British Steel: The Legend of Judas Priest and guitarist K.K. Downing
DK ONLINE: It certainly is no secret music has changed dramatically in the last fifteen years or so. Nowadays “musicians” loop a few chords on a home laptop production system, add in some vocals with nonsense lyrics and call it the next big Billboard chart topper. What’s worse, sometimes they actually make it to the top of the charts!
Then you have the artists who did it the old fashioned way by, you know, picking up the guitar or whatever instrument they desire, learning their craft beyond a few licks, and playing endless gigs until they make it. Usually they become prolific songwriters along the way. There was a time when this was the ONLY way to make it and if a group was lucky enough, they wouldn’t just have success. They would pioneer and entire genre of music.
That’s where we meet the legend of Judas Priest. Up there with the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, Priest got better and better with each show and album, changing the face of rock forever.
Ken “K.K.” Downing co-founded the band in the late 60s and played with the group for 40 years, embracing the highs and coping with the lows along the way to fortune and fame. Downing left the band in 2011 but no one really knew specifically why until now with the release of his upcoming book “Heavy Duty: Days and Nights in Judas Priest”, and a round of interviews such as the one I was lucky to do with him on Thursday. He Skyped in from England, where so much of rock’s origins hail from.
The full interview and article can be found here!
DAVE KINCHEN ONLINE 