Martin Popoff and "Metal" Tim Henderson from BraveWords.com spoke with JUDAS PRIEST guitar legend K.K. Downing recently in Toronto as the band were gearing up for another night of forging the furnace with their classic British Steel opus live. The entire Q&A; reads as follows:

BraveWords.com: Let's start off with the British Steel tour of 2009…

Downing: "You know, in all honesty, you come around year after year and you do stuff, and it’s all been great, but it seems that… I think you will see for yourself tonight what I’m talking about. There’s just like a special atmosphere, something different about this tour, and also it’s not like just picking up where we left off, if you know what I mean. I think it’s all down to… it’s hard to put your finger on it, but I think the set, what we are playing, has been a real surprise, because most of the stuff that we are playing is not exactly the same old, same old. You know, unlike a lot of bands in the industry, we often try to get away from the predictable 'You’ve Got Another Thing Coming', 'Living After Midnight', 'Breaking The Law', whatever it might be, but this concentration of these types of songs that people know and love, and one after another, it definitely creates a special magic. And definitely, because of the response and the reaction from the audience, I mean, I know we have a great show as well. We brought back lasers, we’ve got a real cool dramatic opening and all of that sort of stuff, but just to kick off with something like 'Rapid Fire' and that, and from then on it kind of just builds. And you think to yourself, you try so hard to put a great set list together every single time, and we thought we had a great set list at the beginning of the year in Europe with MEGADETH and TESTAMENT, but it just doesn’t really have that magic that people really… it just seems that it’s what they want."

BraveWords.com: What were the key changes between then and now?

Downing: "Well, basically the whole of British Steel. People get themselves up and psych themselves up that this is what they’re going to get. And as much as we’ve always tried to surprise the audience with this or that, I think what people know and love, seemingly goes down a lot better. And my whole theory stands good on this, is that people pay the concert ticket to see and hear the songs they know and love, not the songs that they weren’t too sure of or didn’t know too well. And that’s why when you play stuff off the new record, it’s particularly tough for a lot of bands. I think it’s great having WHITESNAKE. For some reason we go very, very well together. I mean, that was proved when we played South America with those guys a couple years ago, and we played to 40, 50, 60,000 people. We get on really well with those guys, and just the combination of the bands just brings about just the right audience, I think, for Priest."

BraveWords.com: But this is a birthday party without the candles. This is a huge celebration.

Downing: "I think people have just picked up on, we’re going to go there, we’re going to turn the clock back with Priest, and they pick up on it and they’re good with it, and you can just tell from the minute, or the second, that the lights go down, and the start of it. And of course when we appear, we’re doing it as we did way back when, and we look into the audience now, and yes, there are a lot of youngsters there, but there are awful lot of people who are of an age in their '40s and '50s, like we are, and there’s no doubt about it. And the timing is just right. Because when they were teenagers, swigging their first beer or having their first blow jobs, they were rocking out to the songs 30 years ago, so now, you know, they were probably 12, 13, 14, 15, whatever age it was, and they now are celebrating that particular time and turning back the clock. And just definitely… well, obviously we’re in Canada now. We’re in a different country, if you like, but I’m sure the effect is going to be the same. In the world of music, I’ve always been a great believer that… because people always say to us, ‘Oh, who’s the greatest metal audience in the world?’ Well we just can’t say that. You can’t say, because people react to what they’ve seen here the same all over the world, really, and if they’re into rock and metal, the reaction is just as strong and just as passionate."

BraveWords.com: OK, what was the magic of British Steel?

Downing: "Yeah, that’s where I was going, because even though Priest had the attitude, had the music, we were always wanting to make the record that epitomized what is Judas Priest, you know, like the look and the sound. The look was the thing that we were still struggling with a little bit, you know what I mean? But it all came together for the British Steel thing. The record came together, and the look and the image of the band… suddenly, it was leather, studs, motorcycles, fucking whatever. And that’s what happened, is that suddenly we had that. We had just found what the future was for Judas Priest, which was the beginning of the ‘80s. We had come over to this continent, in ‘78, I think, or it may have been ‘79, but there were hints of things that we were doing, but then everybody was clad in leather and studs, and that was it - we couldn’t get enough of it, you know what I mean? More leather! More studs! More motorbikes, more all of this, Rob Halford and the bullwhip and this, that and the other."

BraveWords.com: Musically, was there a feeling that you were hitting people sort of right between the eyes, instead of going over their heads? Because those are pretty cerebral albums before that.

Downing: "Like you say, there was a certain commerciality with the British Steel record, but don’t forget, we had been coming to America, and as much as people are passionate about their rock and their metal, we didn’t want to be THE GRATEFUL DEAD, you know what I mean? We’re people who like to rock out and have some fun, drink beer (laughs). Hence, 'Living After Midnight' and 'Breaking The Law' - fun things! And the good thing is, it was a record that moved on, wasn’t it? Boom boom boom, and nothing too long-winded, nothing too pretentious, no fucking long-winded solos. Intricate stuff. It was, for the time, just in-your-face, here we are, we’re here, we’re metal, but like, don’t be afraid, we’re here to fucking party out."

BraveWords.com: On the Classic Album DVD, when you guys were revealing the cutlery drawer, during 'Metal Gods', it was a little strange for us diehard fans to swallow - using everyday appliances to create the sound of marching metal! It should be a secret!

Downing: "Yeah, but you know, it has been a secret for a long time, but the way the world is now, everything comes out. Because if we didn’t say it and we lied about it, you know, ‘Yeah man, we were just smoking a bit of a dope and these aliens came down, with all this machinery, and we put a mic on it, man…’"

BraveWords.com: Or we tore these swords off of Ringo’s wall (British Steel was recorded at Tittenhurst Park, home of former BEATLE Ringo Starr).

Downing: "Yeah, and sooner or later, somebody, the tea boy from the studio, ‘No, not quite. Someone was shaking a cutlery drawer.’ And then you look like a real twat, you know what I mean? So if I’ve learned one thing in this industry, tell it as it is, because for better or worse, it’s going to come out sooner or later."

BraveWords.com: How about just a quick word on the live album. I mean, quite an eclectic song mix there? What’s the tone, what’s the vibe of the record?

Downing: "That was just totally out there. Just some recordings that were recorded all over the world since Rob came back. It’d come to our attention that we’ve only done a couple of live records, and I think we needed to punctuate certain parts of the band’s career with a live performance, and we suddenly realized that the vast majority of that wasn’t out there in live format. So we weren’t fussy about it, we just put it together and put it out there, and hoping that people are going to like it. Because I mean, we all heard it and we thought, cool, yeah, it is what it is. I mean, we didn’t go anywhere near it, really. We let Tom mix the recordings from the desk."