JUDAS PRIEST guitarist K.K. Downing took time to answer some fan questions recently. A few excerpts located on his Steel Mill website (under February 2008) follow:

Q: How are the Knucklebonz sculptures of you and Glenn (Tipton - guitar) coming along? Have you seen the finished product, and do you approve? Are they from the same era as the Rob Halford figure ('80's)? Also is a Nostradamus tour with material exclusively from that album played in its entirety still planned? And then a separate "classic" Priest tour still planned?

Downing: "I have only seen Rob’s statue in its finished state and it’s pretty cool. I am still looking forward to getting mine. We will soon be on tour playing songs that many people have been waiting for and also we will be including some tasters from Nostradamus. If all goes well I think it would be pretty cool to do a tour later performing the whole concept album."

Q: How much do you rehearse before a tour? Do you determine the set list before the start of the rehearsals, or do you rehearse a number of songs and compose a set list out of those songs? As I understand (conclusions drawn from various interviews) you're about to play whole of (and nothing but) the new album on the upcoming summer tour. Are you going to perform a new tour with JP classics after the Nostradamus tour?

Downing: "We try not to over rehearse so as to keep things fresh, we usually decide on the bulk of the songs before hand but if someone makes a suggestion we will give it a go. For the moment we are planning to tour with classics but with some Nostradamus, then possibly tour again playing the entire Nostradamus spectacle."

Q: Do you feel that in the present information society, people require to have new information as soon as possible? With internet you can present every single step taken forward in the progress of writing a new album. I get the impression that you (JP) go the other way: you reveal almost nothing about what's happening. Other bands present almost every step that they make, put new songs onto the web etc. I can't say that it's wrong to be very secret, but it's a contrast to the enormous possibility to present information.

Downing: "Yes maybe a lot of bands think that doing it that way they get more exposure but I prefer to do it the old way because I remember the excitement that I had when rushing to the store to buy a record that I had been waiting so eagerly for and playing it for the first time. It was such a rush, by giving people updates nearly every day somehow takes the excitement away for me. Also just making the record takes us more hours in the day than we have."