As previously reported, Judas Priest will be releasing a remastered expanded version of 1984’s Defenders of the Faith on March 10th.
Watch a clip of singer Rob Halford, bassist Ian Hill and guitarist Glenn Tipton discussing the album and the song Love Bites below.
To read all about this upcoming release, please click here.
In related news, The Metal God revealed in a recent interview that his favorite Judas Priest album is 1976’s Sad Wings of Destiny.
8 Responses
Can’t wait for March 10th, circled on my calendar! 🙂
I still have my original vinyl album of DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH that I bought when I was 14 years old. The album jacket looks like Hell but the record itself is still in great shape and plays and sounds great. I bought the remastered version on cd a few years ago that has a couple of bonus tracks, one being a live version of HEAVY DUTY/DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH. The last reissue of SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE was very cool because it includes the US Festival performance. Priest is my favorite band of all time and have been since I was about 12 years old, so I’m sure I’ll pick this reissue up, especially if it has great bonus features. But when it comes to TURBO, they can remaster it, re-record it, re-package it with actual free money inside the cd jacket and I wouldn’t care. I know there’s people who like that album and I admit there’s a couple of good songs on it, but that album and that era of Priest is easily my least favorite.
I tell ya, these guys are so intelligent, this might be the smartest rock band of them all, and you read and hear these interviews, and they come across as simpletons. But, I have come to really admire this about the guys. In this era of the personality taking center stage over and above the art, the craft, the music, I really appreciate them being so close to the vest. You don’t see any book coming from KK or any one from this band. I like it this way. The Kiss situation, I have just gone back to my records, and the mystique and have completely blocked out their personal…vendettas, that’s the only word for it. That stuff Paul and Gene say is purely personal. Ace and Peter are clean, they still bring up the drugs, and only regarding them, they don’t harp about drugs to assassinate anyone else’s character.
Love Bites was a precursor to the direction they took with Turbo. It was a daring move, a bit of ZZ Top with the groove and the guitars.
Definitely picking this up when it’s released, the live CD should be a gem. The only thing I don’t like about Defenders is the drums started sounding fake (and maybe they were). Killer album. I like some of Turbo (despite the synths, I think “Turbo Lover” is a cool song, and I’ve always loved “Locked In” and “Out In The Cold”), and as much as I loved “Painkiller” at first I’ve kind of cooled on that one a bit. In some ways “Defenders of the Faith” to me is the last classic Priest album. I do enjoy “Angel of Retribution” and “Redeemer of Souls”. I probably haven’t given “Nostradamus” a fair enough chance – it’s different for sure and I admire their ambition on that one, but it’s not where you go when you want that classic Priest kick in the @$$.
The drums were one of the main problems I had with Turbo and Ram It Down. Maybe they weren’t all “live” on Defenders either, I’m not 100% sure on that. They are so compressed at times, like the intro to Heavy Duty, that it’s hard to determine if they’re live or not. But Defenders as a whole will stand as one of Priest’s best, if sometimes underrated, classics. Dave Holland is not my favorite Priest drummer, he’s not even my second or third favorite. But using drum machines and electronic percussion in the mid 1980’s was very noticeable because the technology just wasn’t there yet. They sounded too fake and Turbo as an album sounded too digital. All that combined with the guitar synths that they over used made the album not sound as organic as the ones before.
Les Binks! 😆
D 🙂
Absolutely! Les is my favorite Priest drummer followed by Scott Travis. And even cooler is Les is the co-writer, along with Rob, on one of the greatest Judas Priest songs ever: BEYOND THE REALMS OF DEATH.
Dana, LES BINKS!! All i can say is best drummer priest ever had, no disrespect to Scott. And I may be biased because Stained Class was my introduction to priest. But it is my favorite priest album and most special because it was the first for me and i’m eagerly anticipating the release of the defenders re-issue, mainly for the live discs as I’ve got the remasters box set. But it’s cool to see Les get some respect. Where the hell are ya Les? Lol