 Jimmy K here, Metal Voice. Look at this. Metal Voice shirts are now on sale. Just go to a video description to find out on how you can purchase one. Metal! Welcome to the Metal Voice. Once again, the one, the only Tim Ripper Owens. What's going on, Tim? Yes. All right. I'm good. How are you, bud? I'm good. I'm good. KK's Priest, Sermons of the Center, October 1st via Explorer 1 Music Group, EX1 Records. Very, very exciting. So I heard the rest of the album. Yes. Oh, boy. Yeah. Very interesting, Tim. I guess my first question to you is, is this the album you should have made in Priest that you didn't get the opportunity to make in Priest? Should have this been the follow-up to Demolition? I don't know. I mean, the thing about Judas Priest is they, they, they changed and, and, did whatever they want because they were Judas Priest and every records sounded different except maybe Scream of Revengeance and Defenders of the Faith. I mean, the rest of their albums sound different. I mean, how their last album was fantastic, but it didn't really sound like Judas Priest because, you know, they didn't really write it. But it was, it was a great record, but it's, everything sounds different. You know, Juggulator was a continuation. There wasn't a band for four years and then Demolition and what would have been next? I don't know. Very well could have been, you know, I mean. Would you have liked this album to be the follow-up? A type of album? I don't know. I don't know. I would have, I would like anything. I mean, I like the Aggressive Edge. I like exactly the records I did with Priest. I love them. I would, I would have taken whatever they were going to do. I think what this shows is, you know, what kind of records KK wanted to make with Judas Priest because this is how he writes. So, you know that maybe this shows you why records become what they are and change so much. But that's why I fell in love with Judas Priest in the first place because they changed all the time and like it or not. I mean, did I have to like, you know, in my opinion, stinkers like Turbo or Ramadown? No, I didn't have to love it. Now to be honest, then you go back when you get older and you listen to Ramadown, you go, man, that's, that's pretty good. And I like, but when you're, you did that, but you still, you still liked it, but you didn't have to be your favorite, but you knew they were going to change. I mean, listen, every Judas Priest fan, when they came home and bought Turbo because you couldn't listen to it, you know, ahead of time, except maybe locked in on the radio, when they first put that record on, they had to be like, what the heck is this? But that's same thing with point of entry and same thing with, you know, Judas Priest changed. But I, I, I don't know if this would have, would have been what I wanted with Judas Priest then because I wanted to, to do different things. This record though, to me just shows so much of KK Downing. I mean, KK wrote a record that he wanted to write and he wanted to write for me to sing. The first thing he said was, I'm writing this record and this is going to be all about the, you know, how you sing. I'm writing it for you to sing on. And when I first heard it, I was like, man, this is, this is, it's great stuff. I mean, because at this point, he can't afford to do something drastically different. Anyways, I mean, he's, it's when you, when you're about 70 years old and you've been doing this your whole life, you don't put out unless it's your solo, solo record, right? He's not in Judas Priest anymore. I've always said this, if you're in Judas Priest and you make a solo record, while you're in it, you can do whatever you want creatively, right? But if you're not in the band anymore, you're going to write exactly how you write. And you know, it's, it's what he, it's exactly what had to be done had, you know, not, no one's inventing the wheel, do what the fans want. And I think he was all about making himself happy. Everybody's heard the first four tracks, right? So let's dive into a little bit about each track that people haven't heard, to get sort of wet the right appetites, right? For what's coming their way. And I was pleasantly surprised because I think there was a couple of twists and turns in this album that you wouldn't necessarily hear in Priest, or maybe you would, but maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. I was hearing more like Dio and Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden type of stuff, like Sacredote and Diablo. Yeah. All right. Yeah. One sentence described that song is this is an exorcism. What's going on there? Well, the priest and the devil, and it's a tongue twister. So that's, that's, you know, let me tell you a funny story about the song though, is I recorded it and I said it wrong because we thought it was Sacredote, Diablo, but it's Sacredote. And we went, listen, I recorded the whole thing and I came home and then COVID hits and then Ken goes, hey, we got to sit, you got to go to your studio and I was like, shit. Yeah. How about that? You know, doing a song like that