didn't know what was going to happen when we started to work with Richie on the road. Basically that was all we hoped for; to find a good guitar player to do the parts that were needed, but Richie's gone beyond that now. There was talk earlier of whether Richie was in for good or if is he just a hired gun. Speaking for myself, he's in for good; for however long we can continue as a band and if Richie wants to do the gig he's got the gig. And it looks like he does want to do it because firstly he's mad about PRIEST, he loves the band to death, and I think we all agree that something special can happen there from the recordings and the writing side of PRIEST. You can't really describe a record by using words, can you? It's a real metal classic album for PRIEST, and it'll be interesting to see how Richie is going to inject his style in his writing. He's the new kid on the block and he's 31. [laughs] We're in our 60s you know, so he's thinking as a 30-odd-year-old metalhead with his style and his influence from the people who inspired him are in his performance, so he's going to bring that into the writing side of what we do. It's going to be very cool to see where we're going to go. Richie's very old-school, to some extent. We did "Rockline" last night and he was asked, "Who are your favorite guitar players?" He goes, Hendrix everybody says Hendrix, as they should. Then he mentioned Zakk Wylde and five other guitar players, which we never had heard him speak about before. I think that's definitely going to be brought into the writing sessions. There's about 10 or 12 songs that Glenn and I mapped out four of which were recorded and mixed and are ready to go. Originally we were going to release one or two tracks to support this tour but our label asked us to hold off until next year. So we'll go back and re-record those songs and put Richie in there and then see what else he can bring into the rest of the material. It's going to be great. It's going to be a classic PRIEST album.

Read the entire interview from Loudwire.