K.K. Downing Calls Judas Priest’s Treatment of Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens-Era “Extremely Unfair”
This Friday, Judas Priest will be dropping their new album Invincible Shield, so naturally everyone’s going to be talking about Rob Halford and his era with the band both before and after his time away from the band. And while that’s all well and good, K.K. Downing thinks it’s “extremely unfair” way fewer people ever talk about Tim “Ripper” Owens‘ time with the band.
During his most recent appearance on THAT Rocks!, a YouTube podcast/interview series hosted by Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson (transcribed by Blabbermouth), the ex-Judas Priest guitarist complained that the Ripper-era albums Jugulator (1997) and Demoliton (2001) aren’t available on streaming services.
“It just seems like they’ve — the desire is to want to erase those songs, which is extremely unfair, really, because it’s a part of my musical history, Tim’s musical history, and [it’s] very, very sad. Not to make those albums available to the fans is just crazy, really.
“We just did a festival at the end of last year, and we played ‘Burn In Hell’ [from Jugulator]. And I think just that one song from that one festival had about 90,000 hits [on YouTube], and considerably more than other songs that we played in the set — KK’s Priest and Judas Priest songs.”
Despite a happy moment with his former bandmates during their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction a couple years ago, Downing has returned to occasionally taking shots at his former bandmates for keeping him out of the band, among other reasons.
Downing left the band back in 2011 after what he said at the time was “an on-going breakdown in working relationships between myself, elements of the band and management for some time.” Since then, he’s not been quiet about his feelings about Judas Priest.
During his chat on the podcast, Downing also shared how his current band KK’s Priest picks which Judas Priest songs make it onto the setlist.
“I like to put something down because it’s so hard. But the thing is it’s also hard to go wrong with all of these [Priest] songs. I mean, if we threw all of the songs out that we have been playing and are gonna play and change the set completely, it would still be a great set — because I’d probably put in there ‘Blood Red Skies’, ‘Sinner’, ‘Rock Hard Ride Free’, ‘Freewheel Burning’, ‘Turbo [Lover]’. And plus the other songs, the KK’S Priest songs that we haven’t played yet.
“So, yeah, it’s pretty hard to go wrong. And also, the [Priest] albums that we did with Tim [‘Ripper’ Owens, who is also in KK’s Priest], people still wanna hear ‘Cathedral Spires’ and ‘Hell Is Home’ and ‘One On One’ and stuff like that. People say they would like to hear some of that stuff as well. So it’s pretty difficult. But let’s face it, we could play a five-hour set, couldn’t we, really?”
Speaking of the upcoming tour and picking out setlists, KK’s Priest is heading out on their first-ever U.S. tour later this week. You can catch them headlining the ‘Return Of The Sinner’ tour with special guests L.A. Guns and Burning Witches starting this Thursday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and coming to an end on March 24 in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
You can find the full list of tour dates, as well as their European festival stops slated for this summer, below.
KK’S PRIEST Return Of The Sinner USA Tour 2024
Featuring Special Guests: L.A. Guns & BURNING WITCHES
March 7 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – Culture Room [Tickets]
March 9 – Destin, FL – Club LA [Tickets]
March 10 – Atlanta, GA – Buckhead Theater [Tickets]
March 12 – Baltimore, MD – Rams Head Live [Tickets]
March 13 – Buffalo, NY – Riverworks [Tickets]
March 15 – St. Charles, IL – Arcada Theatre [Tickets]
March 16 – Columbus, OH – King Of Clubs [Tickets]
March 17 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage Ae [Tickets]
March 19 – Newport, KY – Megacorp Pavilion [Tickets]
March 20 – Cleveland, OH – Agora Theater [Tickets]
March 22 – Sayreville, NJ – Starland Ballroom [Tickets]
March 23 – Patchogue, NY – Patchogue Theatre [Tickets]
March 24 – Glenside, PA – Keswick Theatre [Tickets]
KK’S PRIEST 2024 FESTIVAL DATES:
May 18 – Gelsenkirchen, Germany – Rock Hard Festival
June 15 – Zamora, Spain – Z! Live Festival
July 14 – Vizovice, Czech Republic – Masters Of Rock Festival
August 4 – Rasnov, Romania – Rockstadt Extreme Fest
August 24 – Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom – Stonedead Festival