or the, you know, Priest and the Devil and pretty cool, but a nice twist. Fast driving track. Is that how you describe it? You know, like a very fast moving. Right out of the gate, the album comes first three tracks, bam, bam, bam. That's why everybody's like, oh my God, you know, they thought everything was going to be, sound like sermons at a center or help our Thunderbolt, but there's not a, you know, the whole record's not high notes. No, that's what we're getting to. That's what we're going to get through. But that's what Judas Priest always is. I mean, you know, and even my records that I've always done, I always say, like, I do a scream. Someone said, oh my God, sermons at a center, you're trying to sound like Rob. I'm like, oh my God, get over that shit. I mean, nobody said that when I sang Scream Machine and it's actually almost the same song as sermons at a center. The metal, you know, the high notes in it, you know, scream, everything's, but the rest of the album is just straightforward metal, man. Well, there's a couple twists and turns, metal through and through. I mean, I'm hearing like Dio vibe there. I'm hearing Beyond the Realms of Death. Beyond the Realms of Death, I'm hearing like dream theater instrumentals in the middle, you know, how they sort of like trade off, right? Yeah. So they're just like an eight minute track there. That's a little bit going off out of the box. There's a couple of those. Yeah. You know, when you say about, about all of a sudden it changes musically, Ken was funny because, because you go, hey, Ken, I don't know, or he would look at you and go, I don't, you know, you're not supposed to do this, but I'm going to do it. It was so great because he's like, musically you're not supposed to do this right here, but I'm going to do this right here. And yeah, there's a lot of layers like that. There's a lot of epic kind of songs is how I like to describe them because there's a lot going on. There's a lot of metal vocals in the chugging guitars and and telling a story. And it goes, there's a lot of things that's going on that, you know, actually goes back to early Judas Priest. Listen to, listen to Rockerola. I mean, Rockerola was filled with that stuff. And guess who wrote Rockerola most of it? KK. So those were songs coming in. You hear Never Satisfied or all these songs. And it's like, there's a lot of things, you know, winter and winter freeze. There's a lot of stuff that was going on. So I think Ken just wrote how he's, he doesn't have anybody telling him in his ear what he's supposed to write or what we should do was as you do as a creative team, because he was part of the creative team. Now he's just doing whatever he wanted to do. And I think that's, that's what you can tell. Wild and free. I remember when I first made the record, it wasn't one of my favorites. Didn't dislike it, but it wasn't one of my favorites. And then when they, they tweaked it on doing the solos and then put that rule breakers hell it's beginning and the way the song starts and goes in, I'm like, and I was like, yeah, this is, it's a great live tune. He would always say, as we were in the studio or listening to him, I could see the crowd. I could see the crowd. I can hear the crowd. This is for the fans. And I, I love to hear that because that's why I do a lot of things as well. It's like, I can hear the, the people and, and you know, I love hearing it. Well, there's a lot of chanting and the songs that people haven't heard yet, you know, like those aren't made in chance. I wouldn't call them are and made them. I just call them chance in general, right? And then hail for the priest. You know, another song that's that's sort of like, again, you know, another metal song, what are a priest metal song, but then return to the Sentinel. Now here we're going into some another territory altogether, right? We're getting into like, I was trying to think, what does this remind me of? And the thing is, the only thing I could associate it with is something like out of glorious burden. That's my one of my favorite tracks on the record, the return of the Sentinel, actually. To me, it had a lot of classic priests. That one reminded me of a classic priest with a sabbathy Dio thing going on. This is the way it starts off. That first guitar riff to me, you know, return into desecration, the way it's, I have to remember this stuff because I haven't listened to it in a while. So trying to, I can't remember the song titles half the time, because I don't have a record in front of me to look at. And I never copied it out. But yeah, the ending of that song to me is so classic Judas Priest, the very end part with the high notes where it's like, and he's playing that mellow guitar. It sounds like something from rock or roll. I'm like, Ken, this is awesome. But that's the thing that when you write music, you're going to have so much of what you do like Ken and myself. And we've both, you know, Ken's done it for so long. And now God forbid people realize that I've been singing for 30 years now. I mean, I actually sound like myself, not somebody