JUDAS PRIEST Guitarist: 'We Wanted RIPPER To Be Able To Create His Own Identity'

June 23, 2005

San Antonio's Express-News recently conducted an interview with JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Kenneth "K.K." Downing. A few excerpts from the interview follow:

On keeping a shady profile while strumming in the spotlight during the band's "Turbo" tour in 1986:

"Yeah, that was a bit of a horror story. I had this guitar tech who cut my guitar strings off (at the tuning pegs) and left them sticking out about a quarter-inch. (Vocalist) Rob (Halford) was onstage and he twirls around and hits my guitar neck with his arm, and two of these strings punch me in the eye.

"My eye turned all green, and I looked like something out of a horror movie. So I wore these sunglasses, which was even worse, because the sweat from my forehead steamed up the glasses. Instead of not being able to see out of one eye, I couldn't see out of either."

On the Tim "Ripper" Owens years:

"Halford was out there doing what Halford does and PRIEST was out there doing what PRIEST does. I guess I wondered why all the eggs weren't in the same basket, so to speak. When I knew that Halford had returned to where he should have been with the 'Resurrection' album, it was great for me to see him back in the saddle and back to what he's good at.

"I'm kind of surprised people would expect us to make a traditional PRIEST album with Ripper, because he was another singer with another voice and another personality. We knew when we went out to play live we had to have someone who could sing Rob's stuff, but the last thing we wanted to do was go into the studio and tell him he's got to sound exactly like Rob Halford. We wanted him to be able to create his own identity."

On the band's 1982 breakthrough album "Screaming for Vengeance":

"We had a lucky song called 'You've Got Another Thing Coming' that was a last-minute thing that we almost didn't put on (the album). We couldn't believe that it was all of a sudden all over the radio. It made us a household name, which is very, very fortunate. Today, 'Screaming for Vengeance' is JUDAS PRIEST's biggest-selling album ever."

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