Interview with Judas Priest guitarists K. K. Downing and Glenn Tipton

Judas Priest have accomplished just about everything that a metal band could hope for during their career. However, one missing addition to their resume was ‘the concept album.’ With the recent release of their double disc set, Nostradamus, Priest has now gone where few metal bands dare to go. A double disc album, the set tells the true-life story of Nostradamus, a 16th century physician and astrologer, who is also believed to have been a prophet – having supposedly predicted such subsequent historical events as the Great Fire of London, the rise of Napoleon I and Adolf Hitler, and most recently, 9/11.

A pretty darn daunting task to set Nostradamus’ life story to a metallic soundtrack, but Priest have succeeded. Guitarists KK Downing and Glenn Tipton certainly get the nod so far as this year’s ‘most valuable players,’ as they tackle a variety of stylistic twists in turns throughout. Whether it be mid-paced grinders (“Prophecy”), bombastic tunes that feature strings (“War”), epics (“Death”), shred solos galore (“Pestilence and Plague”), synthesizer/acoustic guitar tranquility (“Lost Love”), and of course, full-on headbanging metal (the title track), Downing and Tipton masterfully adapt throughout. The guitar duo recently sat down on the eve of the album’s release, to discuss Nostradamus.

How did the idea of Nostradamus come up?

KK DOWNING: I thought if we don’t do [a concept album] now, maybe we won’t, because it’s a big project to do something like that. We pulled it together fairly quickly – it might have been a couple of years, but we did some shows during that time. We could start to see connections with Nostradamus. We’ve always done ‘content,’ like “Blood Red Skies” and “Electric Eye” – y’know, fantasy things – over the years. So we thought, “This is ‘ready made,’ almost.” The more we read up on him, it was intriguing really.

GLENN TIPTON: After the last album, Angel of Retribution, we already decided a concept album would be the way to go. It was in Germany somewhere – we talked to our manager, Bill Curbishley. Bill suggested Nostradamus, and it just went from there. He had such an interesting life story – it wasn’t really his prophecies that we were intrigued about, it was his life. For a guy from the 16th century, he’s certainly left his mark. He was a very intelligent guy obviously, to come up with these prophecies. A man of vision, and wasn’t afraid to speak out. He lost his wife and daughter tragically in the Plague, and the church came after him and exiled him. Then, he found a new love and a new life. He had a really interesting life and he inspired us. It just seemed to fall into place.

K. K. Downing

How did you approach Nostradamus as a guitarist?

GLENN TIPTON: Funnily enough, a lot of the concepts and early compositions on this were done on keyboards. We wanted a slightly different angle. Some of them came from messing around on keyboards and then putting it to the guitar. As a songwriter, what I do a lot is I have ‘bursts’ on the guitar. I don’t touch it for a long time, and then I pick it up and play it intensely. I like to play the guitar when I want to play it. I wouldn’t say I’ve got a love/hate relationship with it, but there are days when I don’t want to know and I’m not really productive. But then there are other days when I can’t wait to pick it up, and that’s when I’m prolific. When we get together, we pool all our ideas. So we just did the same with Nostradamus.

KK DOWNING: We had the first synthesizer guitars back in ’85, which we used on the Turbo album – but we only used various non-classical sounds. So, pulled that out – an old Roland whatever it was – and it was full of pops and squeaks, so I thought, ‘This is no good.’ So I went out and bought a Godin guitar, and spoke to [Godin], and they sent another one over. Then, spoke to Roland – the GR28, got one of those. Also got the Axon rack-mounted module. Started to play guitar, and what came out was string sounds and voice sounds. I found it was pretty exhilarating to do that. I think it’s fair to say that without real radical effects, it’s difficult to get atmosphere.

What about guitars?

GLENN TIPTON: I put a lot of the rhythm tracks down with my Hamer Phantom. This is my favorite guitar, the one I use all the time. I’ve got another with Seymour Duncans on, but this one’s got EMGs [EMG-81’s]. It’s got an SG neck, but slightly slimmer – it isn’t as round as a Stratocaster. I have designed my own guitar with Hamer, and they are making a second one now, which I call the GT – the one with the long tailpiece on it [which also has EMG-81’s]. I like simple guitars – I don’t like tone controls. [The Phantom] is only a two-way switch – my other one’s got a three-way switch. I can get all the tones I want from that or from the EQ and graphics on my rack. But I love this guitar. I used a Taylor acoustic, and a Godin LGXT, because we did quite a bit of synthesized guitar. That’s a MIDI-enabled guitar with Seymour Duncans – those have got HB pick-ups and PA’s. For lead, I used my Hamers. I used a JD guitar – the guitar I use that I call the ‘Glenn Tipton Hamer,’ it’s that shape, but modified, and it was made by a guy named John Diggins. It’s got a far more bassy sound. I used a Stratocaster on a couple of things as well for the cleaner guitar sound – an old ’61.