else. But when you hit songs like that, you know, there's a lot going on. And that's why I think you hear, you know, a nicer thing or something, because there is because it makes these changes. And, you know, Priest did that in the past. And another band took it. And it just became bigger. Now, you know, you put more different things because the sensual originally look at the original Sentinel. I mean, it was, you know, it started with that beginning, then it had the speaking part and this part, it kind of had those breakdowns. Now facing one of, you know, now this kind of took that. But it's, it is, it's a big musical, a little more musical, I think, on the classic metal way, though, I think that's the difference. It's musical, but it's classic metal musical. It's not like Ken was doing something different. He just was, I think he's taken sad wings and rockerola influences and just bringing them to nowadays. Yeah. I mean, look, there's tempo changes. There's a time changes. There's, you know, soloing, you know, trade off soloing. There's, there's phenomenal, like the musicianship is incredible off this album. It's just, yeah, I think some of those, I'm going to call some of those, Jimmy, I'm going to call some of those time changes, COVID changes, because he sat songs during COVID and went, what can I do to him? What can I do? Because they were done. All of a sudden I get a song and I go, Ken, what is that? What, what did that part come? He's like, yeah, I added that part in there. I changed songs around. So his mind started working even more. He got to sit with these songs even longer than, because it was done. It was finished, you know, in March of 2020, the album was done. And then he went, well, I got time now. I don't have to rush anything. Let me take my time. So I'm going to call those, not time changes, but COVID changes. What about, okay, I think Ken said he was already working on material for his next album. Do you want to be a little more part of that? You know, now that, you know, you want to, you want, I know last time he had his, you know, his mind set on just sort of focusing on his music, right? But now do you want to be involved? And I'm fine with what he did because he, the difference of this is you have someone who knows me and wrote it for me. You know what I mean? So whatever he was writing, it was kind of like, yeah, this is, this is what Ripper does, you know, and then he would, I would go into studio and he would go, now do you want to change that or do you want to do it? So I would change some vocal styles, change things around. Originally, Sermons at a Center, we had a lot Raspier. It was the verses were Raspie versus high notes, but Raspie, Raspie, and then I came home and we were like, hey, let's change this. Let's, let's make it clean and clear high notes versus, but this, the new record, there's no doubt he'll, he'll send me some music and I'll be able to write to it, you know, and, but I have no problem because this is his, his baby, you know, he's never done anything. I mean, he's Judas Priest. I mean, you look at people who've made solo records, I heard him the other day saying, we were doing some interviews when I was, when I was in England and he goes, I did some records, I did some solos on some records and I'm thinking, I don't even remember, you know, I mean, I just remembered Judas Priest, man, that was it. So he's like, now he's, you know, it's like a kid in the candy store really, you know. Yeah, you've done a great job, by the way. I think your vocals are, you know, stellar on this album. It's, it's really, you know, this is like Judas Priest for me. It's just another version of it. But anyways, that's just me. Okay. I know Sean Peck is going to kill me if I don't ask you about the three tremors. So just throw something out there. Well, we, you know, that's going to be coming out that was recorded, you know, in this timeframe really basically the same time I was doing vocals and stuff for even started before that. But yeah, the second records coming out, he, it was coming out October 1st, originally, then he's like, okay, now I got to move it because you guys took October 1st. And he, we got a tour coming up, American tour in November, all November and part beginning of December when the tour America and yeah, we're excited about it, you know, we're going to start releasing some videos. It's, it's three tremors. It's over the top craziness, not quite as over the top and crazy as the first one, I don't think I've streamlined it a little bit more just a little bit, but it's still a it's, you know, that's how three tremors, you either like it or hate it. It's an over the top heavy metal record that that's what it's supposed to be. You know, it's not trying to please grandma and grandpa at home. Are you on tour? You're on tour. I see you got show dates, right? I mean, is it worrying you being on tour? I do. I do some shows here and there. I go out and do some solo shows, but three tremors doesn't start till November. Yeah, I've been doing some. I play out in Liverpool, New York. I do a little