On the evening of May 8, 2008, Guitar World was honored to have Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton and KK Downing from Judas Priest come to the office for an interview and photo shoot. The band was in NYC to promote Nostradamus, their highly ambitious and theatrical new two-disc set, coming June 17.

  
K.K. & editor Rich Bienstock
The guys were all in good spirits and stayed in the office until close to 9:00 p.m. to make sure we had everything we needed for a feature in the magazine. Our photo editor and ace photographer, Jimmy Hubbard, handled the photo shoot, while senior editor Richard Bienstock conducted the interview.

You can see Bienstock (or at least his curly mop of hair) here talking with K.K. Downing about K.K.'s interesting new KxK guitar. As you can see from the close-up shot of the guitar, it has no front-side knobs! There's a volume control on the back (K.K.'s right hand is over it in the one picture), and when he gets back home to the U.K. he's going to have his guitar tech drill a hole on the front so he can move it to a more normal position. The one knob will handle volume and pickup controls via push-pull mechanism.

  
K.K.'s KxK guitar
You'll also see photographer Jimmy Hubbard directing the boys during the photo shoot.

  
The photo session
And of course, no visit from an A-list group would be complete without having them sign the Guitar World Office Guitar. Rob and Glenn's signatures are at the bottom under the control knobs, while K.K.'s is below the bridge. Dig how Rob added "The Metal God" under his sig...nice touch.

  
The office guitar
Thanks to Rob, Glenn and K.K., as well as manager Jayne Andrews and publicist Chip Ruggieri, for making this special visit happen. Look for the feature in an upcoming issue of Guitar World!

Click any of the photos (as always, taken with an iPhone) to see larger versions.

JK