Judas Priest are now in the studio working on a new album

[treeduck]

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[TexMike]

 

Damn, is KK whining again? He really needs to move on with his life and leave Priest in the rear-view mirror. I read his book earlier this year and the whole point of it seemed to be him trying to convince us and himself that he's 100% comfortable with having left the band. Which is a farce since every time he opens his mouth to the press, he reveals that he's not by trying to backhand slap the remaining members out of spite.

 

As I watched the opening night show the other night, I kept thinking how happy I am that Priest found Richie, a superbly talented player and a class act. His solo on Victim absolutely smoked anything that Downing's ever played. So KK, if you're reading, thanks for leaving and making Priest a better band! :)

[treeduck]

 

Damn, is KK whining again? He really needs to move on with his life and leave Priest in the rear-view mirror. I read his book earlier this year and the whole point of it seemed to be him trying to convince us and himself that he's 100% comfortable with having left the band. Which is a farce since every time he opens his mouth to the press, he reveals that he's not by trying to backhand slap the remaining members out of spite.

 

As I watched the opening night show the other night, I kept thinking how happy I am that Priest found Richie, a superbly talented player and a class act. His solo on Victim absolutely smoked anything that Downing's ever played. So KK, if you're reading, thanks for leaving and making Priest a better band! :)

Yeah he needs to shut his mouth. Ever since Firepower was released and the tour started he's unleashed a series of insinuations and churlish complaints at the band. Some of it was part of the promotion of his book but others are just cheap shots at the band, from the assumption that Glenn didn't play on the album to this latest one. And in another article Ian was asked if KK would ever be welcomed back into the band again and he said never say never. Downing isn't helping himself with these comments.

[greyfriar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0qUAE2xwRk

[Rick N. Backer]

 

Damn, is KK whining again? He really needs to move on with his life and leave Priest in the rear-view mirror. I read his book earlier this year and the whole point of it seemed to be him trying to convince us and himself that he's 100% comfortable with having left the band. Which is a farce since every time he opens his mouth to the press, he reveals that he's not by trying to backhand slap the remaining members out of spite.

 

As I watched the opening night show the other night, I kept thinking how happy I am that Priest found Richie, a superbly talented player and a class act. His solo on Victim absolutely smoked anything that Downing's ever played. So KK, if you're reading, thanks for leaving and making Priest a better band! :)

 

Yes, he's made some unfortunate statements, probably driven by frustration. But Downing was a big part of creating a lot of great Priest music.

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JUDAS PRIEST bassist Ian Hill has told W4CY Radio's "Pipeman In The Pit" that the band is planning to record a follow-up to last year's "Firepower" album. "There was a lot of unused ideas on 'Firepower' — 'cause we didn't have time to pursue them, basically," he said (hear audio below). "A hell of a lot of good stuff there. And the creative juices are flowing as well. So, another five, six, seven songs and we should have an album's worth of material. So when the 'Firepower' tour [ends], the dust has settled on that and we've had a bit of time off to recharge our batteries, we'll see where we stand and see if we can get back into the studio."

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[TexMike]

^ Richie is so damn cool!

 

Priest played 2 extra songs tonight, according to setlist.fm. 13 days till they hit my town!

[treeduck]

^ Richie is so damn cool!

 

Priest played 2 extra songs tonight, according to setlist.fm. 13 days till they hit my town!

Yeah this was the setlist order:

 

Necromancer

Heading Out to the Highway

The Sentinel

Spectre

(Take These) Chains

Prelude [tape]

Tyrant

Judas Rising

Out in the Cold

Traitors Gate

Starbreaker

Devil's Child

Steeler

Halls of Valhalla

Killing Machine

No Surrender

Victim of Changes

All Guns Blazing

Hell Bent for Leather

Breaking the Law

Living After Midnight

[Tony R]

On goody...

 

 

[treeduck]

On goody...

If you're going to comment at least type it correctly, you're looking sloppy Tony, you're looking old. Get your shit together mate.

[goose]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0qUAE2xwRk

:haz:

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ROSŁAW SZAYBO, DESIGNER OF JUDAS PRIEST LOGO AND ALBUM COVERS, DEAD AT 85

 

Szaybo's hand appears gripping razor blade on iconic cover of 'British Steel'

 

 

 

Rosław Szaybo, Polish painter, photographer and artist, has died at 85 years old. Szaybo was the creative force behind more than 2,000 album covers, including several for NWOBHM pioneers Judas Priest, whose iconic logo he also designed. His talents reached far beyond the scope of rock and focused mainly on classical music, but he managed to squeeze in covers for Elton John, Roy Orbison, Santana, Janis Joplin, the Clash and others in his lengthy, prestigious career. Fun tidbit: It's his hand that appears gripping the massive razor blade on the cover of Priest's British Steel.

