It was a tea party for two recently as legendary Judas Priest guitarist and current K.K.’s Priest leader K.K. Downing spoke with BraveWords on the Streaming For Vengeance podcast. The focus being the 50th anniversary release of Rocka Rolla, which was the launch pad for the Metal Gods. Here is the chat in its entirety.
Downing: “Hey Tim, BraveWords, all the listeners out there, big hello all the way from the UK here. Hope everybody’s doing good today.”
BraveWords: Yes absolutely. Hey, it’s a good day when you wake up.
Downing: “Absolutely man. As long as you don’t wake up dead, right?”
BraveWords: Exactly, to quote a great Megadeth song. So, we are talking about this glorious debut. Actually, you signed this (holding up the album) a few years ago, I have the lovely embossed one. But can we just take a step back? Because, correct me if I’m wrong, let’s see if the interweb is correct, it was March 6, 1971 that was your first gig in Essington, at St. John’s Hall. So, a few years before this came out. Tell me about that moment.
Downing: “Yeah, I think we were kind of trying to put the band together in ’69. Lots of people know, in the period before then, when I was younger, I auditioned for Judas Priest and didn’t make it. A year later, Al (Atkins) was at the rehearsal rooms and saw myself and Ian (Hill) and John (Hinch) doing all this progressive stuff. Crazy stuff, you know, and they had these metal riffs and Al asked if he could join and that was great then because then we had to set about, myself and Al, starting to put some songs together for the band to play live. Because everything was kind of new. What they were doing before, it was predominantly blues-oriented stuff. And so we were up to that in 1969. It was exciting times, and time moved on, and we were eventually ready. We got together and did that first show. I think we got 6 pounds for playing the show, but it was great, lots of fans there. Some of the girls were trying to dance to the music, which was virtually impossible, but they gave it a good go. And in hot pants. Do you remember hot pants, Tim?”
BraveWords: Yes I do remember hot pants. A lot of the Judas Priest videos had hot pants, too.
Downing: “I tried to look at the guitar, but it was hard work, you know what I mean. But yeah, the gig went well and we were all very enthusiastic. Young and enthusiastic. We knew that we were enjoying playing the songs, so it was all good.”
BraveWords: So apparently you guys were disappointed when you heard the record.
Downing: “Yes. Because we recorded all the songs, and it sounded great, great, great. We were all happy with it, the mixes and everything, but inevitably the final session was like one of those kiss of death sessions. You always had this marathon because the money had run out, time had run out, so we had to work all through the night. And Rodger (Bain), bless him, fell asleep on the couch, but when he woke up, we told him, ‘Rodger it’s done. We’ve done the final mixes, all good’. And then he took the two masters, went upstairs into a very small cutting room – it was Island Studio, one of the very famous studios in London – and mastered the record and gave us all an acetate tape to take home with us. But when we got back home and played it, we thought, ‘Oh dear, something’s gone wrong here. And inevitably, it was probably in the cards that something was going to go amiss. And that was it really. We should have said, No, no, no we can’t allow this to go out’, but apparently it was all too late. It had to be what it was. Unlike my good old friend Roy Z, a great producer and player in his own right, said to me, ‘It is what it is. A record is never finished, but at some point, you’ve just got to let it go, and hand it over’. And he’s absolutely right. But now, things are different. We had the opportunity to resurrect what we knew was in the recordings and do what we feel was justification to the songs, and at the same time keeping the integrity of the antique, which it was because it’s half a century old. And I think Tom Allom did a really good job. Because it must always be that record that sounds like it was recorded in the early ‘70s, and I think that’s what we’ve got now, and I hope everyone out there is enjoying the new take on the record.”
BraveWords: Do you still have that acetate of the original?
Downing: “Oh, I don’t think I do.”
BraveWords: I had to ask.
Downing: “I don’t think I do.”
BraveWords: Geezer told me a couple of years ago, they were celebrating Mob Rules, and he was telling me about the first record. Same thing like Priest, it turned out to be so heavy because they ran out of time and money, they were still learning their instruments, but it is what it is. They released it, and it changed the world. So what do you think when people say that? You ran out of money, you were still trying to learn how to play, but it ended up being heavier?
Downing: “Yeah, well that’s a good story. You see, we all go through it. You win some, you lose some, you know? Whatever happens at the time, for whatever reason. That’s a good story.”
