After more than 40 years with Judas Priest, guitarist KK Downing is loving life with his own band, but he still harbours grudges about his departure, and is still disappointed that he wasn’t asked back.

Words: Dave Ling

Aco-founder of the second configuration of Judas Priest, from 1970 onwards KK Downing was with the Midlands-based band for 41 years, making 17 albums with them that wrote the template for heavy metal as we know it. However, behind the scenes tension brewed within the creative nucleus of Downing, guitarist Glenn Tipton and lead singer Rob Halford, and the latter opted to leave following a world tour supporting their 1990 album Painkiller.

To replace Halford, Downing, Tipton, bassist Ian Hill and drummer Scott Travis brought in Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens, the American frontman with Judas Priest tribute act British Steel. Despite re-establishing Priest as a live act, the band’s two albums with Owens – Jugulator and Demolition – flopped, and in 2003 Priest bowed to fan pressure and reunited with Halford.

Downing’s explosive memoir Heavy Duty: Days And Nights In Judas Priest later lifted the lid on tensions that had festered within the band and their backroom team, and in 2010 he announced his retirement from the group.

In 2019 a pre-planned Special Guest spot with former Manowar guitarist Ross The Boss at the Bloodstock Festival served as the catalyst to the launch his band KK’s Priest, with a line-up that was intended to include two of his former Priest bandmates: Owens and drummer Les Binks. Later in 2019 the trio, augmented by Megadeth bassist David Ellefson and Hostile guitarist AJ Mills, played a set of Priest songs at the Steel Mill, the Wolverhampton venue owned by Downing.

Did you seriously consider yourself retired when you quit Priest in 2011?