Fans got a big treat in October. The huge 50 Heavy Metal Years of Music limited edition box that came out. Tell me about this package.
It’s enormous. We’ve basically thrown everything at it, but that was the working idea. It catalogs the band, really, right from the very early days, obviously from Rocka Rolla, which was the first album through obviously, the studio albums, including the Ripper ones this time around. And there’s live performances as well, which we found some new ones that we thought we’d emptied the vault years ago.
That was my next question. How hard is it to find rare and unreleased stuff at this point? It seems extremely difficult.
It is, but fortunately it keeps showing up. People find tapes in attics and behind cupboards and things. It’s what’s happened this time round. We gave these tapes to our longstanding producer, Tom Allom, and he’s gone through them and he’s announced them fit for human consumption, so they’re in there as well. It’s a great journey, because it’s great listening to the earlier live stuff as well. Because although we’re still playing some of the songs now on tours, there’s always little bits of differences there. There might be a different start or an ending, different lead break. Might be a little bit quieter or a little bit fast or slow. It catalogs the progress we’ve made over the years, and it tells a story of the band.
What about demos or unreleased songs that were recorded for albums that just never made it? Is there stuff like that kicking around?
I don’t think so. Not anymore. “Mother Sun”, I think, was the last one. That was never recorded. And that was recorded live, I think. Wow. It must have been back in probably the mid-70’s, but from a live show we did. And basically, the other stuff generally gets used and put on an album. If you never discard anything, if you have a song and it doesn’t make one album, it’ll more than likely make the next one. The demo side of things, that’s dried up now.
When you see your entire career wrapped up in a box set like this, is there a certain level of satisfaction that you have?
I think it’s a sense of awe really. You never realize what you’re doing until you look back at all the things you’ve accomplished over the years. We very much live for the day. Right from day one, that’s all we’ve done, and it’s really surprising that we’ve been at it for years, really, until people point it out to us. Until recently, we’ve had, obviously, anniversaries of the albums coming up. 30 years of this, 40 years of that. And it never seems that long until somebody’s actually pointed it out to you. So it was a surprise, 50 years, well, we’ve made it. I think it’s an achievement for anybody in any sort of walk of life to be able to celebrate 50 years of doing anything, really.
The packaging for this set looks awesome. Why did you choose Mark Wilkinson to put it together?
Oh, we’ve worked with Mark for many years. We just have a great rapport with him, and we knew that we could give him just a basic proviso. In fact, we don’t even really need to give him that anymore. He pretty much knows what we’re going to be happy with. He’ll come to us with a few roughs, and he might make a suggestion here and there. But he is very, very good, Mark. Very rarely are we dissatisfied with anything he comes up with. Obviously that’s a major reason we’ve used Mark for all these years.
It almost sounds like, in a sense, he’s a part of the band.
It is. Album covers, the artwork’s very important. I can remember, especially in the days of albums and even CDs. I’ve been out and bought an album on the strength of the artwork.
I think we all do.
Because it portrays, basically, what’s inside. If you’ve got something with flowers on the front, for instance, it’s not going to be a heavy metal album. Something with a tank on the front, it’s not going to be a pop album. I’ve done that in days gone by. I’ve also said, “Wow, this looks pretty good.” And I’ve bought it on the strength of the artwork. So it really is. It’s an important part of the whole package.
Is there any re-mastering or restoration remixing happening on this set?
I think there’s some, yes. You’re limited to what you can do really with some of the older ones. It’s called a re-cut, and you basically change the tones of the frequencies of the two track master. To go all the way through and remix everything, it would take a lifetime in itself, all the stuff that’s there. Some of it has been enhanced somewhat, but none of it changed beyond recognition. It’s all pretty much as it was.
Are you a fan of the re-mastering process?
To an extent, yes, I am because it can bring an older album up to date. Even with the limited amount of changes you can make to that. You can change frequencies on it to bring it to a more modern sound. That’s not saying that we should get rid of the older ones, because that’s obviously the way it was to start with, and that’s the original. But I’m all for it, if it’ll drag it up into a more modern sound.
As a music fan, is there a favorite album of yours that has been re-mastered? I’m just curious about that.
I’m an old Cream fan, and people keep doing different versions of the old Cream material all the time, especially the live stuff. Like I say, as long as you don’t get rid of the original recording and that’s still available as well, I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. I think most albums these days have been re-mastered at some time or another.
So here we are 50 years in, and you guys had a recent resurgence with Firepower. What do you think made that album work so well?
I think it’s basically staying with the times. We’ve never rested on our laurels. We’ve always tried to take a step forward with everything we do. It keeps you current and keeps you relevant. Firepower is a natural progression, really, over the last 50 years. It’s another step onward from where we were from Angel of Retribution, onto Nostradamus, and so on and so forth. We always take that step forward, and it just keeps you modern.
You even did that back when “Turbo Lover” came out.
That’s right. With Defenders of the Faith, we reached an end of an avenue there, where we couldn’t really make it much better. We could do another one like that, just as good. It’d be just as relevant. But like I say, we’ve always tried to take that step forward, and along came Roland with their guitar synthesizers, and gave us first refusal to use them on a record. And we thought, “Well, maybe this is the way forward. This is the next step we’ve been looking for.” At the time it was quite controversial. You upset some people and please others. You look back at it now, and you’re nowhere near as controversial as it was at the time.
No, not even close.
But that’s the thinking behind stuff like that.
Is this the final version of the band? Is this the version that’s going to make it to the end?
I can’t see any reason why not. We’re all realists. None of us are getting any younger, so there is an end in sight, although when we don’t know. I think everybody’s happy with one another and with the current lineup, which is also almost as important as musical competence.
You get the best musicians in the world, but if you’ve got a bunch of idiots, you’re not going to last very long. We’re all getting along with each other. We’re all family, really. And we’ll continue with this lineup for as long as we can.
Judas Priest Live in Charlotte, NC on Sept. 13, 2021
Is there a new album coming at any point?
There’s material already written for a new album, and there’s at least enough for one album. So yes, there is one on the horizon. Exactly when, we don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait for the dust to settle off what we are doing at the moment, and then we’ll see where we go with the next album. But yeah, there’s more than enough material there for a new album.
On this tour you had a giant inflatable bull. I remember speaking to Meatloaf, and he was telling me about all the problems he had with the inflatable bat, with Bat Out of Hell. Do you guys have any trouble with the inflatable stuff?
Yeah. One of the earlier shows, basically somebody I think flipped over the plug, and the whole thing started to go down. It was something as stupid as that. It was half deflated before somebody noticed what was happening and plugged it back in. It was something like that or something tripped a switch somewhere. Other than that, it’s been quite reliable. But it’s quite a large device, so on some of the stages, we just can’t use it.
And the last question, I thought it would be a really nice way to end, tell me a little bit about the Glenn Tipton Parkinson’s Foundation.
It’s funny, isn’t it? You don’t think about these things until it affects you personally, and of course, Glenn has now been quite severely affected by this. So we set up this foundation to try and finance into new treatments and maybe drugs and maybe even a cure in time to come. These things all take money and that’s the thinking behind that. So as much money as we can make from that and contribute to the various charities that look after all of this stuff. There might be a happier future for people that end up having to suffer with it.
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