During a brand new interview with the Goldmine magazine podcast, Faulkner was asked about Downing‘s comments and the circumstances that led to PRIEST‘s decision to enlist Sneap for the “Firepower” world tour.
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“There’s lots of reasons why Andy makes sense [as Glenn‘s replacement on tour],” Richie said. “I saw the statement [from] K.K. And the general consensus seems to be that K.K. left. As far as I’m aware, the band gave him a grace period and they wanted him to come back and they wanted him to stay initially, and he didn’t want anything to do with it. So why the band should ask him to come back, I’m not quite sure what he thinks. But there’s lots of different facets that go into these sort of decisions, both to get Andy in and lots of other things. There’s a lot of personal reasons — all those sorts of things. It’s not as clear cut as the Internet has you believe. There’s a lot more that goes into it, and I think people understand that as well, if they gave it some thought. But, you know, we’re forging forward.”
Richie also talked about the fact that PRIEST didn’t announce Tipton‘s retirement from the road until a month before the launch of the “Firepower” tour.
“On the Internet, you get people saying, ‘Oh, why didn’t they tell us earlier on? I already bought my ticket.’ Well, if you think about it, the reason we didn’t say anything earlier was because Glenn was fighting it until the last minute,” Faulkner explained. “He was going through it and he was giving back a thousand percent with this disease for the fans. And it was at the last minute in rehearsals where he had to put his hand up and make one of the biggest decisions in his life.
And music aside, tour aside, it’s hard to look over and see your brother suffering, health-wise, like that. Forget the music and forget the tour, [our] brother [was] struggling and it was hard for us all to see. So we knew he was struggling with it on [the] ‘Redeemer [Of Souls]’ [tour], but he pulled his stuff together and he got better. And it was great, and we encouraged him, but this time was a bit different. So we all got in a room together. It was all very close, very intimate, very heartfelt — it was emotional, as you can imagine. But it was a band of brothers, and we’re all behind him, and we can see the fans are too. There’s been an overwhelming sense of love and support for Glenn. And that’s the great thing about the Internet — you can get that connection straight away, and people can voice and show their love for that sort of thing. It’s a great thing.”
Via Blabbermouth.com