special guest appearance for somebody this weekend. And I've been doing some solo dates here and there, you know, you find that people, even the vaccinated people are feeling, you know, I don't know if I want to go, they're sort of like sitting on the fence. They're not sure if they're ready to go out yet or people are just enthusiastic coming out and at first it was people were enthusiastic and came out. I think it's a little different now. And I, I just think because they're not, you know, they're told something different every day. Anyways, whether you believe it or not, I'm, you know, I'm vaccinated. Everybody knows I'm vaccinated and I was off for wear masks. But I didn't need to go into that conversation. Don't get me wrong. But to go back to work, I have to, to figure out a way to do it. And I think I think, you know, I think one issue now is there's a lot of shows going. So I mean, the major issues. I mean, there are so many damn shows that are happening that people have to pick and choose what they go to anyways. But of course, there's going to be people. Listen, if you're like me, if you're vaccinated, but you're all concerned about people who aren't vaccinated, then you shouldn't go out anyways then. I mean, you should stay home because I've probably known seven people that are vaccinated that had it and two of them went into the hospital. So it's, you know, I feel pretty safe. I got it and I'm ready to, I'm ready to rock. That's my whole thing. But I think if people, you know, they're not going out quite as much, but if they try to be careful, you know, that's what I always say. I mean, just try to be careful. You can go out. You can live your life. Just, just, you know, be careful and do it. You know, it's like if you go to a show and you drink, call an Uber and don't drive home. It's about the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. What about just in a few minutes that we have left? I'm sorry. Jimmy, I think people are worried. I think people are, you know, that some people still don't want to go out. I mean, and, you know, you can't disagree with them. I mean, if they don't want to go out, they don't want to go out. That's, you know, this is a scary world. So, but I think the big thing with concerts are people just, there's a lot of concerts going on. I mean, a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So what's your, what's the plans for touring with KK now? Well, by then I should have my 15th vaccine. So I'll be ready. That's right. I'll be on my seventh. Okay. I'll be on my fifth vaccine and I'll have a suppository beaker up my ass that'll flash when I'm ever near somebody with COVID. Look at the cars. You know, the cars have a little beeper there when you're too close? Yeah. I don't know what else to do, but listen, we're ready to go, man. I mean, we, the problem is this isn't three trimmers or Tim Ripper on solo touring where we play small venues and you could just plug them in. This has to be bigger stages, bigger production. It's a new band. The record's not out yet. So I look, you know, hopefully early next year, we'll, we'll, you know, headline or supporting. I think anything, anything that's right and big enough because Ken is not playing small stages, period. That's pretty much it. He's like, listen, this is, this, you know, I'm at the end of my career. I built this up. I'm not going on and playing, you know, Bob's big bamboo or anything like that. It's gotta be. So I think supporting some big acts, some big stages, maybe some co-headlining bills, all that stuff is going to be in the works, I would think. All right. There we go. KK's priest, sermons of the center coming out October 1st via Explorer One Music Group, X1 Records. Thank you so much, my friend. Hey, listen, I see all your meal programs with Blaze, with you guys having your food and what you're eating there when Blaze is there. What's, what's the meal for me then? What are we going to have? Well, what do you like? Uh, you guys got good Indian food there? Everybody keeps asking about, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Montreal, it's got the best food of every nationality. Well, you know what I want? I want Montreal food. Okay. Don't worry. I'll think of something. Smoke meat, Montreal smoke meat. Okay. Do you like smoke meat? Yeah. You know what smoke meat is? Well, it's fucking meat that's smoked. I mean, I, I pretty much self-described it. What did you eat last time when you were here? Just anything, whatever the caterer gave you, right? That's it. Yeah, I probably, I probably stopped at McDonald's or something because we didn't have much time. All right. So next time when you're here, you come by and we're going to have, we're going to take that picture right in the kitchen right where Blaze is with all the food. Yeah. And we're going to have whatever, whatever I think is something that you would like that defines Montreal's food. Okay. All right. And we'll send it and we'll send a photo to Blaze and say he's a heart out. All right, Jamie. Thank you very much. Thanks, Tim. All right, buddy. Thank you.