Judas Priest rock opera likely to be a 2-CD release

The rock opera that Judas Priest is recording, a concept piece about the 16th century French prophet Nostradamus, is so long it may be a two-CD set. Guitarist K.K. Downing told the heavy metal magazine Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, "The music is running an hour and 39 minutes at the moment. So it's literally almost twice as long as what we've done previously... We were hoping we'd get it onto one CD, but knowing that a CD holds only 80 minutes, it's looking that we'll have two CDs."

Downing was asked if it might be possible to edit the piece down, and he said, "I think there is one idea that we can afford to leave off, but the rest is still going to run about an hour and a half."

The band is targeting a summer release for Nostradamus. In addition to recording, they're also putting together a stage show for the album.

In other news, the group is telling fans that a new Judas Priest book is not authorized. A message on the official judaspriest.com website reads, "We would like to make it clear to everyone that a book which is due out soon entitled Defenders Of The Faith -- The True Story Of Judas Priest, by Neil Daniels, is not an official book and is not approved by the band -- we had absolutely no involvement with this book at all and therefore it is most definitely not the true story of Judas Priest!"
Submit the above story to:

Del.icio.us   Digg   reddit   StumbleUpon   Facebook