Former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing spoke with Dean Pedley of The Midlands Rocks about why he left Judas Priest and how the music industry has changed over the years. Highlights from the article appear below.
Discussing British Steel:
“It’s always the hardest thing in the world to follow success, if I had a pound for every time someone has said to me why don’t you write another album like British Steel but the thing is you can’t – those songs have already been written. If the people that wrote it tried to sit down and write another one you would end up with a watered down version; you wouldn’t better it because it’s already out there, it would just sound like a poor copy.”
On why he left Judas Priest:
“I’ll never get away from this retirement thing, but what happened was that I quit, retired implies that I am not physically able to do it. I am able to do it but I didn’t want to do it; I just wasn’t enjoying it any more, a lot of things had changed. I think I counted about thirty reasons why I didn’t want to do it at the time and that is an awful lot of reasons. In all honesty, I think that in so many respects it had run its course. If you’re part of a songwriting team you get the recognition and reward for creating something, but for me Priest became about going out and playing live and replicating exactly what people had enjoyed ten, twenty or thirty years ago. The fans would be just as happy if they could see us bin all of the modern guitars we now play and take them on a walk down memory lane because I think that’s what people enjoy most. And I understand that because if I could go out now and see Eric Clapton with Cream then I would be the happiest person in the world.
One of the beautiful things about being in the industry was the ability to continue to invent and create, constructing songs and making good records. You do feel the need to be creative and that was taken away with the downloading thing and as you get older the balance of the scales starts to tip. So if you can’t be creative why would you want to continue to dedicate the time into something. I suppose if the industry was still healthy and people still had to spend their hard earned money buying a record it would be different, but if you give something away then it has no value. We used to buy an album and think well it’s not that good but I’ll play it a million times I’m sure I’ll get into it and now it doesn’t really get a second chance. In the past there was always the opportunity to create a record like Dark Side of the Moon or British Steel or Back In Black that would be one of those albums that would be indelible and people will always come back to. And I think that opportunity has gone now and I think it would take a miracle for one of those to happen again. If you consider an album like Nostradamus then if that had been released in 1978 then it would have been another Dark Side of the Moon but it is all about the timing. When you think about it in the early days we had the opportunity to write great songs, play great solos and have great vocal performances but people get used to it and it is hard now to get the reaction of “Wow, have you heard the new Priest album.” The industry has changed so much… I see companies that are repackaging and rehashing and that started happening to us and that was not a pretty thing to be a part of. It’s kind of duping the fans a bit because there are fans around the world that have got to have everything to complete their collection so even if there are only a few thousand of them if you put out a box collection it might be $100, which is a lot of dollars, and so for me that is something that I didn’t get into music for.”
Read the entire article at The Midlands Rocks.
source: themidlandsrocks.com
24 Responses
Best of luck to you KK. You and Glenn Tipton are two of the greatest ever.
Without a doubt as far as I’m concerned the ‘downloading thing’ as K.K. calls it has taken all of the fun and pleasure out of collecting albums. I love the whole physical package of an album: from the cover and artwork to the lyrics and other details that are often included. For me a music collection is all about enjoying the entire experience of ‘collecting’, plus you can reference and look back on the physical product. Certainly you can’t fault K.K. for his reasons on leaving the industry; there’s way to many artists out there who just follow the flow and pretend nothing is happening; smiling all of the time and plugging their rehashed versions of past albums or these best of collections with an extra track thrown in. Another thing that sucks about albums now is the continuous extra tracks scenario on the ‘deluxe versions’, give me a good old fashioned ‘proper’ album anytime, one that has 10 -12 tracks that were put together with some sense of integrity, and not all of these ‘extra track’ cons that artists and record labels keep on coming out with. Lets face it, how many of these so called extra tracks are actually worth listening to anyway? A lot of them would be hard pushed making it onto the B side of those old 45s!
Completely agree with you about the Deluxe Versions.
Why do we have to pay an extra $3-$5 for a couple extra songs?
Put out ONE complete full lenght album.
Now I don’t mind paying more for including a DVD, but it better have decent content. Give me some music videos and concert performance, not just 30 minutes of talking about it.
What’s more important, the actual music getting into your blood in a rockin way or the media form it’s been recorded on?? What’s more important, having records, cassettes and cd’s to be produced causing more plastic and gas pollution from the manufacturing plant to the transport to the store or simply downloading that does not cause any pollution at all on any scale that can and does deliver cd quality?? I think of the future so the best wise option is the no pollution option.
I give KK a lot of credit. How many musicians must there be out there that feel the same way but stick with the program? Imagine what people would think if more people spoke up and followed through with their thoughts like KK. I remember Brad Whitford of Aerosmith talking about getting sick of touring maybe 10 years ago and wanting to just relax. It didn’t happen.
Very well said. But having said that to be honest when KK left it kinda killed Priest for me. Always preferred KK’s guitar work over Glenn’s. Glenn seems to wanna be a glory hound IMO. Listening to KK’s solos in Love You To Death & Wild Nights, Hot And Crazy Days gives me chills.
The whole IPod thing ruins music. Clueless crap sound from ear plugs for people who hear, not listen, to music. No grasping the art, who produced, wrote, etc and all songs as band recorded makes for some kind of half worthless product. When asked why I don’t have one, my reply is hear my car and home stereos. If I wanted crap sound I’d pay a stupid fee for an iPod. Thanks, will stick to my 700 CDs. As to the extra editions it depends, I have over 150 concert DVDs and only buy extended editions if they include a DVD. Can’t fault those trying to make money when downloading has cut profits to much. Every code can be broken, 1 person loads it and 10 friends copy for free. I do laugh whenever something goes wrong and people “lose” all their music.
While I can’t disagree with anything he’s said about downloading, I’m have a hard time “buying” what he’s saying in regards to why he left the band. Why did he wait to say anything for over a year if being “burned out” is the real reason? By leaving suddenly and “clamming up”, that gives the appearance that he had a conflict with the band.