Back to Basics
By Kelley Simms
A
fter a sometimes tumultuous five-
decades long career, British heavy
metal pioneers Judas Priest show
no signs of slowing down after the release
of their explosive 18th full-length studio
album Firepower. On 14 tracks, Priest
delivers their indisputable, classic heavy
metal sound that hearkens back to the
band’s heyday. The first single “Lightning
Strike” dropped in January and created
quite a buzz in the heavy metal communi-
ty, reassuring the band’s hardcore fan base
that the Priest was back and better than
ever. Led by pioneering vocalist Rob
Halford, original bassist Ian Hill, drummer
Scott Travis, guitarist Ritchie Faulkner, and
guitarist Andy Sneap — who is filling in
for original guitarist Glenn Tipton on the
current Firepower tour — the band seems
ready to conquer the world all over again.
With the music world (and the world in
general) in a perpetual state of flux, the
endless barrage of social media hot takes,
internet spoilers, and perceived fake news,
there’s a multitude of things that can get
you down. However, a brand new Priest
album is guaranteed to lift one's spirits,
and the anticipation from Priest fans before
the release of Firepower was palpable. The
expectations for the band are just as exhil-
arating. “All of that is going on through
our minds while we’re together in the writ-
ing stages,” Rob Halford told IE's Kelley
Simms ahead of their North American
tour. “We think about our fans so much.
We have a #Priest family, that’s what we
feel. So many of our friends have been with
us since day one, especially in your part of
the world around Chicago, Illinois. That
part of the nation has been solid for Priest
for as long as I can remember. There is just
something about the personality of
Chicago and the hardcore attachment to
28 illinoisentertainer.com april 2020
heavy metal music that we see and feel
each time we go back. I think if we were
not getting that buzz or not getting that
excitement or that same anticipation or
expectation like our fans get, then there’s
something sorely wrong.”
Priest makes area stops at The
Riverside Theater in Milwaukee on April
3rd and the Grossinger Motors Arena in
Bloomington on April 8th, but plans for a
proper Chicago date are already in motion
according to Halford. Opening for the
band on the first leg of the North American
tour will be fellow countrymen Saxon, and
the Thin Lizzy-inspired Black Star Riders.
The new album opens with the title
track and is arguably one of the band’s
most explosive songs ever written. “We’re
offering the term Firepower to be about the
fire and the power of heavy metal music,”
Halford explains. “[We wanted] to focus
on all of the great moments that we’ve all
shared and loved with Judas Priest music
over the decades, and really fine tune it
into this specific area of the classic ele-
ments of Judas Priest.” The lyrical tem-
plate for most of the tracks on Firepower is
the act of striking out against evil, whether
it’s a destructive administration, an organ-
ization, a leader, etc. It’s that classic Priest
good vs. evil scenario that has served the
band well throughout its illustrious career.
A similar motif continues with “Evil Never
Dies,” which decorates with an ear-shatter-
ing chorus and a haunting interlude recall-
ing the chilling breakdown during “Night
Crawler” off the band’s 1990 Painkiller
album. In fact, there’s a little bit of every
kind of Priest metal style embedded in the
songwriting on Firepower. “We’re just
reestablishing all of the great core quality
values of Priest metal,” Halford states.
“You’re going to the ballad experience of a
song like “Sea of Red,” which has all the
great components of a classic Priest ballad
seal. Then you've got the intensity of the
other songs, so collectively these 14 tracks
make a statement with that direction.”
Plus, the stellar production on Firepower
was achieved by two accomplished pro-
ducers with two different styles — which
ultimately created one fantastic result.
The band reunited with producer Tom
Allom (the knob-twirler for the band’s
releases from 1979-1988, including iconic
albums British Steel, Point of Entry,
Screaming for Vengeance, Defenders of the
Faith), who was accompanied by Grammy-
winning producer Andy Sneap (Killswitch
Engage and Megadeth). Allom brings a
familiar Priest metal vibe, while Sneap
(who is also a touring guitarist with the
band) is well-versed in modern day
recording techniques.
With the combined duo, Priest was able
to receive the best of both worlds on
Firepower. “From the beginning with the
idea of the production team alone, there
was just a sense of belief that something
very special was going to happen,”
Halford admits. “Tom knows me inside
out as a heavy metal singer, and he was
able to work with Andy to get some of my
best performances. The studio can be a bit
of a mind game if you don’t really know
where your emotions can take you. If your
emotions are in the wrong place when you
try to track, you may be completely off
course. But if you have a production team
like Tom and Andy, they can create the cor-
rect emotion to get the best performance
out of you.”
The band also went back to a more
organic recording process compared to its
last few releases, where everyone played
together in the same room in the studio. “It
Reprinted from April 2018
photo by Justin Borucki
was kind of different for us in that respect,
because we hadn’t done that for a long
time,” says Halford. “They really pushed
that, Tom and Andy did. And it was a great
thing to do because there’s an amazing
sense of feel in all these songs. You can feel
the slight push and pull of each track
which we can only get when the band is
playing together. There were a lot of differ-
ent things — some of them subtle, some of
them quite strong — but all of them com-
bined, made this record very special for
us.”
The contribution of Faulkner as a core
Priest songwriter after replacing original
guitarist KK Downing in 2011 was
immeasurable. “He cut his teeth in Priest
on the Epitaph tour,” Halford states. “That
kind of got him in the right mind for writ-
ing for the first time with Glenn and
myself. So having that one experience
under his belt, he was raring to go. He was
already an accomplished writer and guitar
player before he joined Priest, and he’s
always been a Priest fan. I think he had to
get his place in his headspace to be able to
find where he really wanted to put his cen-
tered ideas in the musical sense for
Firepower, all based on the prior couple of
years after working from Epitaph to here
forward.”
Plus, the rest of the band — including
Tipton, Hill, and Travis — delivered the
goods as well. “I can’t really explain, other
than we were coached so effectively by
Tom and Andy,” Halford admits. “They
know we got it in us; it’s how to extract it.
It’s how you get the best out of a sports
individual’s performance. The coach can
see that you’ve got it, but the coach gets it
out of you. And that’s exactly what Tom
and Andy did for Firepower.”
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