The strange thing about Judas Priest's schism with co-founding guitarist K.K. Downing is that it only began playing out publicly years after it actually occurred.
It's now at least four years since Downing and Judas Priest began sparring in the press. In a new interview, Glenn Tipton has claimed that for all of Downing's complaints about the current state of Judas Priest, he's never actually asked to return.
"He never approached any of the band and asked to rejoin, so for all we know, he didn't want to rejoin," Tipton tells Guitar World in a new interview. "He said he wanted to leave the band and then leave the music industry. He told us he was desperate for a new kind of life.
"Right before we got [guitarist Richie Faulkner], Ian [Hill] said, 'If you really want to come back, you'd better come back now' because we were moving on. But he didn't do anything. He didn't ask to come back. And then after he was out, he said all sort of ridiculous things. He tried to take credit for just about everything — the stage clothes, the image, the songwriting. He refers to them as his songs."
Downing left Judas Priest in 2011 and largely stayed out of public view until announcing his memoir in 2018. Around the same time, Tipton announced that he would no longer be performing full-time with Judas Priest due to advancing Parkinson's Disease.
Upon hearing that Tipton would be replaced by touring guitarist and producer Andy Sneap, Downing suggested he should have been invited back to Judas Priest so the band could retain some semblance of its classic lineup. It set off a public sparring match between Downing, Tipton, Priest frontman Rob Halford and co-founding bassist Ian Hill.
In 2020, Downing announced that he was starting his own band, K.K.'s Priest, with other former members of Judas Priest to write a new album and perform classic Judas Priest material.
Despite the splintering, it remains a strong possibility that Downing, Tipton, Halford and Hill will put it all aside if they are inducted this year into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
As frustrated as Halford has been with his former bandmate, the singer has consistently assured fans that he believes everyone would play nice for the Rock Hall festivities if Judas Priest is honored at long last.