Judas Priest to tour as four-piece with guitarist Andy Sneap out of the line-up

Judas Priest to tour as four-piece with guitarist Andy Sneap out of the line-up

After a 50 year run operating s a five-member band with two guitarists in their line-up, Judas Priest will apparently  be touring as a four-piece band during the resumption of their 50th year anniversary tour. Guitarist Andy Sneap is the odd man out as Judas Priest will be touring without him. Back in February 2018, Judas Priest announced that long-time guitarist Glenn Tipton was unable to tour due to his issues stemming from Parkinson’s Disease and Sneap was named as his replacement.

Judas Priest‘s statement indicates (as per Louder Sound):

“Hello maniacs!

We are chomping at the British Steel bit to return to world touring… celebrating 50 years of Judas Priest as an an even more powerful, relentless four piece heavy metal band – with Glenn coming out on stage with us here and there as before. Big thanks to Andy for all you’ve done and continuing to be in the production team for our new album… See you all soon headbangers!”

Sneap reportedly responded with the following statement to Blabbermouth about the developments:

“Rob called me last Monday and said they wanted to move on as a four-piece, which I find incredibly disappointing after this amount of time but I respect his decision as they obviously have a vision how they want this to play out.”

“This always was a temporary situation, and like I’ve said before, I’ll always help the band any way I can, and that applies going forward also.”

“I’ve been a huge fan of the band since the early ’80s and it was mind-blowing to play onstage with the guys and quite frankly terrifying in the beginning at such short notice.”

“We are moving forward with the new album next month and look forward to making a killer follow-up to ‘Firepower’.”