New & Approved program , hosted by Matt Pinfield on radio station 95.5 KLOS , Ian Hill , bassist and co-founder of Judas Priest , commented on the friendship between the band members, which will celebrate its 56th anniversary in 2025.
During the conversation, he shared how he felt when he first Rob Halford
Regarding Halford, he said: “ Ken ( “KK” Downing ) and I thought about testing him. As soon as we did, we knew he was special. He has a tremendous range – I think it’s three octaves, something like that, which was unbelievable at the time. And, of course, he was from the same part of the world as us, so he had the same drive, the same kind of perspective that we had. And he had a similar taste in music to ours – he was also a fan of ( Jimi ) Hendrix , CREAM , all that kind of thing; ( David ) Bowie , of course. And he fit in perfectly. And he’s also a great guy. You know, he’s very easy to work with. And that was it.”
“And then Glenn ( Tipton ) comes along and a friendship is formed. I mean, it’s built when you do things like go to Norway in a van in February and sleep in the back of it. You put your equipment in the van and put the mattresses on top, do the show and then sleep in the parking lot in the freezing cold. That’s what they did. You create a bond by doing things like that. We’ll always be great friends – we always will be, until the day we die. Regardless of being on different sides of the ocean, we’re still immensely good friends and always will be,” he concluded.
Judas Priest will perform in Brazil in April, at the Arena of Rock festival in Brasília, and at Monsters of Rock in São Paulo.
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