JUDAS PRIEST's RICHIE FAULKNER Still Has 'Pinch Me' Moments On Stage

JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Richie Faulkner was interviewed for episode 108 of the "Appetite For Distortion" podcast. You can now listen to the chat below.

Asked if he ever pinches himself to ensure he's not dreaming about being a member of JUDAS PRIEST, Faulkner said: "Of course, there's kind of 'pinch me' moments. Some of the points in the set, you kind of take a step back and you look around and you think, 'Bloody hell. This is really going on.' That never really goes away. And by the same token, the longer you do it, the more focused you get and the more involved you get in delivering the performance, delivering for the fans, representing the songs, both new and old. But there are those moments where you still pull back and just look around and see the fans, see Rob [Halford], see Glenn [Tipton] and Ian [Hill] and Scott [Travis]… It's a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity that I've got with PRIEST. And the fans gave me the opportunity as well. I'm just obviously grateful to everyone concerned to have had that opportunity, really. But you do get your head down and you kind of start focusing on delivering and making the performance and the production and the setlist, and it becomes real, in a sense — it becomes very real. But in a sense also, it's kind of surreal on certain levels, if that makes sense."

Richie was also asked for his opinion about how some musicians occasionally use the Internet and social media to publicly slag each other off.

"I think it's part and parcel of the climate we live in now," he said. "Everything's so connected, everything's so accessible and everything's immediate. I think it's just par for the course. That's who we are as human beings — if we don't like something, we're gonna say it, and if we've got an outlet to say it, we're gonna say it. And I don't think there's anything wrong with people saying what they feel and throwing it out there, but then, obviously, there's gonna be consequences potentially for that. That's just the way things are… I'm sure the Internet makes a bigger deal out of it than it really is, as it is with all these things. You can put something out there that is relatively small in content and the Internet will take it and spin it and blow it out [of propotion]. That's the world we live in. So sometimes it works for you, sometimes it works against you. It's one of those things, man. It's par for the course."

JUDAS PRIEST will return to the United States this spring for a run with fellow classic heavy rockers URIAH HEEP. The 32-date trek will kick off on May 3 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida and wrap on June 29 at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

JUDAS PRIEST's latest album, "Firepower", was released in March 2018 via Epic. The disc entered the Billboard 200 chart at position No. 5, making it the band's highest-charting album ever. 2014's "Redeemer Of Souls" debuted and peaked at No. 6, while 2008's "Nostradamus" landed at No. 11 and 2005's "Angel Of Retribution" came in at No. 13.

"Firepower" moved 49,000 equivalent album units in first week of release. Of that sum, 48,000 were in traditional album sales, just shy of the 54,000 copies sold by "Angel Of Retribution" in that album's first week. The "Firepower" chart position was bolstered by sales generated from a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer in association with the band's spring 2018 North American tour.