Ex-Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing shares what he thinks is the main reason why bands fail internally

Ex-Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing shares what he thinks is the main reason why bands fail internally

Former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing was recently interviewed by Mark Michaels for The Cosmick View. Downing left Judas Priest back in 2012 and has campaigned to get back in the band in the last year or so.

In terms of what he thinks is the main reason why bands fail internally, Downing opined:

“Well I think that when we were young, when bands are young, they go through the motions and aspiring to do what they want to do, you know, become rock stars and to play on the world’s big stages and everything, and you’re doing that together…you know everything’s great because everybody’s got no money, usually (laughs) and so we’re all the same. We’re all as one. The drummer, the bass player, the singer…we are all equal. And we go forward because we’re fighting in the trenches for the same thing. We are able to earn money to earn success and stuff like that and adoration. And then when it comes about that’s when I think probably the divide starts to happen…you know, the so-called pecking order starts to implement itself. Inevitably you get stronger characters, weaker characters and then the divide starts to happen I think.

And then when the money starts to come in, then maybe somebody thinks well I deserve more of that money than the rest of the guys. So you get all of that thrown in bagging itself. I would say to bands that everyone needs to set their stall out to start with. But then again having said all that nobody earns anything unless you start to learn the business because that’s what happened with us. I don’t think we started to earn money until we started to have a reasonable knowledge of the business and how it works. And that’s what needs to happen…you know because it’s very easy to get taken advantage of. There’s absolutely no doubt about that. And most bands in existence today could probably confess to that, yes, we thought and trusted people and we were wrong to do that.”

You can read the rest of the interview with K.K. Downing at The Cosmick View‘s website.