Sonic Preachers

"I look back on it with a sense of immense privilege really, to be able to have done what I’ve done for a living,” reflects amiable bassist Ian Hill, Brummie heavy metallers Judas Priest’s longest-serving member. “We all do genuinely love every moment of what we do. The proudest moment probably is your first record. You see your album on the shelf and you’ve got Cream on one side, you’ve got Hendrix there, the Stones, the Beatles,” he laughs.

“It’s there, and you’ve arrived. As badly produced as (1974’s) Rocka Rolla was – it sounded like shit really – but it’s there… It’s always going to be there. That was my proudest moment, and after that fortunately we were able to build. We didn’t stagnate, didn’t flounder, we took steps forward with each album and tour, and were able to build on success.”

Even long-time guitarist K.K. Downing’s 2011 retirement hasn’t hindered them. Priest’s songwriting core of screamer Rob Halford and axemen Glenn Tipton and Downing has partially dissolved, but Hill emphasises that Downing’s replacement, Richie Faulkner, injected youthful vitality into new disc Redeemer Of Souls.

"We didn’t stagnate, didn’t flounder, we took steps forward with each album and tour."

“We’d known Richie from the previous tour we’d just done, which was essentially really because not only did we know Richie as being a fine musician, but we got to know his character. He’s just as bonkers as the rest of us,” Hill laughs. “Once that was established, the friendship between us, the writing process became that much easier.

“He’s certainly brought energy and enthusiasm. Not that it was lacking, but you do feel that you have to try and keep up with him. He’s young, just starting out and it took us back and reminded us of what it was like when we were his age, all those years ago. You look back on it, not with rose-coloured spectacles, but at least a sense of the fun you had back then, like dangerous fun. It sort of gave everybody a boost.”

Nostalgia kick aside, Hill doesn’t believe current trends have directly impacted on them. “I think if anything’s going to influence us, we’ll delve into our own past. After coming off the last tour, the Epitaph tour, we played something from every album. It’s not just the songs we ended up playing, it’s the delving back into the archives and listening to the old records, some stuff you hadn’t listened to in thirty, forty years in some cases. That’s probably influenced the writing for the new album. But over the years, I don’t think we’ve listened to another band and went, ‘Oh, this is great, let’s see if we can do a version of that.’”

Cynics may name-check 1986’s Turbo as evidence otherwise, but The Music digresses. “That’s something that we’ve never done. We’ve actively tried to shy away from that. If somebody comes up with an idea and it sounds like something else it’s been trod on immediately.”