BraveWords: You guys were fighting with Gull Records for a long time for the rights for the first two records, correct?
Downing: “I think so. But my recollection is, Tim, we did the two records with Gull and it just got to the point where we weren’t able to write, record, and play shows, and do what we needed to do, because we were struggling to make ends meet. To the point where we were all having to kind of do part-time jobs, which was tough because if you had to jump in the van to go to Middlesbrough, or Newcastle, or Glasgow, or somewhere that was a three to four hour drive to do a show, you couldn’t possibly do it. So we said to Gull Records, ‘Could we get an allowance?’. You know, just a minimal amount of money to help us to pay the rent, at least. And they said, ‘No’. So we said, ‘What should we do?’, because we were kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. And so, it just came about that we were able to contact Sony, and they came down, and we played some songs in front of Robin Blanchflower, good guy, and he said, “We’ll sign the band now.”
BraveWords: Wow.
Downing: “But we had a recording deal with Gull Records which was a pretty harsh deal, to be fair. It was brutal. So they said they would take the band and record the band and we went, ‘Fine’. And I’ve got to be honest, I mean we went from 2000 pounds advance per record to 60,000 pounds advance per record. And we said, ‘We’ve gotta do this. The band needs this to happen. This is what we need, a good company that believed in us, that was willing to commit’. They had the machinery and everything. So we just went. The lawyer said to Gull Records, ‘Let’s do this – you keep the two records you’ve got, but we move on to new territory. This is what the band needs. They’ve got no option, and we need to move on’. That’s kind of what happened.”
BraveWords: Did it surprise you that at Gull Records they kept those master records in pristine condition? That you could actually work with them, that they weren’t destroyed?
Downing: “Well we just got lucky because they’re two-inch master tapes, but the storage facility, lucky enough, that Gull used to store was top-notch. They were in good enough condition to be able to at least play once to transfer to ProTools and to preserve them forever. So that’s what we did.”
BraveWords: I’m sure you’ve been asked this many times. Why didn’t a company dispute this artwork? Does that blow your mind that Coca-Cola wouldn’t say, “Fuck off you’re not using that!”?
Downing: “Absolutely. What I think it was is that they’re a big company, and they were thinking, ‘Judas Priest Rocka Rolla?’ You know, I could go into some workshop and make a Fender Strat or Gibson SG, but Fender and Gibson are not going to care unless until you start selling a few thousand. Maybe then it might make their ears perk up, you know? So I think for that reason they kind of just left it alone. And they have ever since. So we’ll see where it goes from here. I think it was always going to be arguable that the Coca-Cola Rocka Rolla is not the same, you know? We have license to do certain things as we’re doing music, audio and visuals, it’s always going to be arguable.”
BraveWords: It amazes me when I go to YouTube, and way before MTV and that whole revolution, that the bands thought of filming themselves and releasing video in the 60s and early 70s, like Judas Priest did, and I’m sure the BBC had something to do with that. So tell me about actually filming a video, around that first record.
Downing: “Well, yeah, I mean with Rocka Rolla I don’t think we filmed anything, really. I mean, it didn’t really enter the mind at the time you know? I think in actual fact, I believe we were one of the first bands really to ever do a conceptual video with ‘Breaking The Law’. Prior to that our focus was really trying to appear on a television program like the BBC, Top Of The Pops, or one of their weekly programs, which we eventually did. I think that’s one of the first things we ever did. We went to the BBC Studios in London, and they had a program that went out just on the radio, and some bands like us went into studio and they would release a live recording, sometime in the ’70s. And that was our focus because there was no MTV, there were no vehicles like that for us to use. But then when this great outlet of MTV, or maybe a couple of outlets before that came about, then and only then were record labels happy to spend a lot of money to make these videos for bands. Of course, when we made the first one, we made a string of them with ‘Hot Rockin” and ‘Living After Midnight’, and it just went on and on. How wonderful was that, you know? That’s kind of when it all began.”
BraveWords: Just focussing a couple more questions on Rocka Rolla, dressing, costume designing, being influenced – who dressed you guys? That’s probably the easiest way to ask the question.
