AS THEY PREPARE for the release of their 19th album, Invincible Shield, Judas Priest are still pondering the randomness of life and the frailty of the human condition. Since the release of their 2018’s blowtorch-to-the-face record, Firepower, most of the guys in the band have been anything but invincible. Vocalist Rob Halford has battled and seems to have beaten prostate cancer; guitarist Glenn Tipton continues to struggle with a debilitating case of Parkinson’s disease, which six years ago ended his ability to tour. And lead guitarist Richie Faulkner vividly remembers suffering an aortic aneurysm on September 26, 2021, while Priest were playing the Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky.
“It’s crazy to think I easily could have died then and there,” says Faulkner, who assumed pole position for the writing and recording of Invincible Shield and worked closely with Tipton to voice guitar ideas the guitar hero can no longer play. “If the hospital wasn’t so close to the venue and they didn’t have one of the leading heart surgery teams in the country, I definitely wouldn’t have made it.”
Faulkner’s survival and rapid recovery has been nothing short of miraculous, even with the intensive follow-up procedures he underwent and the continued precautions he has to undertake. “Overall, my chest and everything is all fine,” Faulkner says. “I had to go back in again in 2022 to have another open-heart procedure, but that’s all fine and cleared up. One of the only side effects now is I have to play a bit more regularly. I’m not a young man anymore. I can’t leave the guitar for two weeks and then come back and be right up to speed. I have to stay on top of my playing, and some of that is a result of what happened. But as far as heart damage and the aorta stuff around it, it’s all fixed. And everything is kept at bay with
