Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner suffered an aortic aneurysm on stage at Louder Than Life on September 26. Faulkner was immediately rushed to the hospital and underwent a successful 10-plus hour operation. He's since been sent home and is recovering. Now in an interview with Heavy Consequence, Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford said he's been talking to Faulkner and thinks he's doing very well.
"The good news is he's healing, and his therapy will be picking up the guitar and getting back into these new songs for [Judas Priest] and getting ready for the next batch of road work. I've had a couple of conversations with him, and he sounds great. I'm waiting to hear that he's picked up the guitar — he's probably picked up the guitar already and his doctors are saying, 'Put that guitar down!'"
Halford also said he hasn't seen the footage of Faulkner experiencing the start of the aneurysm during the "Painkiller" solo, and adds that it's amazing Faulkner made it.
"I'm still shook up, emotionally. Eventually I'll try to watch the footage, but [Faulkner] says in his own words when he looked at that footage he sees a dying man, which is basically what it was."
"And it's just incredible that he got through that song and he came to the dressing room and he got changed. Even after the paramedics told him he needs to go the hospital and get a proper look at the stuff, he was like, 'Yeah, I'll be back. I'm going home for a couple days after this show, I'll see you guys in Denver' and walked out the door and then probably less than an hour later he was having over 10 hours of heart surgery. It's just unbelievable."
As always, we wish Faulkner all the best in his recovery.
