K.K. DOWNING Interview Page 2
from BW&BK Magazine
How many songs are there in the can?
"I think there are 18, but there are a lot of links between songs. There are lots of instrumental parts, so it's a full-on musical really."
What about orchestration?
"Yes, there's going to be orchestration. It's all myself and Glenn putting it together. We dabbled with Midi Guitars back in the '80s, with the Turbo (1986) album. Now things have moved on a lot and now we've got some pretty high tech gear. The tracking is very good, so we can put the orchestrations together ourselves. Also, we've always dabbled with keyboards as well. Godin, the guitar company from Quebec, I've been using those for about a year and that's working out really well. They are the best people in the world if you want Midi converters on an instrument. So we can actually play their guitars and go through a Roland or Axiom interface. It can sound like anything you know. We're getting all these really heavy, orchestral sounds and stuff."
Are any outside orchestrations being considered or will it strictly be all Priest?
"We're taking about that. We don't really know. What we do know is what we're putting together sounds really, really good you know. Obviously we want to go out and play and perform this concept in it's entirety. Hopefully this will be the first ever metal opera in a sense. We're talking staging now as well. We're look forward to putting on a great show with this music. Who knows what's going to happen yet. We'll release the record and maybe go out on tour. Maybe play a couple of songs off the new record. It would be nice to tour with this record, once we establish with the people whether they like it or not."
Have you encountered any problems with this massive undertaking considering you announced the project last April?
"No, actually. We're pretty confident ... quietly confident. The only question is the level of acceptance, because everybody, probably just want another Priest record you know! All of those ingredients will be in the record anyway."
