Judas Priest has been in the news recently for the back-and-forth banter between former guitarist K.K. Downing and current guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner. Lost in the arguing is the fact that the band has been writing new music for the follow-up to 2018’s critically-acclaimed “Firepower.” Singer Rob Halford recently did an interview with Audacity Check In and echoed the sentiment of Faulkner that the band’s next album will be more musically “progressive.”
… it’s tough because fans go, ‘We want another ‘Painkiller’,’ ‘We want another ‘British Steel’.’ And [it’s, like], ‘Dude, we’ve already done that.’ Fans know that we’re a band that is always full of adventure and trying new stuff,” he continued. “And so, yeah, this has got probably some more progressive elements that we’ve never really delved into before.
Rob Halford
“Yeah, the metal is there,” Halford said. “But here’s the thing: we’ve tried our best not to replicate anything that we’ve done. From ‘Rocka Rolla’ all the way through to ‘Firepower’, each record has had a distinctive character. And it’s tough because fans go, ‘We want another ‘Painkiller’,’ ‘We want another ‘British Steel’.’ And [it’s, like], ‘Dude, we’ve already done that.’ Fans know that we’re a band that is always full of adventure and trying new stuff,” he continued. “And so, yeah, this has got probably some more progressive elements that we’ve never really delved into before. And that’s exciting, because, again, it gives us and our fans another opportunity to see a different side of Priest. But it’s still metal. There’s just more of it. There are more notes than there were before.”
Faulkner told The Metal Voice: “Whenever you start a record, you never know how it’s gonna turn out. So you might start with an idea of what it’s gonna be, and as it kind of rolls on, it comes out something different. So you don’t quite know. And also it’s really hard to sum up your own music, I find, without sounding really pretentious. But I think this one — it’s not ‘Firepower 2’, I don’t think. It’s its own thing, it’s its own animal. If anything, I would say it’s a bit more progressive in places, and in places it’s got a bit more of that ‘Killing Machine’ swagger.”
Faulkner added: “I know everyone says, ‘Oh, is it the next ‘Painkiller’?’ or ‘Is it the next…?’ whatever… I don’t know if they’d ever done it, but I know we’ve never done it when I’ve been in the band; we’ve never tried to recreate an album. It’s always we try to create an album that stands on its own legs. So I think it’s definitely a little bit more progressive than ‘Firepower’ and, as I said, in places it’s got a little bit of that ‘Killing Machine’ angry swagger attitude going on. But again, as I said, we’re waiting to see what it turns out like, ’cause it could turn out completely different.”
