In a recent interview with “Unchained” podcast, former Judas Priest Guitarist K.K. Downing has shared an interesting truth about singer Rob Halford.

He said that ‘Rob Halford was reading all of his lyrics off teleprompters’. He talked about why he left the band and said:

“It was a lot of things — it was an awful lot of things. It was a really hard thing for me to do. And it all boiled down to the fact that things had changed in the industry to going around the world, living out of the suitcase, going over trodden ground.

All that’s fine, but only if you get the reward of really getting off and enjoying the shows. But I wasn’t. So there were certain things that [needed to] change. Yeah, sure, we’re getting older, but I didn’t feel as though we were pulling our weight, really, as we should and what we normally do as a band.

Certain things were happening. I just felt that some of the guys [in the band] were more going through the motions. ‘Cause I always said to the guys, ‘Look, the older we get, the younger we’ve gotta play.’ I stick to that rule. But it wasn’t happening. Glenn [Tipton, guitar] was drinking a few beers before [going on] and during [the show], on stage, so, musically, it was making me feel a bit nervous.”

He continued and talked on Rob Halford:

“And Rob [Halford, vocals] was reading all of his lyrics off teleprompters and stuff like that, so I didn’t feel he was connecting with the audience like he should as a frontman. And that resulted in Scott [Travis], the drummer, looking pretty bored every time I looked around at him.

And so that was a major factor. That, plus, [for] a long time, I wasn’t happy with the internal things, with how decisions were made and who was making them, and stuff like that. And on top of that, you start to think, ‘I made an awful lot of sacrifices.’… I didn’t have children and I deprived my family of me for so many years.

I was away when all of my grandparents died. I was always miles and miles away. And with my mom and stuff like that, I just thought that I wanted to give them something back — a part of me — before it’s too late for them or something happened.”

Click here to entire interview via Blabbermouth.