Judas Priest Guitarist Reveals He Suffered a Stroke

Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner was forced to undergo emergency heart surgery in 2021, following a life-threatening heart incident during Judas Priest’s performance at Louder than Life Festival in Louisville, Kentucky.

In a new interview, Faulkner has revealed that he also had a stroke that same year that resulted in brain damage.

In the video interview with Premier Guitar, Faulkner said that he had the stroke about a month after the scary heart incident. Just when he thought he was in the clear, he wasn't.

"We went back out on the road in 2022 and have kind of been on the road since," Faulkner said in the interview. "But there's a bit of collateral damage. Well, not a lot of people know — some nearest and dearest, they know about it. So about a month after the incident, I went back in and we were walking the dog in the neighborhood back here [in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee], and I had the dog. [My girlfriend] Mariah had [our daughter] Daisy."

Faulkner said that he "felt it come, I felt it, and it came over me and I knew it was coming and it came over me and my face went. I couldn’t talk. And Mariah was there. She took the dog, she had the baby, and she was holding me up. The neighbors were running out."

So, Faulkner found himself back in the hospital, which wasn't fun considering he had just been there for an extended period of time. They told him that it was a TIA, which means transient ischaemic attack, a mini stroke, but it wasn't. Faulkner said it ended up being an actual stroke.

He also said it impacted his playing, noting, "There's stuff that I used to play — I used to think something and it would come out. And now I'm up there struggling to play a rhythm pattern. 'I can't do it. I can't. I'm gonna quit. I can't do it.' And then you have a good one. So who wants that? But that's the way it is. That's the truth. So that’s what I struggle with. That's the collateral damage."