Glenn Tipton’s refusal to dwell on yesterday mirrors Judas Priest’s relentless march across the decades. Joining the UK metallurgists in 1974, the guitarist’s armored onslaught defines the band’s unyielding forward momentum through highs and lows alike. Last year’s 17th studio disc, Redeemer of Souls, falls headlong into the former category.
In advance of Priest’s show tonight at the Cedar Park Center, Tipton rang up in a soft voice, elongated vowels sanding down consonants at a relaxed, measured pace.
Austin Chronicle: Where am I reaching you today?
Glenn Tipton: I’m in Chile.
AC: Played there before?
GT: Yeah, three or four times. Beautiful country, lovely people. I like it. We’re dodging a few volcanoes at the moment, but other than that….”
AC: Is one of the volcanoes active?
GT: There is one, but fortunately it’s at the other end of Chile, so it’s okay.
AC: Always entertaining to see footage of bands like yourself and Iron Maiden and Rush in South America. The audiences are massive and their energy even more so.
GT: I’ve always said people underestimate the popularity of heavy metal. We’re playing the far corners of the Earth and yet 15,000-20,000 heavy metal kids all show up. Just amazing.
AC: Redeemer of Souls came out last July. You’ve been out on the road ever since?
GT: We started last September and did the first American section of the tour. We took a break for Christmas, then we went over to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea. Now we’re doing South America, and another American leg. [Afterward], we’ll go back to Europe and begin the European festivals. That’ll take us through to August, but then I think we’ll do another American leg as well.
AC: Having read metal mags of the Seventies, I don’t recall tours have been that long 30-40 years ago.
GT: I’m not sure that’s true in our case. We’ve always been known as a good live act and took pride in that. We’ve always enjoyed touring. It can get a little tiresome now with all the security at airports and travel. You get stir crazy at hotels. But our time on the stage has always been very valuable and enjoyable to us. We don’t feel like it’s Judas Priest – it’s us and the audience. So, we’ve always toured a lot, and our cycle was to take a break after a tour, do some writing and recording, release an album, and get back out on the road again. I suppose it’s changed for some bands, but with us, our touring schedule’s always been fairly heavy.
AC: Do you feel, then, that you’ve lived the better part of your life out of a suitcase?
GT: Yes [laughs]. I’m an expert at getting things out of a suitcase without actually opening it.
AC: Does that suit your personality – living out of a suitcase?
GT: No, I enjoy my home. When we’re out on the road, I’m always homesick. At the same time, touring’s a valuable thing that you should do, so it’s a tricky one, really – to juggle the amount of touring with the amount of time you’re at home.
AC: Where do you make your primary residence?
GT: My primary residence is in Britain.
AC: Urban, rural?
GT: I live in the middle of nowhere, really.
AC: Judas Priest’s origins are ascribed to Birmingham. Are you yourself from Birmingham.
GT: Yup, yup. I come from Birmingham.
AC: Ever go back there?
GT: I don’t go into Birmingham itself very often, but I don’t live a million miles away. You disown the roots sometimes, but I’m proud to be British. I wouldn’t live in any other country.
AC: So much has been written about Birmingham seeing as Priest and Black Sabbath began there. Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott was born there. “Industrial backwater” is one phrase I recall. Is it still like that?
GT: You’d have to live there to comment on that. When I lived there and where I grew up was very industrial. As we’ve often said, you could always hear a steamhammer in the distance. You were never out of reach of the steelworks. I don’t know whether that’s got anything to do with the type of music that emerged from Birmingham. I’m sure it has, because everywhere you live or have been brought up as a child has an influence on you and therefore it must influence your musical style and character. It’s an area that gives you great determination not to escape, but to get away from and promote your music.
AC: Some people were surprised that Dublin put up a statue of Phil Lynott after his death. Will there ever be a statue to Judas Priest and Black Sabbath in Birmingham?
GT: [Laughs] I’m not sure about that. Who knows? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe not.
AC: Does the town in any way acknowledge the legacy it holds in circles of heavier music?
GT: There is – or was – a heavy metal exhibition. I’m not sure whether it changed into a museum, but it featured all the bands that emerged from the Birmingham area of Great Britain.
AC: You mentioned how points of origin influence musicians, and that’s also true to eras. In interviewing your former partner in guitar duality, K.K. Downing, six years ago for the Nostradamus album, we discussed how heavy bands of the Seventies – Priest, Scorpions, UFO – never abandoned melody. They’re almost pop songs that have been metalized. Plenty of songs on Redeemer of Souls that you can hum.
GT: I always felt there was room for melody in heavy metal. That’s not always the case in some bands. Some bands would probably dispute that, but as a composer and person’s who’s played metal his whole life, I don’t think there were any boundaries. I think you can do what you want to do and do it the way you want to do it, and it’s still heavy metal. And you’re right, you know. There are a lot of our songs that you can sing after you take the record off, where there’s other bands where you can’t really sing the riffs. I think there’s this, not law, but this sort of feeling that metal shouldn’t contain melody, whereas we’ve done some beautiful songs in the past that were well-placed on a heavy metal album. It’s a difference of opinion with some people, but I’d advocate melody in metal.
