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JUDAS PRIEST - K.K. Gets Violent!
by Martin Popoff

Hard at work on Nostradamus? No, of course not.... Well, yes, but half of Priest's axes of evil, K.K. Downing, also took some time off to play on and executive-produce an album by consummate Yngwie Malmsteen bassist Mick Cervino and his band Violent Storm. The long-awaited Storm Warning turned out to be a smart piece of work (see my 8.5 review in our Hard Reviews archive), and even without the big shot guests - K.K., Yngwie, Roy Z... each so massive of might that no last names are necessary - critical praise of the record's eccentric metal moves would be forthcoming.

"Yes, I really enjoyed it," says Downing, of this unexpected resume-enhancer of a project. "I didn't anticipate getting in that deep to start with. I was just asked to play a couple of solos and one thing led to another, and when I heard the music, I thought, well, this is really cool; this new band doing this metal that I can relate to. I figure I'd see if I could help any way I could."

Explains K.K. about the initial contact, "Literally, we were on tour with Priest, and those guys were living down in Miami, and we were playing a gig in Miami, so we were just hanging out backstage, and that was it. I guess, maybe a year later, I was actually in Spain, and the Yngwie Malmsteen band was playing, obviously with Mick, in Barcelona. We got on a plane, because I was bored and needed some sun. I was down there, good-looking girls, good beer, loads of sun, but no metal. So me and a buddy jumped on a plane and went to Barcelona." (OK, something there doesn't make sense, but you get the picture... and quite a picture it is indeed!).

"We went to the gig, and we were kind of hanging around again, backstage, having a few beers I think. And I think it might've been then, Mick said he was doing an album, and would I fancy trying a couple solos? And of course, a couple beers later, 'Sure, Mick!' Anyway, he sent me a couple of songs, and that's when I first heard this and thought yeah, this is cool, and it went on from there, really."

Eventually, K.K. got Roy Z. involved, Roy, having worked on Angel Of Retribution, the Halford band stuff, with Bruce Dickinson, the new Priest album, and... well, now he's Metal Mike's co-guitarist in Halford.

JUDAS PRIEST - K.K. Gets Violent! Page 2