Interview with Tim “Ripper” Owens

Over 20 years ago Tim “Ripper” Owens was discovered singing in a Judas Priest covers band and handed the dream opportunity to front Judas Priest themselves following the departure of Rob Halford. Owens recorded two studio albums with Priest before Halford returned. He would go on to sing with Iced Earth, Beyond Fear and Yngwie Malmsteen amongst others.

During his first solo tour of the UK in which he performed an entirely Judas Priest based set, Mick Burgess caught up with Owens in Newcastle for a chat about his time in Priest and what it meant to him to perform in such an iconic band. As well as looking back Owens spoke of the future in particular mouth watering new bands with Dave Ellefson from Megadeth and Savatage’s Chris Caffery who both have albums due out soon.

Author

Mick Burgess

Mick is a reviewer and photographer here at Metal Express Radio, based in the North-East of England. He first fell in love with music after hearing Jeff Wayne's spectacular The War of the Worlds in the cold winter of 1978. Then in the summer of '79 he discovered a copy of Kiss Alive II amongst his sister’s record collection, which literally blew him away! He then quickly found Van Halen I and Rainbow's Down To Earth, and he was well on the way to being rescued from Top 40 radio hell! Over the ensuing years, he's enjoyed the Classic Rock music of Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, and Deep Purple; the AOR of Journey and Foreigner; the Pomp of Styx and Kansas; the Progressive Metal of Dream Theater, Queensrÿche, and Symphony X; the Goth Metal of Nightwish, Within Temptation, and Epica, and a whole host of other great bands that are too numerous to mention. When he's not listening to music, he watches Sunderland lose more football (soccer) matches than they win, and occasionally, if he has to, he goes to work as a property lawyer.
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