In the Loudwire clip below, Judas Priest / Elegant Weapons guitarist Richie Faulkner takes us through his history of playing guitar, from what first inspired him as a child through today. He also plays his favorite Judas Priest riffs, including classic ones and ones he wrote, as well as some riffs off Elegant Weapons' new album, Horns For Halos, which is out now.
Faulkner recently offered an update on the band's new album, elaborating on guitarist Glenn Tipton’s involvement. Praising the guitarist for his innovation, Faulkner made his comments while chatting to eonmusic at Hellfest in France, where he was performing with his band, Elegant Weapons.
On how he was able to differentiate what material should feature on the Elegant Weapons album versus the new Judas Priest set: “The Priest stuff [for the forthcoming new album] was written, so it came to a point where you can draw a line under it. We've got all the material we need for the Priest stuff. It wasn't recorded yet, but we'd got demos written for the Priest stuff, so all the midsections, all the solo sections, all the twists and turns musically, we've got enough of that, that's done, you can draw a line under that.”
On Glenn Tipton’s involvement in the new Priest album: “Well, as long as we've got his mind. You know, sometimes he, you know, if you can't handle the playing one day, for example, he still got his mind, he still got the ideas, and that's what makes it kind of unmistakable Priest.”
Continuing: “These little turnarounds that he has don't make sense initially, to me; like I'm thinking; 'what?!' When you get together and you write a song with somebody who's got an idea, and you're thinking, you know; 'that's not like my idea', but you put them together and you come up with something that's greater than the original idea. As long as we still got that, we blend and then we're winning. You know, that's what we did with the writing process."
On how the band made him welcome, and how that led to Elegant Weapons: “Right from the beginning they made me feel welcome from the get go, really. I felt like I had an opinion and they asked me what I thought about stuff and that sort of stuff, which I thought was insane, really. Coming into a band like that, I'd imagined it to be completely different. You know, you didn't expect them to be asking what I thought."
But then, as you go through the tours and the records and stuff, you gain trust from the fans, I think, and I can only thank them for that. And as you said, we're still there. 12 years later on after that. That was the Epitaph world tour; that sparked this whole idea of, you know; I'd better think of something else [to do after Judas Priest]. That was the final tour. That was a conversation I had with Tipton about, you know, they're not going to be around for 25 years, so I'd better start thinking about what I'm going to do."
Read the complete interview at eonmusic.
When Richie Faulkner joined Judas Priest in 2011, he was credited by critics and bandmates with rejuvenating the metal titans' sound and spirit.
Representing the fretboard wizard's elegant weapon of choice, the Gibson Richie Faulkner Flying V Custom is a tricked-out metal machine built to storm the halls of Valhalla. This solidbody electric guitar boasts a classic "V"-shaped mahogany body, with an eye-popping finish, a contrasting double pickguard, and wicked-looking multi-ply binding. Its mahogany neck sports a custom profile primed for performance, along with a lightning-fast, ruler-flat 12-inch-radius fingerboard with mother-of-pearl inlays.
Of course, this axe packs plenty of metal-fueled firepower, thanks to a set of signature EMG active humbuckers. You also get a Floyd Rose tremolo for rock-solid pitch pyrotechnics and ultra-stable Grover tuning machines. If you want to fly like "The Falcon," the Richie Faulkner Flying V Custom is ready for takeoff.
Watch the video below, and get further details at Sweetwater.com.
