Nostradamus, released in 2008, was criticized by fans for not sounding like classic Judas Priest and for being dominated by slow, doomy, operatic, keyboard-heavy anthems, aside from a couple of token mid-tempo songs. While some people enjoy it, others do not. In a new interview with Chris Akin Presents, Judas Priest bassist Ian Hill discussed why the band made the album.
When asked if there have been any albums he and his bandmates regretted making after their release, including Priest’s controversial symphonic heavy metal concept album Nostradamus and the synth-heavy Turbo, Hill responded:
“Yeah, you do with hindsight… Point Of Entry was probably the first time we took a sidestep and went a little more commercial. We thought maybe that’s where we should be heading. We went into it with the best of intentions, but of course, it received mixed reviews. After that, we came back with Screaming For Vengeance and others. Then with Turbo, it’s funny because by the time we got to Defenders Of The Faith, we had almost reached the end of the line. We could have easily done another Defenders, but we wouldn’t have progressed. Roland came along with these great guitar synthesizers and offered us first dibs. We thought, ‘Well, maybe this is it.’ So we did that, and again, it lost us a lot of fans but also gained us a lot of new ones. It balanced out from a commercial perspective. Then we went harder with Ram It Down and Painkiller, and that’s been the path ever since.”
Hill continued: “But, yeah, we’ve had a couple of sidesteps. Nostradamus was probably something we needed to get out of our system. It’s one of those albums — very long, very complicated — and it’s meant to be listened to in one sitting. That’s one of the reasons we don’t play any songs from that record live. It’s great — at its heart, it’s a great heavy metal record — but it’s about finding the songs that fit into our set. There’s nothing from Nostradamus that would enhance the set right now. We could play a song from it, but it wouldn’t help the set in any other way. When putting together a setlist, you have to find the right blend of new material, old favorites that you’d get lynched for not playing, and other tracks from the catalog. It gets harder with each album because every new song means dropping someone’s favorite. But we do our best, and I think we’ve managed it pretty well so far.”
