Judas Priest's Glenn Tipton breaks silence on KK Downing's accusations

Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton has decided to break his silence on the long-running feud between his band and their former guitarist KK Downing.

Tipton discussed his former friend in a new interview with Guitar World because, as he puts it, Downing’s accusations have been getting “sillier and sillier”.

“I never wanted to get into a public argument after KK left,” he told the magazine. “I never said a word and I stuck to my guns for over 10 years, but there comes a point when you read things that have been said that are just crazy. It’s time to say something, really because he’s saying things that he really shouldn’t be saying. They aren’t fair.”

Tipton continued: “He’s insinuated that he was the driving force of the band. It just isn’t true. Priest (is) made up of five guys working together. (There’s) not just one person driving the band. He’s said all these things that, I think, are meant to upset us and get us to say something in response and for a long time we didn’t. But I’ve got a lot to say and enough’s enough.”

Although it’s been over a decade since Downing’s departure from Judas Priest, he’s been pretty outspoken about about the band ever since. He got intensely personal last year, claiming that Tipton’s drinking was “slowing (Priest) down.”

“Everyone knows it’s not true,” Tipton countered. “Like I said, the fans aren’t stupid and they’ve seen me for 50 years playing around the world. I may have had a couple of beers onstage, but that’s all. It’s never affected the concert or my performance whatsoever and he knows that.”

“I would never have talked about Ken that way,” he added. “It’s just that his accusations have gotten sillier and sillier – and I deserve to respond. He left the band. We couldn’t convince him to stay. And then he accused me of taking six years off to write two solo albums. I only did the solo albums because we were inactive at the time while Rob was doing his solo things.”