 

"It's actually the art director, Rosław Szaybo's hand," photographer Bob Elsdale — and Szaybo's collaborator on the British Steel cover — told Revolver in a 2010 interview. "We made an oversized razor blade by having the album title and the Priest logo screen-printed on a cut-out piece of aluminum. There was no Photoshop in those days, so everything was shot for real."

 

Priest memorialized the artist after hearing of his passing. "Our memories of Rosław Szaybo are strong and he will always be remembered for his now legendary covers he created for Judas Priest as well as the Priest logo," the band said in a joint statement posted to social media earlier today, May 22nd. "Our thoughts and condolences are with his family - love to Ros."

 

Just last year, Szaybo was awarded the "Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artisgranted" by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, his second honor from the organization with his first being a silver in 2013. He was a 1961 graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and moved to the U.K. a few years later to become the chief artistic director at CBS Records.

 

 

Edited May 23, 2019 by treeduck

[grep]

A real Absolut ad from the late 80's:

 

Edited May 23, 2019 by grep

[treeduck]

JUDAS PRIEST'S 'BRITISH STEEL': THE STORY BEHIND THE COVER ART

 

Photographer Bob Elsdale and art director Rosław Szaybo sharpen the blade for England's metal gods

 

 

There are plenty of bands, but very few ICONS. Revolver's ICON Series pays tribute to the heavy-music titans that have created a legacy of iconic imagery that defines our music, our culture, our lifestyle. For each ICON merchandise collection, the Revolver team has curated quintessential pieces that represent watershed albums, songs and events that define the metal experience. All ICON merchandise is officially licensed and of the highest quality.

 

The cover art for Judas Priest's 1980 album British Steel — created by photographer Bob Elsdale and art director Rosław Szaybo — is as iconic as it gets. you can pick up a T-shirt emblazoned with the classic image, and read on for the fascinating story behind the cover art.

 

 

The word "iconic" was made for albums like British Steel. Recorded in early 1980 at Startling Studios on Ringo Starr's 100-acre Tittenhurst Park estate in Ascot, England, and featuring the perennial Priest classics "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight," the album's title was both a nod to the British Steel Corporation (where guitarist Glenn Tipton worked for five years) and a calling card for Judas Priest's galvanizing brand of English heavy metal. It also boasts what is arguably the band's most memorable cover: A giant razorblade bearing the Priest logo held firmly in the hand of what appears to be a leather-clad headbanger.

 

"It's actually the art director, Rosław Szaybo's hand," reveals British Steel photographer Bob Elsdale. "We made an oversized razorblade by having the album title and the Priest logo screen-printed on a cut-out piece of aluminum. There was no Photoshop in those days, so everything was shot for real." Szaybo and Esldale had worked together on Priest's previous album, 1979's Hell Bent for Leather (which was released in the U.K. under the title Killing Machine), and shot both covers in Elsdale's studio at St. John's Wood, London.

 

"I almost certainly used a wooden 4x5 [large format] Wista camera," the photographer explains. "The actual shoot didn't take that long—a couple of hours or something like that. All the work went into preparing the razorblade and screen-printing it."

 

In fact, Elsdale credits his Polish art director with masterminding the visuals for both British Steel and Hell Bent for Leather. "All the shots I did with Rosław were his concepts. He's really on the ball. He's 74 now, and he's still at it, teaching at Warsaw University and doing freelance work. And he's still in demand these days. Not bad for 74, is it?"

 

These days, Elsdale shoots mostly animal-based photography. He has produced two photo books—one of elephants (Gray Matter) and one of pigs (Pretty in Pink), both of which are available through his website, Bobelsdale.com. "I was doing album covers until people started using videos as a promotional tool," he explains. "All of a sudden, all of the money went out of the artwork budgets and into the videos."

 

Though Elsdale's metal days may have been short-lived, British Steel's razorblade clearly made its mark. It's been reproduced on T-shirts (of both the officially licensed and bootleg varieties) for the past 27 years, and even turned up in a 2001 Absolut Vodka ad bearing the legend "Absolut Priest."