Downing: “Ourselves, and that’s the way it went, and I guess really the trend back in the day was that each individual band member had the onus on them to create their own unique look and persona. So collectively, we would look interesting and kind of eclectic and dark and whatever else, to be appealing to the audiences. And that happened a lot. But there was a conglomerate of bands, like progressive, blues bands, predominantly, and were they just a bit lazy wearing just blue jeans? I don’t know. But I like to say it was kind of the thing to do, to create your own image. And I guess that’s what we kind of did, yeah. But like I say, I mean in the early days, Rocka Rolla, I had the fedora, the camel skin fedora, even though I had long blonde hair and people couldn’t see my face anyway, just anything to do to add to it. But, back in the day you might say to your girlfriend, ‘Please make me a pair of velvet trousers or psychedelic shirt’. And anything went, you know? And it was like that right up until ’76, ’77, and then we decided, ‘That’s it’. We all look a bit too – I mean Roy’s big cream outfit with the sash, Glenn’s got this green shirt and satin outfit, and I thought, ‘Let’s just go black’. That was my deal back then. And Rob started to do that as well. He went to London and had some clothes made, and that was the start of it, really. And I was happy, but by the time British Steel came around, we had all kind of donned that look. It was a new world, a new day. For all intents and purposes, new metal was born, and we went that route and never looked back.”
BraveWords: I can’t think of a band in any genre that literally, overnight, when you went to the leather and the studs, you changed the whole world. Every band and fan on the planet went, “Oh my god I need to dress like these guys”.
Downing: “Yeah, yeah that’s true, but because, you see, because I was going along album to album, tour to tour and I’m thinking, ‘Something has just got to change here’. I’m thinking the music doesn’t really fit our look and how we looked didn’t really fit the music. Something has got to change. And it did, and we never looked back.”
BraveWords: Maybe the last question on Rocka Rolla here. Any mistakes on Rocka Rolla when you go back and listen that you cringe and go, “I wish something was better there”?
Downing: “No, but I think it was always, in the early days, hard to capture the band live, on a record. We’re always trying to do that. The album that was the first album we ever really really did that – captured the energy and power and attitude we wanted to – I think maybe British Steel is maybe the first album that we all thought, ‘Yeah, this is the one’. I’m not too sure, but certainly the first albums. It was kind of difficult because we all had to go into this big room and they were partitions, so sometimes we couldn’t see each other. We could hear each other in the headphones, but we all had to play together and we were all kind of nervous that if one of us made a mistake you’d be the idiot, and everybody has to start the song again. And if you were in the wrong and didn’t get your shit together, then other people would start throwing things at you or say, ‘Kick him out of the band’. So it’s hard to do that, and also at the same time trying to capture this energy in the band, on stage. Because on-stage is on-stage, you could kind of get away with murder to an extent, because it was all in a moment of time. You make a mistake and it’s gone. But now everybody’s there and you’re recording, you’ve got to be careful not to do it with audio or visuals. You went out there, you can’t slip on a banana skin, fall ass over tits, I’ve seen guys do that. I can remember being on the side of the stage one year, bless him, great singer Sebastian Bach comes running out, ‘Oh download!’. Metallica was headlining that year. ‘Oh download!, and slipped just like that. I think it had been raining, and he went flying. Back then it was all gone in a moment of time, like I said. So going back to the recordings, that’s what we were subjected to. so we were always trying to capture the band and how we felt playing live, on the record. That was always a quest.”
BraveWords: Is it tough to talk about this stuff when you’re not in the band anymore?
Downing: “No, no, it’s great. It was part of my life. It’s always there, creating and enjoying the moment, and all these wonderful memories and experiences. Yeah, fantastic.”
BraveWords: Black Sabbath’s final show called Back To The Beginning – The Final Show, being held on July 5th at Villa Park in Birmingham, the Home Of Heavy Metal, where Judas Priest were born as well. The line-up is quite incredible featuring Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Pantera, Anthrax and more! I found it interesting that Judas Priest is not invited, but you are.
Downing: “I’m looking forward to it, it’s going to be great. It’s going to be the greatest extravaganza in heavy metal history! It’s a big soccer stadium in Birmingham (Villa Park). The guys in Black Sabbath are big Aston Villa fans, and they always have been. So it’s great that heavy metal is coming home and we’re all gonna be there. Just about everybody. Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Pantera, you name it. So it’s going to be a great get-together and I’m looking forward to playing some songs. I know the tickets are really expensive, but they sold out really quickly. I was hoping it would be a second show. It would be great if Sharon could take this to at least New York or LA. Or Berlin, somewhere in Europe. That would be fantastic, but I guess it’s going to be live streamed. I’m not too sure, but hopefully.”
