RICHIE FAULKNER On Performing Live With JUDAS PRIEST: 'It's A Special Thing'

JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Richie Faulkner is featured in the latest episode of "String Theory", a web series from Ernie Ball that explores the sonic origins of some of music's most innovative players. You can watch the entire 20-minute episode below.

Speaking about performing live with PRIEST, Faulkner said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "On stage with PRIEST, the first couple of songs, the curtain goes down and the amps come on and you're playing and the crowd goes up and you're getting into your stuff, and then there's a moment where you kind of sit back a little bit and you take it in and you survey the audience and you see who's around and you see what everyone's doing.

"You watch YouTube videos and stuff like that, but you always remember when you were at a PRIEST gig or a [IRON] MAIDEN show, or whatever, and you were down the front, and [MAIDEN bassist] Steve Harris had his bass in your face and he was singing the words and you were singing back at him," he continued. "And you can't recreate that stuff. Especially in Europe, we have young teenagers at the shows singing 'Electric Eye' or 'Tyrant', old like deep cuts and stuff, and you remember what it feels like really to be at those shows with that connection with those — I call them artists, but they're more than that. They're like — I don't know — they're artists, they're friends, they shape your life in a way, they teach you how to write songs, they show you how to play guitar or whatever instrument it is, and there they are, and you're interacting with them. So it's always like a conscious thing, really, to interact with them the way that they interacted with you when you were at a gig, and will be at a gig. It's a special thing. You can't recreate that online, you can't recreate that on YouTube, whatever. It's the magic of being at a live show."

In a June 2023 interview with the YouTube channel of Brazilian music journalist Igor Miranda, Richie was asked how he finds his role within the JUDAS PRIEST legacy and what he hopes to leave as a lasting contribution to the band. He responded: "That's a good question, man. I don't know, really. I can't answer that. I try and bring the best I can bring and whatever I think is the best I can give in terms of creativity, performance, songwriting, representation of who I am as part of JUDAS PRIEST. That's all I can do, really. When you're a part of that legacy… I haven't been there very long, but even if you've been there for two weeks, you're representing a legacy that's been there for 50 years, and that's a big thing. So all you can do is bring the best you can bring and represent what's been there for 50 years before you and be grateful for the fans that put the band there for 50 years. That's all you can do. And hopefully you do the right thing."

Faulkner joined JUDAS PRIEST in 2011 as the replacement for the band's founding guitarist K.K. Downing.

In September 2021, Faulkner suffered an acute cardiac aortic dissection during PRIEST's performance at the Louder Than Life festival, just a short distance from Rudd Heart and Lung Center at UofL Health - Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. It took the hospital's cardiothoracic surgery team, led by Dr. Siddharth Pahwa and also including Drs. Brian Ganzel and Mark Slaughter, approximately 10 hours to complete the surgery, an aortic valve and ascending aorta replacement with hemiarch replacement.

After Louder Than Life, JUDAS PRIEST postponed the remainder of the U.S. dates on its 50th-anniversary tour, dubbed "50 Heavy Metal Years". The shows were rescheduled for March and April 2022.

In September 2022, Faulkner revealed that he underwent a second heart surgery in early August 2022 to fix "a hole in the repair." He added: "There was a leak — I'd basically sprung a leak in there — and it was causing a sack to form around my heart. So they found it just before the European leg [of PRIEST's 2022 tour]."

Faulkner spent part of 2023 promoting "Horns For A Halo", the debut album from ELEGANT WEAPONS, his project also featuring singer Ronnie Romero (RAINBOW, MSG). The LP, which was released on May 26 via Nuclear Blast, was recorded with bassist Rex Brown (PANTERA, DOWN) and drummer Scott Travis (JUDAS PRIEST) and was helmed by acclaimed British producer Andy Sneap, who has previously worked with JUDAS PRIEST, ACCEPT, EXODUS and MEGADETH, among many others.

ELEGANT WEAPONS, which is rounded out by Dave Rimmer (URIAH HEEP) on bass and Christopher Williams (ACCEPT) on drums, played a number of shows in Europe this past summer.