Health Conditions Improve, Richie Faulkner Wants To Return To Tours And Recorded New Album Judas Priest

Richie Faulkner (Instagram @falconfaulkner)

JAKARTA - Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner recounted about the life-saving operation he underwent more than a year and a half ago.

On September 26, 2021, the 43-year-old British-born musician suffered an acute aorta dissection during a performance at the Loud Than Life festival, not far from the Rudd Heart and Lung Center at the UofL Health - Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

It took a hospital cardiotocratic surgery team, led by Dr. Siddharth Pahwa and also including Drs. Brian Ganzel and Mark Slaughter, about 10 hours to complete surgery, aorta valves and aorta endenens substitution by replacing hemicarch.

Asked in a new interview with Ruben Mosqueda of We Go To 11 what his health would be like in the last few months, said Richie.

"My health is good. I had to go to (hospital) again last August and they had to fix some problems. But since then, I've been fine, really," said Richie.

Richie went on to say that he chose to stay busy while restoring his health rather than taking long leave from the streets or the recording studio.

"People have different reactions to such events," he said.

"Some people have been absent for a few years. But I don't know - I'm lucky, really. I'm relatively healthy. I don't smoke. I don't drink too much, that kind of thing. I'm relatively young, so I can bounce back. And as soon as possible, I put the guitar back in my hands and started playing again.

"And I called the management and said, 'I want to come back with the recording and finish the recording.' It worked, as I said, as a motivational force to return to playing guitar or creating or releasing footage or whatever, I have to get up. "