BraveWords: So who approached you and when was the last time we actually had any any interaction with Ozzy and or Sharon?
Downing: “The last time was when Judas Priest did the Ozzfest, so not that long ago. All the guys in Black Sabbath are lovely people. I’m not just saying that we really have a good time together. But I’m very much looking forward to doing this one. It’s gonna be very very special for sure. The guy from Live Nation called me, and I’m talking to Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine) who has a big part in putting this together. Tom is a lovely guy. So I’m talking to him about songs and rehearsals and stuff like that. So it’s going to be cool, I’m ready. Let’s go.”
BraveWords: You’ve had such an incredible career, it must be mind blowing to be part of this incredible event.
Downing: “It’s going to be fab. There’s lots of things happening, and I can be there in an hour from where I live.”
BraveWords: Do you have a couple more minutes?
Downing: “Yeah I’m good mate, I’m good.”
BraveWords: This is kind of a fun part of the interview that I launched about a year ago. And I call it “BraveWords Rapid Fire”. Just kind of left-field questions such as, and the first one some bands say, “Don’t ask me questions about songs!”, but what is your favourite song on British Steel?
Downing: “Now that’s a good question. I don’t know, because I like them all, obviously. They’re all my babies. Let me think. I love them all, but, like I say, on the last two we did, we played some songs, did we play ‘The Rage’? But we definitely played ‘Rapid Fire’, we opened with that, it was killer, so I love that. But I think, yeah, I like them all, really. ‘Breaking The Law’, ‘Living After Midnight’. I love ‘The Rage’, love doing that. Not sure, mate, I couldn’t pin it down to one.”
BraveWords: It’s tough, I know, tough first question. Remember when you came to Toronto on that first anniversary tour, and I was able to see ‘Steeler’ for the first time. I still have bruises from that grand finale on that record. What a heavy tune.
Downing: “Did we do that?”
BraveWords: You did the whole record. You did that whole album.
Downing: “Oh, did we?”
BraveWords: Yeah, you did. So you played ‘The Rage’. You played every song on it.
Downing: “I’m so pleased we did that. Wonderful. I’d like to go back and shake your hand and meet you.”
BraveWords: K.K., when was the moment that you decided that music was your life and “That’s what I’m doing”?
Downing: “I think I was 17, I guess. I got my first guitar when I was 16, but by the time I was 17 going on 18 I managed to be in a couple of bands, you know, pop bands, playing tunes, and stuff. I think at one point, by the time I was 19, I was in three bands. And I’m thinking, ‘I can make this work. I’m going to make this work, whatever happens’. So, around about that time. Because I had long since given up working, that’s all I was doing, was the music thing. But it seemed to be accelerating, at a fast rate, you’re always, like, writing songs, as well.”
BraveWord: Who is your rock star, or metal god?
Downing: “Definitely Jimi Hendrix. Everybody knows that. I saw Jimi when I was 16, and I was so blown away, and I just thought, ‘This is very colorful, and it’s also blowing my eardrums out’. I’m thinking, ‘This is what I want to do’, you know? I want to be that colourful guy making people’s ears bleed.”
BraveWords: And you did it. You did it, Have you ever asked for an autograph?
Downing: “I got Jimi’s autograph a couple of times. I got his autograph when he played the Isle of Wight in 1970, and I got his autograph when he played the Royal Albert Hall. He played two shows there, and that was probably a couple of years before, I’m not too sure. I got everybody’s autograph, as much as I could.”
BraveWords: Oh wow, cool, very cool. What do you think about this vinyl craze, as we talk about the vinyl, and what was your first vinyl purchase? As a kid? Do you remember?
Downing: “It was probably John Mayall, I think I think it might have been Hard Road. I’m not sure which other album it might have been, but I didn’t have enough money to buy vinyls. We just used to go around people’s houses to listen to their records, you know? But when I did start to get a bit of money, obviously I would buy. I certainly bought Are You Experienced? as soon as that came out, I can remember buying that. That was probably one of the first vinyls, it may have even been the first vinyl, I think.”
BraveWords: Wow. It’s a good first vinyl, that’s for sure. What album do people talk to you most about? What Judas Priest album do people talk to you most about?
