Journalist / author Martin Popoff is featured in a new interview with former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing's Steel Mill website. Steel Mill’s own Priest professor Jari had a chat with his Canadian counterpart, Popoff, who, among tens of other titles, has written three excellent books about Judas Priest.

In the following excerpt, Popoff explains how Judas Priest came into his life:

"Magic moment, to be sure! I can’t remember if I was working there yet at the time, as I would’ve been 13, but I do believe I started working at Rock Island Tape Centre at that age, a stereo, and TV store with a pretty healthy record department, which I ran, or me and my partner in crime, Forrest Toop ran when we worked together, but I definitely do remember that Sad Wings Of Destiny was picked up there. I remember thinking, this could be not very heavy Christian rock, or maybe it is something heavy. No expectations beyond that.

"We got home and had a listening party, and instantly Judas Priest were at the top of all of our lists, those dozens of lists you would do sitting around the kitchen table about best this and best that. I remember we almost worked ourselves into a lather that it was otherworldly or imbued by the power of Satan or something, because it was a little religious and a little creepy and more importantly than that, way too skilled for a bunch of nobodies. Remember it was timeless too. Outside of the electricity and the references to the Ripper, it could have been medieval music. It’s pretty much exactly the same uneasy feeling we had when we heard Mercyful Fate’s Melissa album. You must’ve sold your soul to the devil if you are this good and you are nobodies.

"Decades later, only a few years ago, I finally saw those ads in Melody Maker or Sounds, whatever it is, for the album, that said something like “the heaviest band in Britain.” So damn true. Even though there were two completely quiet songs on it, the rest of the album is essentially the most advanced heavy metal on the planet."

Read the complete interview here.