JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Richie Faulkner discusses the band’s upcoming studio album
Speaking with The Metal Voice, JUDAS PRIEST‘s Richie Faulkner spoke further about the progress of the recording sessions for the band’s follow-up to 2018’s “Firepower” . Richie said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “[The songs] are almost complete. The songs have been around for a little while now. We didn’t have the ability to get together and record them, because of the COVID pandemic. And when that lifted, we would then get out on the road. So then we had to record the stuff around being on the road. But we did it. So we’d do a tour leg and I’d come back and do the guitars and then we’d done the drums. And then [we] went back out on the road. And we’d done things around the touring cycle. Now Rob’s [Halford] doing the vocals. So they’re almost finished.”
Also touching on the musical direction of the new JUDAS PRIEST record, Richie said: “I’ve said this before, and the Internet — the sharks got hold of it… I would definitely say, and Rob said it as well, I said the word ‘progressive’, and the Internet tore me apart. But they haven’t heard it. When I said ‘progressive’, I’d say it’s a little bit… instead of, let’s say, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, chorus, finish, it might do verse, musical part, musical section, bridge, chorus, musical section, back into the verse. It doesn’t stay on the path; sometimes it goes off and plays it a little… Like the old ’70s JUDAS PRIEST used to, like the ‘Sinner’ and stuff like that; it used to go on a bit more of a musical journey. Which I think is great — it’s interesting.
“So that’s what I can say. I’ve said it before: it’s a little bit more progressive; it’s a little bit more musically, not experimental, but it’s got a few more riffs in there,” he explained. “[There’s more] intricacies, there’s more solos, there’s more riffs, which, I don’t think that’s a bad thing, as a guitar player.”
Back in February, Faulkner told the same publication about the overall sound of the new JUDAS PRIEST music: “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.”