It'll be basically a live album, but it will also include songs, Judas Priest songs, the audience have never heard before, because we felt we wanted to give the kids something else, something they haven't already bought.
I want to make myself and the crowd happy by way of something different, and that makes things difficult. I'm never playing something that hasn't been released or no one has ever heard before because I care to deliver them what they were hoping to see from me. But also I play four or five songs that will definitely surprise them.
So many times nowadays it's about having two good songs on an album and a bunch of filler, and I wanted to make something that I felt every song on the album was fun for everybody.
'Firepower' is the eighteenth full-length studio album for Judas Priest. That's a lot of metal songs over the decades, and the writing process is always the same, really.
To get 300 songs to fit together on an album, it's not like I choose 300 songs and say these are the ones I wanted to pick. To get those 300 songs I sampled 1000's of songs and narrowed down the ones I felt worked the best musically.
You can hear songs that are technically great, songs that tick all the boxes. But for a song to be felt, you need something else.
There will be slow songs, sad songs, happy songs, songs about boys, and songs about being who you are. I'm making sure I'm happy with all of the songs, because if I am not happy with them, I can't expect anyone else to be, you know?
have two A & R people who listen to songs for me all of the time. When they hear something that they think I will like, they send it to me. We usually listen to hundreds of songs before we find the right ones. It's a long process, but I believe that it's the most important in creating an album.
Even writing verses from my first album, there were songs that I didn't use because I just felt that they weren't really for me. But I think that happens naturally when you write songs. You're in a different mood in every session. There's so many songs out there that could potentially be used by other artists.
I look for something universal in songs rather than something personal. I look for something that will give us a platform for live improvisation.
I love nothing more than to perform my songs in front of a live audience. And whatever I'm doing is driven toward finding or writing songs and putting out hit songs that drive people coming to see me live. Because, at the end of the day, that's what I enjoy the most.
The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together.
I want to create something that you haven't heard lyrically before. It's part of my job, and even though some of my songs are love songs, I tend to talk about love in different ways.
I like 'Bewitched' off the first album because it's one of the happiest songs I've ever written and, as any writer will tell you, happy songs are a million times more difficult to write than sad songs.
I know six years is a big break. But I never walked away from music. I never released an album because I wanted to do a different album, something I have never done before.
'Unbreakable Smile' was based off one of the songs I wrote for the album - it was actually the first song I wrote for the album without realizing it yet. I think I wanted to name the album that because it seemed like that was just the theme of that chapter in my life and just the theme of all the songs put together.
I do not choose my listeners. What I mean is, I never write for my listeners. I think about my audience, but I am not writing for them. I have something to tell them, but the audience must also put a certain effort into it. But I never wrote for an audience and never will write for one, because you have to give the listener something and he has to make an effort in order to understand certain things.