Ian Hill has retired from Judas Priest. He joined in 1970, played on every album the band has released, and is the last member who was there at the start. Dave Rimmer of Uriah Heep takes the job permanently.
Hill set out the reason himself, at length. He has been dealing with arthritis for some years, now advanced in his left shoulder and right hand, established in his right shoulder and present in both knees, treated with pills, gels and lately cortisone injections. He had always answered the question of how long he could continue with the same line, until my performances suffer, and he writes that the time has come.
What forced it was mechanical. He snapped a tendon in his left shoulder just before the encores in Brussels, which left him unable to lift his arm to the neck of the bass, and he sat out the London show two nights later, the first he had ever missed. Rimmer had learned the set as cover and finished the tour.
He did record the new album. The bass lines are his, which means the catalogue stays unbroken. Specialists have told him he might avoid surgery, but either way nobody can promise him the strength for a full stage show.
The rest of his statement is about what the job cost. Fifty seven years of neglected family life, he says, and he intends to spend the remaining ones making up for it. The band called him the backbone of Judas Priest and welcomed Davey into the family. Hill called him the obvious choice.