Former Judas Priest Member Says: I Owe My Life to Heavy Metal

Music has a huge place in a lot of people’s hearts. Everyone has different feelings for music. But when it comes to a person who’s been in the industry for all those years, it sure hits different. Former Judas Priest member and guitarist K.K. Downing shared his own opinions and feelings about music and heavy metal. According to Downing, he owes his life and whole being to heavy metal. Let’s hear his words about this case.

K.K. Downing was the guitarist and co-founder of the heavy metal band Judas Priest. After leaving the Judas Priest he started KK’s Priest, which got into some trouble with Judas Priest because of the name. Recently, Downing was promoting the debut album of his band KK’s Priest. Because of the promoting activities, he shows up in plenty of interviews. In one of his interviews with El Cuartel Del Metal, he talked about his relationship and history with metal music and heavy metal, since he’s been in it for around 50 years now. According to his statements, he owes a lot to heavy metal.

“I owe everything  my whole life and my whole being to metal. Because I was there at the very beginning when it didn’t exist, and heavy rock didn’t exist. Even rock didn’t exist, really. We had rock and roll in the early ’60s, but that was different; that was kind of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry. But we didn’t have rock. We had blues, which turned into progressive blues, and that was great. There were so many great progressive blues bands. But we didn’t seem to have the music that I really wanted more and more of. And so I set on the journey to try to be a part and create and assist as much as I could.”

“But, yes, certainly I owe everything [to metal]. And now I’m happy that I’m doing this again in the way that I’ve always done it, to give as much as I can back to this wonderful music. At the same time, with ‘Sermons Of The Sinner’, it just kind of put up the red flags and points out, really, that there is a potential fragility to this music. ‘Cause we are losing so many friends far too often.

For the whole interview, you can check the video below. Don’t forget to add your own comments about Downing’s opinions and your thoughts on music.