JUDAS PRIEST Guitarist: 'We Have Something Special Planned For The Next Album'

March 7, 2006

Jeffrey Easton of The Metal Exiles recently conducted an interview with JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Glenn Tiption. An excerpt from the chat follows:

The Metal Exiles: Is there another solo album in the future?

Glenn: "At the moment no, with PRIEST reunited and with a new record starting my full attention is on that. In the future I will but probably when PRIEST is over as I do not want to compromise anything with PRIEST. After waiting for 14 years I would not want to get in the way of what we are doing. I am very fortunate to be in a band like PRIEST, to be a band where everything fits and a great writing formula. There are many musicians that are way better than me that just have not been fortunate enough to be discovered yet. I like film soundtracks and at some point I would like to do something on that level as I love the big dramatic sounds but at the moment I am focused on PRIEST. It needs to be the priority as that is what the fans want.

The Metal Exiles: You said they have been waiting for 14 years for this PRIEST to be together. Do you consider the Ripper years to be a black part of the career?

Glenn: "No, not at all, as I love what we did with Ripper. The other thing that people forget is that if it were not for the Ripper years we would not have been together now. There are two very good studio albums that I am very proud of, 'Jugulator' and 'Demolition', they are not Halford albums so you have to look at them in the right light. There was a great live album and two great tours so with Ripper stepping into the band to keep everything going I think the light would have faded by now."

The Metal Exiles: I honestly think "Bullet Train" and "Cathedral Spires" are two of the best PRIEST tracks of all time.

Glenn: "I think there are some great songs there and I am proud of those albums. I think some people missed the point of those albums. With 'Jugulator' we had to prove the point that Ripper could sing like Rob and that we were fiercely back but 'Demolition' had more subtleties and wanted to showcase more of Tim's abilities. It was a harder album to do than 'Jugulator'."

The Metal Exiles: Why was it more difficult?

Glenn: "'Jugulator' was furious, fast, it was Ripper sounding like Rob but with 'Demolition' we wanted to cross over some while maintaining it was JUDAS PRIEST. It was an experimental album in that respect and not as straight-forward as 'Jugulator'. The Ripper Owens years were very important and were instrumental in keeping the name alive."

The Metal Exiles: Even if the fans were arguing the Ripper/Halford thing people were still talking about you and any press is good press.

Glenn: "I have a lot of time for Tim, he is a great guy and a fantastic singer. Who else could have stepped into Halford's shoes, and he did pull it off, you know."

The Metal Exiles: What are your thoughts on the response to "Angel Of Retribution" since it came out last year?

Glenn: "I think it is good but I think that there was a lot of pressure on us and after 14 years people expected a lot from us. Over expectations is a very dangerous thing because no matter how good the album is people can be disappointed and I have said this many times in the way we went about it was to enjoy ourselves. We decided to write the album and just enjoy it. We revisited certain areas, went back in time, revisited certain lyrics, just took the pressure off of ourselves and enjoyed everything. It is a very natural sounding, very PRIEST-y sounding album.

The Metal Exiles: It was a great album, I liked it. As you go through the record, you can pick out which era you were visiting but at the end of the day people were expecting "Painkiller". I do not think people were expecting this. You said you were about to do the next PRIEST record, what do you have planned for it?

Glenn: "We have something special planned for the next PRIEST record. Until we start writing it next month it will be top secret. I think everybody is going to love the next record, it will be PRIEST."

Read the entire interview at Metal-Exiles.com.

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