Judas Priest guitarist, Glenn Tipton, has revealed the reasons why the legendary metal five-piece are taking to the road once more, despite announcing that their ‘Epitaph’ tour four years ago, would be their last.
During his appearance on Rockline, Tipton revealed that their new album is part of the reason Judas Priest are heading out on tour again:
“We, uh, lied.The statement we made was we’re gonna do no more world tours. As we said before, it takes a massive chunk out of your life. It’s pretty arduous out there — almost two years, the last one, playing two and a half hours every night, four or five shows a week. But we enjoyed every second of it. And we said that at the end of it, we weren’t gonna do any more world tours, but we didn’t’ rule out any dates. And we just got so enthused with the new album and everything that we put some dates in and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
He also cited the arrival of guitarist Richie Faulkner during the band’s Epitaph tour (after the departure of the band’s founding guitarist, Kenneth “K.K” Downing) as being instrumental in the band’s return to the live arena:
“When Richie joined us for the ‘Epitaph’ tour, extraordinary things were happening night after night after night. And that, accompanied with some of the things that Richie was doing backstage before the show, laying down licks with his little portable recording gear, it was just this energy that was just out of control. So, naturally, when you come off a tour like that and you digest everything, you’re just raring to go and we couldn’t wait to get into the writing mode and start making music for ‘Redeemer Of Souls‘ together.”
‘Redeemer Of Souls’ is the band’s 17th studio album, and is available to buy now.
