Richie Faulkner Says the New Judas Priest Record Will Be Heavily Influenced by Glenn Tipton

It’s been widely known for a while now that the iconic heavy metal band Judas Priest, fresh off their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, have been working on their followup to 2018’s Firepower. Last we heard, all they needed was for Rob Halford to lay down his vocals and then it was on to the next stage of production.

While speaking with eonline about his side project Elegant Weapons, guitarist with nine lives Richie Faulkner gave some insight into the writing process behind the upcoming record and how Glenn Tipton was intimately involved.

“Well, as long as we’ve got [Tipton’s] mind. You know, sometimes he, you know, if you can’t handle the playing one day, for example, he still got his mind, he still got the ideas, and that’s what makes it kind of unmistakable Priest.

“These little turnarounds that he has don’t make sense initially. to me; like I’m thinking; ‘what?!’ When you get together and you write a song with somebody who’s got an idea, and you’re thinking, you know; ‘that’s not like my idea,’ but you put them together and you come up with something that’s greater than the original idea. As long as we still got that, we blend and then we’re winning. You know, that’s what we did with the writing process.”

Tipton has been a member of Judas Priest since 1974 and as such, has been featured on each of the band’s 19 studio albums. Sadly, he’s been sidelined from the band’s touring responsibilities since 2018, when he revealed that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Despite the diagnosis, he remains a member of the band and occasionally gets on stage to play a song or two.

Given how explosive Firepower was, it’s extremely exciting to think that the next chapter in Judas Priest’s discography could be coming soon. With Tipton intimately involved in its creation, it’s sure to be another banger.