In a new interview with Goldmine, Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover discusses his production work, particularly his work with Judas Priest on their Sin After Sin album from 1977. Read an excerpt below:

Goldmine: You have done wonderful production work. One of my favourite albums — and you’ve claimed that you went into it as a salvage job — was Judas Priest’s Sin After Sin. It’s a wonderful album and it sounds great. I’ve read where you came in and you thought it was the “worst crap” you ever heard, but when you left everything seemed fine.

Roger: “It wasn’t quite like that. I went to rehearsal to meet the band and there was a bit of uneasiness about the situation so I talked to the band after spending the afternoon listening to their new songs and I said, “You don’t seem to be too happy with me being here.” And they said, “Well, we rather produce ourselves.” I said, “Well, fine. I don’t want to waste your time or my time on having a situation that’s untenable.” So I walked away from the project. I said good luck, I wish you luck, the songs are great, and this that and the other.

“And it was later that they called up — Glenn (Tipton) called me — and said “Are you free?” I said “Well, what’s the deal?” He said, “Well, we fired the drummer and the recordings we’ve made, we are not really too sure of. Can you come down to the studio and maybe help out a bit?” And I said sure. But “You fired the drummer?” He said, “Yeah, we have a session drummer called Simon Phillips.” And I said. “Well, I know Simon he’s a good friend of mine. I’ve worked with him. He’s a brilliant drummer.” And we only had limited time. We had to finish the album in six days. And since Simon is an ultimate professional, he learned the work very quickly.

“Listening to what Judas Priest would become a few years later, Sin After Sin is a much more contained, much more a studio sounding album, not just swamped in echo with big riffs and things. Judas Priest were evolving at that time. Maybe I should have embraced their vision a bit more but we didn’t have time to think about it. We had to get it done. But, yeah, I listen to it now and I’m pretty pleased with it as well.”

Read more at Goldmine.