For over four decades, K.K. Downing served as one-half of the guitar duo of Judas Priest — and in the process, helped make them one of the world’s leading (and most influential, both musically and visually) metal bands of all time. After exiting Priest in 2011, Downing kept busy with several ventures, including penning his 2018 autobiography, Heavy Duty: Days and Nights with Judas Priest, and forming a new band, KK’s Priest.
Featuring onetime Priest singer Tim “Ripper” Owens, KK’s Priest have issued a pair of heavy-duty LP’s – 2021’s Sermons of the Sinner and the just-released The Sinner Rides Again – and are currently touring the UK in support of both albums.
Downing spoke with Heavy Consequence just prior to the arrival of Sermons of the Sinner, and discussed how it compares to its predecessor, the similarities and differences between Ripper and Rob Halford, and some of his past history. Read the interview below, and pick up the new KK’s Priest album, The Sinner Rides Again, here.
How does The Sinner Rides Again compare to Sermons of the Sinner?
Just because they’re separate albums doesn’t really mean to say that they are separated in any way to me. It’s just a “continuation of.” For me, it could be a double album. I think there’s a continuity there, and a flow through. I’ve just gone on like that. I just sat down to write even more songs for the next album – the second album.
I guess the production is a little bit different. It’s slightly more edgy and a bit more “metallized.” That’s because it was a little bit intentional. With the first album, I was thinking, “I’m happy for this to sound retro. Maybe this could have been me playing guitar in the ‘70s.” I was quite happy with that, because I think that we never want to forget that real kind of classic… I guess it was called “heavy rock” back then. I still have an affinity to that era.
But on the new album, I thought, “OK, let’s up the ante a little bit and do kind of what [Judas Priest] did after Ram It Down with Painkiller.” We just kind of went a bit more full-on with it. So I think there’s a little bit of that with the second album. But otherwise, I think if the production was the same on both albums, they would be just like a double album to me.
