Former JUDAS PRIEST and current KK’s PRIEST singer Tim “Ripper” Owens was recently asked by the “Who’s Your Band?” podcast how long it took him to feel confident enough to voice his own opinion on certain matters while being a member of the legendary heavy metal group.
He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Well, I mean, I don’t know if I’d ever really do that, just because it was JUDAS PRIEST. These guys have done it for so long. I always gave them the respect of who they were. Who am I to tell them [what to do] at times?
“It was a really funny thing. When we first started rehearsing… We would rehearse… This is hilarious. I remember Glenn [Tipton, guitar] and Ken [K.K. Downing, guitar], they’d go, ‘Hey, Tim, is this right?’ Because they hadn’t played songs in so long that they knew that I probably knew ’em. They would be, like, ‘Is that part right? Are we doing that right?’ It was really funny.
“But I went with the flow on… I know I got in some talks with them about what I should wear and stuff towards the very end,” he recalled. “Of course, then I was fired right after that. But I would talk to them about, ‘I don’t know if I wanna wear that jacket. That’s not my thing. I’ve gotta be me.’ But they treated me so good, everything felt natural. So if I really had to say something, I could say it without feeling like I was stepping on toes. But on purpose I would sit back and just be, like, ‘I’ll let these guys call the shots.’ I mean, they got here for a reason. I sat back and learned from ’em — let’s put it that way. I sat back, and what they did, whether I thought it was right or wrong… If they did something I thought was wrong, I would learn… I don’t know if that was the right move. Turning down Ozzfest. Turning down touring with [IRON] MAIDEN. Just little things at the time I thought might have been some bad moves. But 99.9 percent of the things I learned off of them was good and positive and helped me out in my career.”
Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens joined JUDAS PRIEST in 1996 and would record two studio albums with the band — 1997’s “Jugulator” and 2001’s “Demolition” — before the group reunited with singer Rob Halford in 2003.
KK’S PRIEST’s debut album, “Sermons Of The Sinner”, was released in October via Explorer1 Music Group/EX1 Records.