JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Richie Faulkner recently discussed the status of the band’s follow-up to 2018’s “Firepower” album in a talk with the “Metal From The Inside” podcast.
Richie said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It’s still in the process. And it’s been slowed down a lot because of, obviously, the pandemic. We wanted to get together, like we did on ‘Firepower’, and record it together, but, obviously, the lockdowns and everything like that slowed that process [down]. Some of us live in the U.S., some of us live in the U.K., so getting together proved to be a bit difficult over the last couple of years. Now everything is kind of opening up, it’s a bit easier, but now we’re on the road, so we’ve got a touring cycle [to get through]. So, if we can, we might be able to do it in between the touring cycles.”
Richie also discussed when fans could expect the arrival of the new album, saying: “We don’t have a release date. It’s not finished. We’ve got the songs, but we’ve gotta record it. We’ve got drums down. I don’t know if that’s even been said yet. So we’re gonna try and build it up as we move through this touring cycle. But as Rob [Halford, PRIEST singer] always says, it’ll be finished when it’s finished. At this point in their career, there’s no point in rushing anything, especially when we’ve waited this long through the pandemic to start doing it. It’ll be done when it’s done. But there will be another PRIEST record. We’ve got some great songs.”
Touching on the musical direction of the new JUDAS PRIEST record, Richie said: “It’s different to ‘Firepower’, but it’s definitely… You can hear where it’s coming from. It’s not even ‘Firepower 2’… It’s hard to say anything these days without people getting… If I say it’s like a continuation of ‘Firepower’, people think it’s ‘Firepower 2’. It’s got its own character, it’s got its own legs, and we’re looking forward to releasing it on to the world when it’s done.”
A year ago, Rob Halford confirmed that JUDAS PRIEST’s next album would see the band once again working with the production team of Andy Sneap, Tom Allom and engineer Mike Exeter (BLACK SABBATH).
Check out the full interview at this location.