Five Years After Health Scare, JUDAS PRIEST's RICHIE FAULKNER Still Undergoes Physical Therapy On Tour Three Times A Day

In a new interview with Charlie Kendall's Metalshop, JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Richie Faulkner was asked if he and his bandmates are ready to get back out on the road. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We're always ready. The PRIEST machine is always ready. It's never off the road for too long. We got off the road in October, and we were not going out until July. But I was getting e-mails the other day from the tour manager about flights. And [I thought], is it that time already? We've just got off the road, and now we've gotta [get back out there] again. Even though we had a few months off, it goes so quickly these days. We're gonna be back out on the road before you know it. But I think with PRIEST, everyone seems excited to do it. And I think with Rob [Halford, PRIEST singer], he says if he can do it, why not do it? Why not carry on? And he's doing great. Everyone's doing great. Everyone's healthy. So why not? They love what they do. So why not?"

Faulkner also once again opened up about the health issues and physical challenges he has faced in the nearly five years since experiencing an aortic aneurysm and complete aortic dissection while performing at the 2021 Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky. Asked what he has to do to prepare himself for a PRIEST concert nowadays, in light of what he went through, Richie said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I have to have a physio on the road with us. We have a German guy called Bastian that comes out on the road with us, and I do physio with him every day, three times a day — morning, before the show and after the show. And he works on my right side. Long story, some collateral damage from what happened affected my right side. So we've gotta keep the right side running and moving properly and stuff like that. So, yeah, it is a regime of, I've gotta watch my diet and physio every single day, and that's just what it takes to keep it moving for me. And that's just life. Consider myself very grateful. There's a lot of people out there with a lot worse than I have, and they have to deal with a lot of things every day. I'm still able to do what I do. I have to work at it, but that's fine. I consider myself very grateful."

Last September, Faulkner told BJ The DJ of the Albany, New York radio station Q105.7, JUDAS PRIEST about his recovery from the aortic aneurysm and complete aortic dissection: "Fortunately, I don't have to do anything too heavy. Luckily, I just have to remember to take my meds, which I've forgotten this morning. Thanks for reminding me. That's sometimes the hardest thing. I've had a bit of collateral damage on my right side with stuff connected to what happened. So I have to work at that. We have a physio on the road, and I work with him three times a day: once in the morning — after these interviews, I'm gonna work with him on coordination — before the show and then after the show as well. We do that three times a day. So that sort of stuff I have to work on. But as far as the heart and everything's concerned, it's meds. I can't eat too many leafy greens, which I'm not too bothered about. I got lucky, really. There's a lot of people around the world with a lot more serious conditions than I have. So I consider myself lucky to be here talking to you."

Asked if that means that "everything is good" with his health and he is "good to go", Faulkner said: "As far as I'm aware, but you never know what's around the corner. You've gotta live each day to the fullest."

Immediately after PRIEST's performance at the 2021 Louder Than Life, it took the Rudd Heart and Lung Center at UofL Health - Jewish Hospital's cardiothoracic surgery team approximately 10 hours to complete the now-46-year-old British-born musician's first surgery, an aortic valve and ascending aorta replacement with hemiarch replacement, enabling Richie to eventually return to the road.

In April 2025, Faulkner told PremierGuitar about his recovery: "We went back out on the road in 2022 and have kind of been on the road since. But there's a bit of collateral damage. Well, not a lot of people know — some nearest and dearest, they know about it. So about a month after the incident, I went back in and we were walking the dog in the neighborhood back here [in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee], and I had the dog. [My girlfriend] Mariah had [our daughter] Daisy [with her]. And I felt it come, I felt it, and it came over me and I knew it was coming and it came over me and my face went. I couldn't talk. And Mariah was there. She took the dog, she had the baby, and she was holding me up. The neighbors were running out.

"I haven't felt comfortable up until this point — and I'll tell you why — explaining what happened," he continued. "So long story short, we went into the hospital — this was a month after the surgery — we went back in, and it was the last thing I wanted to do. 'Fuck hospitals.' They saved my life, but I've had enough of them for a month, So I'm back in there. And they basically said, what I think it was, was a TIA, which means transient ischaemic attack, which is a TIA. It's a small stroke. So they're sure it's that. They put me on some medication. Turned out later on, it was an actual stroke. So Mariah thinks I had one in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I don't remember. I don't recall anything. I remember small ones happening after the event. I was in the bathroom — it kind of went fuzzy and I sort of fell over. I think they were the TIAs, the mini ones. And the hospital said is when you have those, the danger is that there's a big one coming or a normal stroke coming. So that seems to be what happened — when we were out walking the dog, that's what happened. And it was obvious — Mariah said, 'Your face went, you couldn't talk.' It was like a weight was pulling me down. I was gonna fall over if she wasn't holding me up. So, that's what happened. And at the time, it stopped happening. I had another incident about a year after. I had another open-heart [surgery] — there was a leak, so they went in, opened it up again; I had another small one. So what happened was we went back out on the road, and I thought everything was fine. There was something in my right hand — I thought it was my rings; I wore these stupid rings for some reason. And I thought it was that. So I took the rings off. I thought it was impeding something. I was changing my picks. There was something different. I could get through it, but there was something different about my right hand. And again, I could get through it. I was brushing my teeth one morning and I thought, 'Something's wrong with the right hand. Something's different.' And the right foot, the right leg. So we went back in. We'd done some tests. They found some damage on the left side of the brain, which affects the right side. Now, fortunately, I don't play guitar with my foot, so that's fine. I can get away with that. But my hand, obviously, that's our engine room. And everything started clicking into place in regards to what I was feeling on stage. There was something that was wrong. Something was impeding, something wasn't right. So, as I said, we'd done some more tests. They found the damage. They said that the fact that it hasn't gone away means that it's not a TIA; it's a stroke. TIA damage can go away. Stroke — that's it. It is damaged. You've got damage in your brain. Now I thought I had brain damage before, but this is real. It's a small thing on the left side."