AC: This will be heresy to some metallers, but Redeemer of Souls reminded me of Screaming for Vengeance. There’s these great three-minute nuggets with memorable riffs: “Dragonaut,” “Sword of Damocles,” “March of the Damned.” Do you see any connection between the albums?
GT: Not really. We didn’t set out to emulate successful albums we’ve done in the past. We just wrote naturally – as we’ve always done. We went away, got our own ideas, and then came back and pooled them. You put it all on the table and suddenly there’s a song emerging from that. That‘s the way we’ve always written, and of course [K.K. Downing’s replacement] Richie [Faulkner] came in as a newcomer this time. We didn’t know how he would fit in to the writing process, but the most incredible thing is that everything he came up with was so Priest-like. You didn’t know how it was going to work out, but [Redeemer] does reminisce certain aspects of Screaming for Vengeance, and other songs – even “Painkiller” or going back to Ram it Down and a lot earlier.
AC: “March of the Damned” – whose guitar riffs are those?
GT: The actual idea for “March of the Damned” was Richie’s riff. He didn’t seem to think it was… When we listened to each other’s ideas, he almost skipped over that. We said, “Hang on, go back and play that again” [laughs]. We spotted the potential of the riff. Sometimes you don’t really recognize a strong element to something you come up with. That’s what often happens with Priest: The other members go, “That‘s great.” You didn’t see it, or you maybe didn’t imagine the vocals and how they would adapt to it.
AC: Your playing with Richie on the new album is perfectly integrated, but you performed with K.K. for more than 30 years. Is that like having a missing limb?
GT: Well it was. When Ken said he wanted to retire from the band, we really thought it was over. I’ve said many times, if we hadn’t found Richie that would have been the case. We were fortunate to find someone that really fit in so well. Whether it was luck or a small miracle, I don’t know, but it certainly enabled the band to carry on – and in a strong way.
AC: In reading over my conversation with K.K., he was talking about the future and evolving, so it must have been a shock – his decision to retire.
GT: It was.
AC: You said it might have been the end of the band. Would you have retired?
GT: No, I would’ve carried on. Probably done another solo album. I’m not really sure. Obviously it’s hypothetical now. When [singer] Rob [Halford] left the band [in the early Nineties], I had a choice of crawling in a corner and calling it a day, or basically working with other musicians, which I did. Two solo albums came from that, which would never have happened before. I would certainly never have considered doing solo projects while Priest was in existence, you know. Because Priest has always been the most important thing to me.
AC: Quite the legacy . I’m wondering if you heard the 30th anniversary reissue of Defenders of the Faith – the remaster and then 2-CD live show from the tour.
GT: I particularly listened to the live material, which we played very fast at the time [laughs] – because we were a lot younger, I’m not sure. Interesting to hear those tracks now.
AC: There must have been an extraordinary amount of pressure involved in the making of that album since the band had to follow-up its creative and commercial zenith, Screaming for Vengeance.
GT: There was, but Priest has always risen to the challenge. Every album we do, we like to think it’s our best. We do discard songs – everybody has to be happy with every song that’s on the album. You drive yourself to a higher point by trying to beat the strength of the album before. You create a level that you’ve got to try and beat, and that’s the way we’ve always operated.
AC: Are you able to listen to Defenders of the Faith and appreciate it three decades later or do you hear it with a critical ear, “I would’ve done that differently”?
GT: I don’t normally listen to albums we’ve done. I like to look ahead, push ahead, and look forward, but there are times when we’ve done box set releases, or as was the case with the live tracks on Defenders, we listen to them and make sure there’s nothing untoward on there. I’m very surprised by how prolific the band has been and the amount of work we’ve produced in our time. It seems like an incredible amount of work we’ve done. As we went through life, and we went through our work – the recording process and the cycle of touring and recording – that doesn’t seem to have been that hectic, but we did produce a lot of work over the years. That’s the surprising element to me.
AC: Along those same lines, Redeemer is going to be a tough album to follow-up.
GT: That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. We’ve always had that challenge to better the former album. Yeah, you’re right: In this case, it is going to be difficult to better it, but we’ll do our best.
AC: How many follow-ups will Redeemer have?
GT: [Laughs] We don’t know, Raoul. In all honesty, we’re not getting any younger, but at the end of the day, I think we’ve got at least one more album in us. That would probably mean possibly one more tour, but I’m sure as you can imagine at this stage in our career, nothing’s certain. We just don’t know what’s around the corner. We found the strength and energy to do Redeemer, and it’s been so successful and the touring has been so good on that level that hopefully we’ll be able to do another album and tour.
AC: The previous leg of your U.S. came through Austin last fall for Fun Fun Fun Fest. Do you remember the festival?
GT: Yeah, well Texas – Austin or Texas – has always been a favorite place for us to play. The very first tour we did of the States, we were actually in Texas for six weeks, believe it or not. So we got to play nearly every venue there was at the time. It gave us a great appreciation for Texas and the people and the music. It was a state that was primed for heavy metal, even in places like San Antonio. It was a big learning curve. We learned a lot from that first tour, particularly in Texas. I always look forward to going back there.
This article appears in May 8 • 2015.
