JUDAS PRIEST drummer Scott Travis told NJArts.net in a new interview that he is confident fans will find plenty to like on the band’s latest album, “Firepower”. “It’s 14 tracks and people have the leisure to listen to it if they want to, and in what capacity they want to,” he said. “They should live with this one for a while, because it’s a lot to take in at first, but there is a lot of good, different stuff on there. [Guitarist] Richie [Faulkner] hasn’t done 15 or 18 PRIEST records like the other guys, so he obviously has a lot of ideas and input. We re-employed Tom Allom and he produced some of the most respectable and successful PRIEST records, ‘Screaming For Vengeance’ and ‘British Steel’, so he’s rejoined us and is back on board. And then Andy Sneap, who is more of a modern producer. So it is the best of both worlds, and everything came together.”

Travis added that PRIEST employed a slightly different approach on “Firepower” than it did on 2014’s “Redeemer Of Souls”.

“This time around, we went back to a more organic recording state. We went in a room with a guy with the guitar plugged in and a bass player plugged in and Rob [Halford] in the booth doing some scratch vocals or something, but we actually were playing with the guys that we were making the record with. We had gotten away from that a bit, but we brought it all back with fury.”

He continued: “There’s going to be ebbs and flows with the timing and/or togetherness, but rather than correct everything on a computer with Pro Tools, where you’re ‘mixing with your eyes’ — which is a phrase that I’d never heard; it means that you make sure everything is lined up perfectly but then it sounds like it was done by a robot — we mixed with our ears. And there’s nuances in there, but we’re gonna leave them because that’s how it came across when we recorded it.”

“Firepower” was released on March 9 via Epic.

The North American leg of the “Firepower” tour will kick off on March 13 in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania and will wrap on May 1 in San Antonio, Texas.

JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Glenn Tipton, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 10 years ago, recently announced he was going to sit out touring activities in support of “Firepower”. He will be replaced on tour by Sneap, also known for his work in NWOBHM revivalists HELL and cult thrash outfit SABBAT.