Biography
Kenneth Keith Downing Jr. (born 27 October 1951) is an English musician. He is a former guitarist of heavy metal band Judas Priest.
Downing was born in West Bromwich, West Midlands. In the late 1960s, Downing developed a passion for rock music and the guitar, which led to his being kicked out of his home at age 15 and dropping out of school soon afterwards. He is a mostly self-taught guitarist. He was heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix, whom Downing said he was "very quick to recognize" as the future. He was also influenced by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and Eric Clapton Downing performed on every Judas Priest album from Rocka Rolla to A Touch of Evil: Live.
Downing started his first band, a pop band called Stagecoach, between the age of 17 and 18 with his second cousin Brian Badhams on bass guitar (now with The Elkie Brooks Band) and drummer Martin Philips. The trio "mainly jammed a few Cream songs and a few 12-bar blues".
Downing has an aggressive, rock-influenced guitar style featuring solos and dual leads with fellow Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton. His solos remained of this style for most of his career, but he incorporated various techniques into his playing over the years. As opposed to Tipton, his solos tended to incorporate a more raw, rough-edged sound, making use of techniques such as pinch harmonics, dive bombs, and tremolo picking, and often focusing on speed, technical accuracy and melody. From Stained Class onward, Tipton became increasingly dominant in Judas Priest's songwriting, particularly on the more commercial tracks while Downing's role in the band started to diminish, especially as Tipton's songs comprised the vast majority of the band's live setlists after 1980. In 1978, Tipton began to incorporate the tapping technique into his playing, which Downing began to use as well. By 1990, both Tipton and Downing started to use the complex technique of sweep-picking, which can be notably heard on the title track of their 1990 album Painkiller. They have used these techniques ever since.
Downing officially left Judas Priest on 20 April 2011, citing "an on-going breakdown in working relationships between myself, elements of the band and management for some time." Judas Priest had since continued with Richie Faulkner as his replacement.
Downing, along with former Judas Priest members Tim "Ripper" Owens and Les Binks, former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson and Hostile guitarist A.J. Mills performed a special one-off show in Wolverhampton on 3 November 2019 and played a full set of Judas Priest songs.
In January 2020, Downing signed with Explorer1 Music Group, which would pair him with veteran manager Andy Gould, and announced that he would work on brand-new music. The following month, it was announced that Downing had formed a new band, KK's Priest, with bassist Tony Newton, guitarist A.J. Mills, and former Judas Priest members Tim "Ripper" Owens and Les Binks on vocals and drums, respectively. The band's debut album 'Sermons of the Sinner' was released on 1 October 2021.
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