IAN HILL Says 'Redeemer Of Souls' Is 'Best Album' JUDAS PRIEST Has Ever Done

Lindsay McDougall of Australia's Soundwave festival recently conducted an interview with JUDAS PRIEST members Ian Hill (bass) and Richie Faulkner (guitar). You can now listen to the chat in three parts below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On JUDAS PRIEST's latest album, "Redeemer Of Souls":

Ian: "Obviously, whatever album we do, it's gotta stand up to what went before. But with the endless quality material that Richie and Glenn [Tipton, guitar] and Rob [Halford, vocals] were churning out, it was evident from the start that this album was gonna be a classic, and that's the way it's turned out."

"People say, 'What's your favorite album?' and everybody always says the latest one. Only this one is, you know?! I think it's the best, obviously, classic PRIEST album. You can't really count [2008's] 'Nostradamus', being sort of a standalone, one-off sort of album. But I think ['Redeemer Of Souls' is] the best album that we've done. This album is quality material — hence the mini disc [containing bonus/extra tracks]. I mean, we couldn't discard those songs — they were too good — and if we hadn't used them, they would have been probably forgotten about, which would have been a crying shame."

On JUDAS PRIEST's stylistic diversity:

Ian: "We've always been known for our versatility in the past. We've done everything — from soft ballads that'll make you weep through to stuff that'll make you run to the toilet [laughs], and everything in between. And this album's got a little bit of all of that on it. Some of it's harking back to the early days, some of it's very, very modern. But, as I say, it's a classic PRIEST album, and it'll [stack up well against] anything that we've done before."

On the songwriting process for "Redeemer Of Souls":

Richie: "Sometimes you come up with riffs, and it could be anywhere — it could be on your own in your kitchen, or your living room, or in someone's house — and you get an inspiration for a riff. And to see it go from that initial spark, if you know what I mean, to then, a few months later, being in the recording studio, coming up with ideas for vocals, and then you've got The Metal God putting his interpretation of what the vocal should be on there, is an incredible thrill. So it's amazing to see it go from the conception of the riff or the melody to putting it together to make something bigger than that, to the end stage where you created something that could be around, or is gonna be around, longer than all of us, really."

JUDAS PRIEST's 17th studio album, "Redeemer Of Souls", sold around 32,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 6 on The Billboard 200 chart.

On Black Friday "Record Store Day," November 28, 2014, JUDAS PRIEST released a limited-edition 10-inch vinyl, "5 Souls", containing the five bonus tracks from "Redeemer Of Souls".