 

"I'm really pleased with it," Elsdale says of the image he shot nearly three decades ago. "I think we did a great job. A lot of people looked at it and were really quite horrified. The edges of the blade seemed to be cutting into Rosław's flesh, because he was really gripping it quite hard. But that wasn't the case—it actually had blunt edges. It wasn't bloody, but it had an element of drama."

 

The original British Steel blade hung on the wall of Elsdale's studio for years. One day, it simply disappeared. "I think somebody made off with it," the photographer laments. "It's too bad—it would've been a nice thing to have today."

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31 years ago Ram it Down was unleashed...

 

 

Fans of Judas Priest who were stunned over the direction the band went with their synthesizer-heavy 1986 album Turbo felt much relief two years later when the back-to-basics record Ram It Down was released on May 17, 1988.

 

Some of the music was leftover from sessions for Turbo, which originally was a planned double-LP project called Twin Turbos, envisioned to be an even mix of pop and metal.

 

“We were at a place where a lot of bands get when there’s suddenly an incredible outpouring of creativity and material,” frontman Rob Halford recalled years later. “We had a tremendous amount of songs that we wanted to try and put out together. It was intended at the time to be a Twin Turbo release. Porsche [had their] Twin Turbo, and we were kind of playing around with that idea. We started initially writing the material out in Marbella in Spain. We were there in the winter and we were talking at the time with the label about the idea of all of these extra songs kind of coalescing into a double CD.”

Columbia Records nixed the idea, insisting the material be relegated to a single album, resulting in the polarizing Turbo. When it came time to finish work on Ram It Down, the decision was made for a concentrated straight-ahead metal effort.

 

“We decided to take the guidelines our fans give us, not the guidelines that we sometimes musically, desire, want to do – you know – let’s try this, let’s try that,” guitarist K.K. Downing said. “This is basically what all the people, all the fans that come and see us say, ‘Yeah, why don’t you do a song like 'Exciter' or like this that or the other thing?”

 

“We all agreed that we just wanted to make a down and out heavy metal, hardcore record,” Halford added. “With that attitude in mind, that’s what we went about to proceed to do and I think, to a degree, yes, it’s certainly the heaviest thing we’ve done in recent years and we’re very, very happy with it.”

 

The first taste of the music on Ram It Down came in the unlikely form of a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” released in early 1988 as the lead-off song for the soundtrack to the Anthony Michael Hall vehicle Johnny Be Good. Though the film tanked at the box office, the song was deemed acceptable for single release and made it into the Top 100 on the U.K. singles charts.

 

“We just felt we could give it the Priest treatment,” Halford said. “We’d worked it out in the studio we felt it was good enough to end up on the album, so we’re well pleased with it.”

“Johnny B. Goode” ended up buried deep on the second side of Ram It Down, which opened up with Halford’s piercing scream on the title-track, followed by a thunderous blast of familiar Judas Priest heft. Halford said they wanted to make a “no holds barred” and “out and out Priest heavy metal album,” and it didn’t disappoint.

 

“We had a blast doing it and it was a real joy to do and I think the proof is finally there when you get to hear it,” he said, later adding, “We’re giving you what you want and we’re enjoying it of course.”

 

Along with “Ram It Down,” the tracks “Hard as Iron,” “Monsters of Rock” and “Love You to Death” had been set for the scuttled Twin Turbos venture. It’s easy to see how they would be out of place on Turbo with their decidedly guitar focused lilt. And while the band conceded they were making a record to acquiesce to the fan’s demands, it didn’t feel forced, but there was a distinct sense of them being on unsure footing. The epic second side opener, “Blood Red Skies,” is one example, with some searing guitar work struggling to break free from its synth foundation.

 

“I think it’s more representative of Judas Priest than, say, Turbo,” guitarist Glenn Tipton said. “Turbo was probably the most talked about album we’ve ever done, but Ram It Down is definitely more in where people expect us to come from. Subconsciously we went in [to the studio] to prove a point.”

 

It’s clear that on Ram It Down Judas Priest were at a career crossroads eschewing artistic vision for what drew people in in the first place. Had they not veered back onto the metal highway, no matter how begrudgingly, we may have never gotten the masterwork two years later in Painkiller. It’s viewed by many as a bit of a misstep, but it’s actually a stepping stone.

 

“I think one of the most underrated albums is Ram It Down,” Tipton reflected years later. “It sold really well eventually, but it never gets cited as a great album. It’s got some great songs on it.”

 

http://66.media.tumblr.com/eb1835db0f060b670ac59f84d9ac4722/tumblr_mxmluoMpKb1sm0jo0o1_500.gif

Edited May 23, 2019 by treeduck

[treeduck]