UK metal gods JUDAS PRIEST - Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton, Ian Hill, Scott Travis, and new guitarist Richie Faulkner - met with the members of the media in at the Renaissance Hotel at Highland and Hollywood in Los Angeles, CA on May 24th. Quotes and comments from the conference are available below courtesy of Ultimate-Guitar.com:

Q: You have called the Epitaph Tour your final world tour. Will the band continue making music when the tour is over?

Tipton: "It’s not the end of the band by any means but it is our last world tour. It takes a big chunk out of your life—it’s 18 months really we’ll be out there and we’ve been doing it for nearly 40 years now. It’s not to say that it will be our last show and we certainly will—and have—been recording. So the chances are there will be an album as well next year. We would never turn down the appropriate dates if we were offered them at some point in the future. But it will be our last world tour—it’s probably the last chance most people will get to see Judas Priest live. We want to go out one final time and play our songs and just be together with the audience."

Halford: "What we’ve said is you know when the cowboy rides into the sunset on his horse and it looks really cool? Well, we want to do the same things on our bikes, on our motorbikes, but we don’t want to fall off. I think unfortunately there’s kind of an area in show business when you really need to look at what you got and what you’ve done and be proud of it and then make that exit in a really classy way and that’s what we’re attempting to do."

Q: You mentioned you have been working on new songs?

Tipton: "We used quite a mixed bag and we’ve concentrated on two things: the archetypal Priest double-kick screaming tracks and really there’s more sentiment in this album. In a way, I suppose it’s also our farewell album although it might not be our last one. There are some anthems on there, which pay tribute to our fans and it’s our way of saying thank you and the lyrics relate to that—just saying thank you to the fans for all the years."

Halford: "It’s been a real pleasure to write it because at this point if there’s anything left to prove, there really isn’t anything left to prove. We’ve been there, done that, and got the t-shirt type of thing. But I think what really is important is we still have this desire, this passion and it hasn’t diminished in nearly 40 years. We still have this tremendous love of what we do in heavy metal music and the fans that have supported us are the constant inspiration. I think we all agree that we very happy with the way that Nostradamus came out and it was a great moment for us because we had been waiting forever to make this concept record. And that’s not the end with Nostradamus—we have other ideas we want to explore later. But we wanted to make at least, as Glenn said, one more great metal album that really has all the great traditions and attributes of Priest in the music. And we think we’ve got that down pretty much."

Go to this location for the complete transcription from the press conference. Photos of the event courtesy of Metal Assault's Jennifer N. Martinez can be viewed here.

Footage from the conference,also courtesy of Metal Assault, can be viewed below: