Ian Hill, who joined Judas Priest in 1970 and became the band’s longest-serving member, announced his departure on Oct. 9. Hill said “the onset of the evil arthritis” led to his decision to retire.
In an interview with Metal Pilgrim, Hill detailed his struggles with shoulder and thumb pain. “The last couple of tours have been a bit of a struggle, because this trouble is basically my shoulder and my thumb,” Hill said, according to Blabbermouth. “I’ve been struggling with that for the past couple of tours or so. And it doesn’t go away, unfortunately, and it’s one of those things that just gets worse as time goes by. And I almost retired at the end of the last tour.”
Hill said he thought he could manage the pain until the band took on more shows. “Iron Maiden said, ‘Do you fancy doing a four-week tour of America this year?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, that sounds okay, a four-week tour of America, quick four weeks,’” Hill said. “Then they pulled out. In the meantime, we’d put in Bloodstock in Britain, which is the festival in Britain. So you can’t tool up to do one show. So the next thing, ‘Oh, we’ll do one or two dates in Europe around Bloodstock.’ And nine weeks later… And that’s what did it. We did six shows in eight days. That was running up to Brussels, so that’s when the tendon snapped.”
Hill said the physical demands of touring made the injury worse. “You go on stage and you aggravate it all over again,” he said.
Hill realized he could not continue during a performance in Brussels. “Right before the encores on the Brussels show, I just felt a snap and a real sharp, searing pain, and I thought, ‘That’s it. That’s the end of it,’” he said. “And for the encores, I had to actually get my elbow and rest it on my stomach and pull the bass back so I could get down to the bottom of the neck.”
“I physically could not play the bass,” Hill said. “So I had no choice, really, than to knock it on the head.”
Hill said he retired not just for his own health, but also for the benefit of the band and fans. “I couldn’t put the rest of the guys in jeopardy and go out on another tour, and it happen all over again in the middle of a tour,” he said. “It’s not fair on anybody — the fans, the rest of the guys, the people who have put money into us to get us out to these places, and suddenly you’re having to cancel shows and things. It’s not fair. So I decided to call it a day, and I have. I’ve neglected family life. It’s cost me two marriages over the years. So I decided to spend a bit of time with the folks.”