Judas Priest's Rob Halford reacts to K.K. Downing's 'completely superfluous' statement

K.K. released a statement yesterday morning (27th February) saying he was “shocked and saddened” Judas Priest didn’t ask him to rejoin the band when Glenn Tipton announced he was bowing out of touring.

Appearing on The Freaks with Kenny & Crash show on Phoenix's Fox Sports 910 radio station, singer Rob Halford labelled much of the statement as ‘completely superfluous’ and said he refused to get involved in a social media war of words.

However, one part of K.K.’s statement that Rob does take exception to is the implication that Andy Sneap recorded some of Glenn’s ‘Firepower’ guitar parts, when he wrote: “I have no doubt that (Andy Sneap’s) contribution to the new Judas Priest album was much more than just as a producer.”

Rob Halford said (via Blabbermouth): "Let me just say that the great joy of Judas Priest is that we've never gone into this kind of arena of a public dispute.

“And it's so easy to fall into that trap in social media today. How many people have you seen in sports, for example, that have made a rash comment on Twitter, just on the heat of the moment, emotionally.

“You know, we're all human, we've all got feelings, and we have a tendency to blurt out the first thing that is on our minds, and rightly or wrongly, things can kind of come back and chase you afterwards in a negative way.”

He continued: "So, with regards to everything that was made in the statement today, a lot of it, to me, is completely superfluous.

"But the one point that I would like to clarify and have on record is this insinuation that Andy Sneap was covering Glenn's guitar parts on 'Firepower', and I can categorically state that that is a thousand percent false. Because I was with Glenn for all of his guitar work, and he worked really, really hard. Imagine this guy in the tenth year of Parkinson's.

“I've never seen anybody so brave in the fact that every song was a challenge for him to make it work, but he did — consistently, day after day. It was just a very powerful thing to experience first-hand. And this just goes to show you about the amazing stories that surround individuals around the world that are dealing with Parkinson's in their life.”

Rob concluded: "So, thank you for that opportunity, Kenny. I just wanted to touch on that one issue, because out of everything that was laid out in that statement, that one hit me personally.

“And so now I've been able to clarify that and make sure that everybody out in the world listening to the show, on the Internet and elsewhere, understands that everything that you hear from Glenn on 'Firepower' is the amazing Glenn Tipton. Oh yeah!"

Boasting the singles ‘Lightning Strike’ and the album title track, ‘Firepower is released on Friday 9th March 2018.

Judas Priest’s sole 2018 UK date takes place at Bloodstock Festival on Friday 10th August. Tickets are on sale from Planet Rock Tickets now.