JUDAS PRIEST Has 'A Tremendous Amount Of Material' Written For Next Album

JUDAS PRIEST frontman Rob Halford recently spoke to Billboard.com about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to their 2008 concept album "Nostradamus".

According to Halford, "a tremendous amount of material" has already been accumulated for the new CD, with the band currently "ramping things up to get back into full writing and recording mode" in England.

PRIEST's forthcoming album will mark the recording and songwriting debut of the band's new guitarist, Richie Faulkner, who replaced co-founder K.K. Downing in 2011.

"As we were proceeding on this world tour, [Richie] was taking this little mini-studio into his dressing room and we could hear him riffing away," Halford said. "It's going to be really thrilling moment to get together in a new writing dimension, Glenn [Tipton] and myself and Richie, putting all of these ideas together. We'll see what we can do over the next couple of months, look at everything, lay it all out and then start the hard work of picking out the best material."

Although Halford is hopeful that PRIEST will release some of its new music next year, "I'm of the attitude it'll be ready when it's ready," he explained. "I don't think we're going to slack off. We're determined to do a lot of work and be just as dedicated as we've always been and take a lot of care and attention with all the songs. We're not going to just bang this one out, so to speak."

In a November 2011 interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Halford stated about PRIEST's plans for the upcoming album, "Glenn and I started to write in the early part of January [of 2011]. We just went to it from the heart really, there was no specific agenda or idea, as opposed to what we had to do with 'Nostradamus', which was very focused and a real anchor of a project. This one has just been some straight-forward, classic British heavy metal. Some of it feels a bit like 'Painkiller', some of it feels like 'Sad Wings Of Destiny', some like 'British Steel'. We didn't do much research, we didn't bother checking some of our previous releases, we didn't do any homework, we just sat down and played, you know? Glenn came up with riffs and I came up with vocal melodies. There was no outside influence or interference in the writing sessions. We just started the day, plugged in some amps, got the mic up and made the metal that way. It's a very pure record, in that respect."

JUDAS PRIEST played the final show of its "Epitaph" world tour on May 26 at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, England. The sold-out concert was professionally filmed for a 2013 DVD release.