JUDAS PRIEST guitarist K.K. Downing has issued a new video blog in which he offers a 2009 wrap-up, as well as holiday greetings. Check out the video clip below.

In related seasonal Priest news, singer ROB HALFORD's version of the Christmas classic 'Silent Night' recorded in 1992 is now available for the first time at Halfordmusic.com.

Halford spoke to BraveWords.com recently about the 'Silent Night' cover, which was a precursor to the Metal God's new festive album, Halford III: Winter Songs.

"Around the first FIGHT record I made a handful of CDs of a song called 'Silent Night' just for family and friends," Halford revealed. "And I did that song for radio many years ago called 'Christmas Ride'. So both of those experiences had been kind of locked away in the metal memory banks but never really disappeared. So each time successive Christmases would come along I would say, 'oh, God, I’ve done this again.' I really wanted to try and get something out this year, you know, and again for the obvious reasons of being immersed with all the metal around me, I just didn’t have the time or the window or the opportunity to make it all happen. But anyway, the decision was made a long time ago. What do you think about this? Do you think it’s cool? Are you up for it? Do you believe in it? What do you think we’re gonna do? And everybody ran to the idea and once it got the thumbs up, then the slow piecing process bit by bit started to come together over a couple of years. And you know, when you say a couple of years, that wasn’t like two years of intensity, that was just really the guys - Metal Mike (Chlasciak - guitar) and Roy Z (guitar) and Bobby (Jarzombek - drums) and Mike (Davis - bass) - finding time in their own schedules, their own busy schedules, to put all of these ideas together as a band."

Read more of BraveWords.com's festive chat with Rob Halford at this location.