Asked in a brand new interview with “Full In Bloom”, KK Downing was asked if he has had any contact with his former bandmates in recent months, Downing said:
“There’s not any love left for me, I’m afraid, in the camp, it seems to be. And it’s as simple as that. When I left, I made it clear that I wasn’t happy and who I wasn’t happy with and why. And then, obviously, I burned my bridges by doing that, because once you’re out, you’re not being let back in.”
He further added:
“Glenn decided to step down, and the minute he did, he passed the guitar to Andy, who was there, and he said, ‘You’ve got the job,'” Downing said. “So there was never an option for me… When Glenn stepped down, it would have been an option for me to step back in, because I was ready to do it, really, is what I think. I mean, Richie covers Glenn‘s parts now anyway. He even plays ‘Painkiller’ — Richie does — and does a great job of it. It would have made sense for me to step back in and take my role as someone who has a 40-year legacy of standing in that spot. If there was an option — if there was a remote option — that that could have been done, then those guys, for the sake of the fans, should really have asked the question, ‘Is it an option?’ But they didn’t. It’s sad that it came to that.”
Had the choice of bringing Downing back to PRIEST ever been presented to Halford, Hill and Travis, “I think that [they] would have welcomed it, because it seems to make eminent sense,” K.K. said. “To get the fans to accept a brand new guy or a guy that was there, the originator from day one that’s written all of those songs and played all of those solos, it doesn’t make any sense to bring someone in that’s essentially more of a great producer than anything else.”
“Given the choice, Rob, Ian and Scott, I believe, would have certainly entertained the idea of having me step back in the band, if there wasn’t something preventing them to do so,” he said. “I don’t know what influences there are, but I’ve always had a very, very good relationship with Rob, Ian and Scott — always. Me and Ian were just brothers.
“A lot of things went on in the band that us collectively were not happy with — me, Rob, Scott and Ian,” he explained. “For a long time, collectively, we were not happy. We were joint, we were as one for some years towards the end. And so, there must be some power that I don’t know about that’s not doing things the way they should be done.”