Wednesday, 13 February 2013

LINK: Interview With Al Atkins Original Singer Of Judas Priest

AA
MW: Please introduce yourself?
AA: My name is AL Atkins and i am a UK vocalist and songwriter and have sang with various bands like  Judas Priest, Lion, Al Atkins Band, Holy Rage and my present Black Country metal duo the Atkins/May/Project…..

MW: So you created the name Judas Priest? Why did you let the band go on as Judas Priest after you left?
AA: Well K.K ,Ian and myself  had all really grafted hard on the road for very little money from 1970 to when i left in May ’73…we played over 150 gigs in 1972 opening for bands like Thin Lizzy, Slade, Budgie and Black Sabbath  getting through a drummer a year!!!!I left for personal reasons so K.K and Ian found another vocalist Robert Halford and they wanted to continue and asked for my songs and the Judas Priest name and they well deserved it.
MW: You helped pen the following Judas Priest songs please tell me about them:
MW: Winter.
AA: I wrote the lyrics to this from my memories stuck on a mountain pass in a Scottish snow blizzard during a tour with the first 1969 Judas Priest line up.    Our drummer couldn’t make it so i played drums and sang too.
MW: Never Satisfied.
AA:  One of my favorite early songs that i wrote….it was the flip side to JP’s first single and featured on their first album ‘Rocka Rolla’, it was also later covered by LA’s Armored Saint on one of their albums. It was great to hear JP play it live again on their Epitaph world tour and it stood up to the test of time…
MW: Caviar And Meths.
AA: Another one of my tracks which was an epic last song in our live set…the complete version  never made ‘Rocka Rolla’ and for some reason was cut to a small instrumental piece and had originally K.K and Ians name down has co writers but that was amended later. I recorded the full version myself on a solo album titled ‘Heavy Thoughts’ (Gull Records)and again on ‘Victim of Changes’ (Angel Air Records) 1998 with Dave Holland on drums.
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Valley of Shadows
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