In just a few weeks Australians will once again be able to witness the power, the presence, and the uninhibited, inhuman vocal range of the one and only Tim ‘RIPPER’ Owens. If you have ever seen Owens live before you know that he is about to bring some of the wildest moments in Metal to life, all-across Australia.
Joined by the Metallic luminary of brothers Joel & Jordan McDonald, Andrew Hudson and Voya Mulitinovic, Ripper’s live assault will be molten as hell… And if you crave anything less – You’ve Got Another Thing Coming…
Ripper’s unique skills tore open a fairytale career, fronting iconic acts including Judas Priest, Iced Earth, Yngwie Malmsteen, Dio’s Disciples, The Three Tremors, and the incredibly ferocious RIPPER – a collaborative project spearheaded by Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta. And most recently powering KK’s PRIEST across the biggest stages in the world.
So what can we expect from these run of shows? Well I found out by sitting down with a quick chat with Mr Owens himself.
“I did a couple of shows last year in Sydney and Melbourne,” says Owens. “And they were so good and the band was so good, it was basically just a bunch of my friends but I mean they were so good and they played the songs so good that I said to them ‘man we need to come back and do more than just two shows.’ After that I spent the year touring with KK’s Priest and when I saw I had an opening for the start of this year I said ‘let’s do it.’
“So we’ve got the same guys coming back with me but I ‘ve changed the set list,” he explains. “I’ve thrown some KK’s Priest in there and also some Beyond Fear in there. To be honest the set list is probably a little bit longer and a little bit heavier. We’re going to do Beyond The Realms Of Death the classic Priest tune.”
We both begin laughing as we talk about what a nightmare it must be for him to put together a set-list now that he has worked and recorded with some of the biggest acts in the hard rock and metal genres.
“And you are never going to make everybody happy,” he laughs. “You’ll have some people come along that want to hear my stuff, you’ll have others coming along because they want to hear some classic Priest stuff. Then you have the people that want Iced Earth and the people that want some Yngwie and some Dio’s Disciples. People want to hear a lot of different stuff and with this set list that I have now I do have some Iced Earth in it, there are some classic Priest tracks, my era of Priest, it’s got Beyond Fear, some Dio and even now I now that it is not going to make everyone happy. There will be someone there that will want to hear a track like Breaking The Law and it is the last song that I ever want to hear in my life.”
“You can’t even fathom what the crowd is like when we go in there,” he continues. “We’ll do some classic Priest but someone will be like ‘oh but you didn’t do this track’ but when you watch the crowd they are having fun. And I will always joke and say something like ‘this song is for the girlfriend, the wife or the friend that came to the show tonight that doesn’t want to be here’ and then they say ‘oh, I know that song!’ It is an impossible thing, but I’m sure every band sees it as an impossible thing though.’ At the end of the day you just have to make it so the crowd is going to have fun.”
After the last tour of Australian everybody was talking about this amazing band that Owens had put together so I ask him how he managed to pull together such a feat.
“Well Joel and I did some shows in the past,” he says. “We did this AC/DC Orchestra thing and then I did this thing called The Metal Gods and Joel was always the guitar player. And then a few years back I rang Joel and said ‘Joel I’m coming over to do some shows could you put a band together for me?’ So, he got his brother on drums and I didn’t know he was such a beast on the drums. I turned up at rehearsals and I was like ‘holy shit this guy is unbelievable’.”
“Then came Voya and Andrew,” he continues. “And the band sounded awesome. They are such great guys and I am so lucky and fortunate to have the same line-up this time because I didn’t know how it would be. But they are just so good. I remember I heard them once just playing around with an instrumental and I was like ‘wow you guys are amazing’”
To finish off the interview Owens delivered a special message for his fans coming along to the shows.
“It is going to be fun,” he says excitedly. “Anytime I go on stage is like that. But please spread the word because we want to try and get KK’s Priest to Australia but it is so expensive to do it but if we pack the places with these gigs then KK’s gonna see that and say ‘let’s get there’” This is a fun show – it will be energetic and hopefully I’ll make a few people laugh on stage.”