Elaborating on why he hasn't been comfortable discussing his ongoing physical issues publicly up until now, Faulkner said: "A few people near to me, they know, in the industry. There's a lot of fear from my side about being found out. I feel like I've got a lot of trust from the fanbase, from the guitar companies, the string companies. They back you. They put their bets on you, and I don't want anyone to know, because as soon as they know, they're gonna lose faith, they're gonna bail out. I'm not gonna be appealing to them anymore or I'm gonna let the fans down. And when we play with PRIEST, we go out… I mean, you go out and you think, 'How is it gonna be tonight?' And it's not so much the solo stuff because the solo stuff you can kind of adapt. It's the rhythm — the coordinated rhythm patterns and stuff like that. It's gotta be locked in. And I felt that in a band like PRIEST, it's gotta be world-class stuff and I don't feel world class. I went out there every night. I feel like a fraud because people don't know — maybe. But one day they're gonna find out. Someone's gonna find out, someone's gonna say he's not playing that the same. [PRIEST's latest album, 2024's] 'Invincible Shield', we came to record the guitars [at my home studio] and I couldn't play what was on the demos from a year before. And we went out with [my side project] ELEGANT WEAPONS in 2023 playing with the band. It's, like, 'I can't do that. What's going on?' And the more I practiced, the worse it got. When you practice, you hopefully get better. It was getting worse.

"There's two reasons for me wanting to… Well, I'm more comfortable about coming out about it — and now 'coming out' is the wrong word — but opening up about it," Richie explained. "I know there's a lot of people out there that play, they sing, whatever they do, and they feel like they're not good enough or that we don't have these issues as well, and it affects your mental health. And I want them to know that they're not alone. All of us, probably more people than we are all aware of, struggle with something somewhere. So you're not alone. And the other reason was to release it, to get it out, to tell people. Because every time I go out — we do an onstage soundcheck [in front of fans who pay extra for the experience]. People are standing right where the cameras are and they're right in front. And I'm thinking they're gonna know, they're gonna say I'm not playing [the PRIEST song] 'Painkiller' right. Again, it is the rhythms more than anything. And I just thought if I kind of free that up, if I make that accessible, then the truth is the truth. You can't argue the truth. That's the way it is. I still play, we're still writing records, we're still playing as hard as we can — it doesn't affect that — but there's just little things I have to do. But I go out every night thinking… Sometimes I come off stage and I call home and I say, 'I can't fucking do it. I can't do it. I can't do it.' There's stuff that I used to play — I used to think something and it would come out. And now I'm up there struggling to play like a rhythm pattern. 'I can't do it. I can't. I'm gonna quit. I can't do it.' And then you have a good one. So who wants that? But that's the way it is. That's the truth. So that's what I struggle with. That's the collateral damage."

He later added: "As I said, I have to get it out so people might know what it is. I don't have to hide it anymore. It's not an excuse to take my foot off the gas — that's just not in my being — but just so people know.

"We did an ELEGANT WEAPONS gig in Paris in '23. We did [a cover of PRIEST's] 'Painkiller'," he recalled. "I was awful. It's on YouTube. If anyone wants to go and have a laugh, go and check that out. Fuck, it's bad. Everyone else was great, but the guy [who is actually] in the band [PRIEST] — fucking, 'Ah, I don't know what…' Well, there you go. But yeah, so maybe just gives a bit of understanding into what it is. But even if not, I've got it out there. It's out there. I don't have to hide behind it anymore. And again, hopefully, maybe it helps someone else that might be struggling with their struggle to think, 'This is okay' and 'I'm not alone. How do I turn this into a positive for myself?' So, that's it, really."

After the Louder Than Life incident in 2021, Faulkner said he had no history of heart complications and that the aliment came completely "out of the blue."

Aortic aneurysms are "balloon-like bulges in the aorta, the large artery that carries blood from the heart through the chest and torso," according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Dissections happen when the "force of blood pumping can split the layers of the artery wall, allowing blood to leak in between them."

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.

Faulkner joined PRIEST in 2011 as the replacement for original guitarist K.K. Downing.

Richie was once the guitarist in the backing group for Lauren Harris, daughter of IRON MAIDEN bassist Steve Harris.

Faulkner and Mariah Lynch, daughter of former DOKKEN guitarist George Lynch, welcomed their first child, a baby girl named Daisy Mae, in July 2020.

Press photo credit: Jeremiah Scott