Downing: “Probably, the Painkiller album, maybe. Like I say, there’s no promotion going on with any of the records, I think in the interim periods a lot of it is probably Painkiller.”
BraveWords: There’s two key moments in heavy metal history where a band brought in a brand new drummer and the album would kick off with a classic drum moment: one would be “Where Eagles Dare”, with Nicko (McBrain replacing Clive Burr on Piece Of Mind), and “Painkiller” when you brought Scott Travis in to replace Dave Holland.
Downing: “I think with the Painkiller album – I’ve got to say that people don’t realize this – but that album was not as successful as we would have liked it to have been, straight away. There is a lot of things that happened about that time, wasn’t it, Tim? There was a lot of things going on. I think Painkiller was probably a bit of a stretch for a lot of traditional Priest fans, you know. Whether it’s, I think that it might have been a step forward towards the heavier side of metal, for a lot of fans. But there were a lot of things that were happening at that time, because I know we went out there and we took out Pantera. We were just playing small clubs at the time, nobody knew who they were. But there was a transitional period in metal that was between Painkiller and everything else. Pantera, and Megadeth, and so many other bands. So-called new metal. So, I think it might have been a touch too much for a lot of traditional Priest fans, but as time went on, they realized that Painkiller compared a lot of other bands, wasn’t as edgy, you know what I mean? There were so many new metals coming on, death metal, speed, metal, industrial metal, so many alternative metal styles that made Painkiller almost seem a touch too light for a lot of the new metal fans. But as time went on, obviously the Painkiller album became very much revered as a groundbreaker. We always say when you release an album, chances are, nine times out of ten, that it’s going to be a bit too soon, or a bit too late. It’s very rare that you get the timing for a record exactly right, and when did Judas Priest get a record that was exactly right for the time? Maybe British Steel?”
BraveWords: Or this one (holds up Screaming For Vengeance record).
Downing: “Maybe. You’re absolutely right. I think Screaming For Vengeance may have been another ‘This is the right time, this is the right record’, because that was the band’s biggest-ever selling record.”
BraveWords: Now, you’re talking to a fan that’s based in southern Ontario, and I was at that August 19th, 1991 CNE Grandstand show (called Operation Rock & Roll also featuring Alice Cooper, Motörhead, Dangerous Toys and Metal Church) when Rob rode out on his Harley and was knocked off it by a piece of low-hanging stage prop. He broke his nose then he left the band. What are your memories from that night? Or do you want to even think about it?
Downing: “That was a horrible moment, really. For the fans that don’t know, it’s a big outdoor venue. And from the stage to the dressing rooms it was a car ride. It started off, in the first car was Rob and I forgot who else, and the rest of us, well we couldn’t find the car keys to start off, and we were late getting in the car anyway. And so we got to – they started the intro tape when we were still driving to the stage – and of course we didn’t get to the stage in time, because a set of stairs in the middle of the stage would kind of rise up and then Rob would ride the motorbike out onto the stage. But the stairs didn’t go high enough, and Rob drove out and collided with the stairs and knocked himself out. By this time we got the guitars, we went on stage, but there was dry ice and smoke, and we didn’t know Rob was on the stage, because he was flat out. So we played the first song without any vocals.”
BraveWords: I don’t mean to laugh, but it’s a Spinal Tap moment, right?
Downing: “It’s an absolute Spinal Tap moment. To Rob’s credit, he just picked himself up and dusted himself off and performed. And that was the last gig for 14 years with Rob in Judas Priest.”
BraveWords: I can’t thank you enough. I’m so happy for you. You’ve got great energy. You’ve been such a soundtrack to my life. You really have. So thank you so much for everything and hopefully we cross paths again.
Downing: “And a big hello and a big goodbye to all the fans out there. Stay tuned, K.K.’s Priest will be around, play some more shows for you guys, and rock out. So, we look forward to seeing everybody real soon. And thanks to you, Tim, and BraveWords as always, you know. You guys are great people, flying the flag of metal and we’ll meet up again soon.”
Judas Priest’s 50th anniversary remixed and remastered edition of their Rocka Rolla album is available digitally in US and Canada (here). The CD and vinyl are also available.
To watch K.K. Downing guest on Streaming For Vengeance click below:
(K.K. Downing live photos by Mark Gromen)
Source: bravewords.com
