Richie Faulkner recently spoke with SweetwaterSound about the next Judas Priest record, and he has exciting news for their die hard fan base. According to the guitarist, the band won’t tour again until 2018, but they are looking to enter the studio in January to begin recording their eighteenth studio album! Here’s his full update: “We’ve just been in the studio for a couple of months putting songs together. We haven’t started the recording process yet, but we’re recording demos; we’re recording songs that work without the production to save them, if you know what I mean. But the core value… We’re putting down some grassroots ideas and fleshing them out for the next Priest record. So we’re gonna go into the studio to start recording in January. So it should be out sometime next year. But we’re not touring next year. So we’re gonna be touring, hopefully, in 2018.”

Enjoy the new interview with Richie Faulkner below, and get excited for the new Judas Priest tunes coming our way in 2017! All hail Priest!