Back in 2018, Glenn Tipton announced he’d be stepping down from his formal touring duties with Judas Priest owing to his ongoing battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Tipton has remained a key part of the Priest lineup, albeit with a slightly altered role, and has continued sharing electric guitar duties with Richie Faulkner, whom Tipton has lined up alongside since K.K. Downing’s departure in 2011.
Speaking in a new interview with Total Guitar, Tipton discussed just how crucial Faulkner has been in allowing him to transition into a more accommodating role that still sees him record and perform.
Back in 2018, Glenn Tipton announced he’d be stepping down from his formal touring duties with Judas Priest owing to his ongoing battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Tipton has remained a key part of the Priest lineup, albeit with a slightly altered role, and has continued sharing electric guitar duties with Richie Faulkner, whom Tipton has lined up alongside since K.K. Downing’s departure in 2011.
Speaking in a new interview with Total Guitar, Tipton discussed just how crucial Faulkner has been in allowing him to transition into a more accommodating role that still sees him record and perform.
As well as piling praise on his fellow guitarist – who previously suffered an onstage aortic aneurysm during a set in 2021 – Tipton also touched on how he’s been juggling his Priest duties with his own medical battles thanks to a “no surrender” mindset.
“Obviously the drawback for me now is Parkinson’s, and I’ve had to pass a lot of work onto his shoulders,” Tipton goes on. “I keep pushing myself because I believe in ‘no surrender’. This disease won’t beat me and I will continue writing and playing for as long as I can.”
For example, in the past Tipton has reunited onstage with his Priest bandmates at Barcelona’s Rock Fest in 2022, and for Judas Priest’s shows in Oakland and Las Vegas.
In his own interview with Total Guitar, Richie Faulkner dove deeper into the process behind sharing six-string responsibilities with Tipton, giving greater insight into just how well the two guitarists work together.
“With Glenn’s situation, he wasn’t playing as much lead as before,” he said. “But that’s okay, we didn’t want that to impede the process. If Glenn was having a good day, he’d play the pHell Bentart. If he couldn’t, I’d do it.
“We didn’t want him to worry. He brought songs to the table like Sons of Thunder which is a classic three-minute track in the style of [Priest anthem] For Leather. Glenn is the master of that stuff.
“He was as involved as he could be and it was important for us to involve him.”
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