KK DOWNING: I have a Babicz acoustic guitar, and I used a combination of Flying V’s. I’ve got a Hamer Flying V – custom model. I use the red one quite a bit. I just got this [shows a white Flying V], that’s been custom made for me by a guy in San Diego [Rob Kaufman] – they’re called KxK Guitars. He even made the case. They called the office and said can they make me a guitar. And I thought, “KK Downing…KxK…what’s going on here?!’ So I called him and I’ve been working with him. It’s totally to my specifications. See this knob on the back [points to a knob on the back of the guitar]? It’s only temporary. He put it there so I can use it now, until I decide exactly precisely where it’s going to go [on the front], my tech will drill it and put it on there. That knob is a volume knob, but when you push it, it changes pick-ups. We have the Floyd Rose Speed-Loader Tremolo, scalloped frets. It’s got LED’s in the pick-ups. He says, “What do you want to do about the inlays?” I said, “Well, it’s KxK…it’s KK Downing…let’s have K’s!” And he did this [points to a pearl-inlayed ‘KK Downing’ logo underneath the strings on the guitar body] – that is the logo off my website. And this is #1 [the guitar’s number is on back of headstock], so if he makes these guitars for people, if they want #2…

Glenn Tipton

Will the KxK be mass-produced?

KK DOWNING: I don’t know – it’s just a labor of love, really. He’s going to make me a second guitar as a backup for this one.

So you’ll use it on tour?

KK DOWNING: Sure, yeah!

What about amps, effects, and strings?

GLENN TIPTON: I used some of my rack – I’ve still got a [Rocktron] Piranha preamp. But I use on the album a Digitech – it’s the GSP1101 preamp. We used some Line 6 equipment, quite a bit of the Digitech GNX3 workstation. Also some Marshall combo amps – just mic’d up normally with Shure 57’s and some ribbon mics. The Marshall was a 1976 JMP 50-watt head. We used an Axon AX100 [MIDI converter] – they’re the MIDI sound, and then we drove library sounds off those. We’ve got a rack-mounted Fantom [keyboard] – which we wrote some of the initial pieces with – then we played them on guitar through the rack module. Wah pedals are just CryBabies. Ernie Ball custom sets – RPS plain, pure nickel wound for the 28’s, 38’s, and 48’s, and then just plain for ‘9s, 11’s, and 16’s.

KK DOWNING: We did actually use a 50-watt combo [Marshall amp], but I can’t remember one it was. It had two twelve-inch speakers in it. Dean Markley and Ernie Ball strings 8, 11, 14, 20, 30, and 40 gauges.

How do you warm up for shows?

KK DOWNING: All my life, I’ve never ever warmed up I don’t think for a show. I’ve literally walked into the venue, gotten changed, and walked onto the stage.

GLENN TIPTON: I play through the trickier parts of the songs. Shaky bits, usually. I usually need to warm up for quite a long time. Normally before a show, I’ll sit and play for a while before I go on stage.

Lastly, what is your take on the current state of metal guitar?

KK DOWNING: There’s a lot going on, but a lot is fast and furious, and pretty aggressive, really. I grew up in the ‘60s, and experienced the evolution of it all – from blues to progressive blues, rock, hard rock, heavy rock, and heavy metal. I’d have to say I’m a big classic metal fan. But some of the new stuff is exciting – there’s no two ways about it.

GLENN TIPTON: I think there’s some great guitar players out there that are restricted by the current trends and so-called ‘rules’ of metal – where you shouldn’t play too much lead. I think that’s a shame. You don’t have to overindulge, but I know a lot of great guitar players – you watch them play a set and they hardly play any lead. As long as the lead breaks are appropriate – they can be short, they can be long – they should be played. I’d like to see more of them break the rules down and do what they want to do. Because I know they’re capable of a lot more than what they’re playing. It’s time to break the chains.

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www.judaspriest.com

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