Judas Priest Almost Rocked Top Gun Movie

William Lee | 12-02-2019

Former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing has told music writer Greg Prato that the producers of the film Top Gun originally wanted the band to include a song in the movie.

The Top Gun revelation came during an interview for the forthcoming book "Take It Off - KISS Truly Unmasked" and Downing was discussing Priest's controversial "Turbo" album.

Downing said (via Classic Rock), "We were thinking: Our support bands are having these massive-selling records. If you create the songs, you've got the media outlets with radio and television now. You can have these big records, you just have to put the songs together.

"Hence, probably, why Priest decided not to do a double album with the 'Turbo' album, which was originally going to be called 'Twin Turbos'. What we decided to do was condense everything down, and put out an album together that had good continuity, a good flow, but also was pretty much a radio-friendly album.

"We attempted it once, and kind of failed, because it didn't happen for us. The producers from 'Top Gun' wanted a song from the album to put in the movie, and that didn't happen - our fault. Otherwise, it could have been very, very different for the band. We had an opportunity - it just didn't click for Judas Priest. They wanted the song 'Reckless'.

"That probably would have done it, because it would have been all over the radio, I suppose, if it was in the movie. We thought 'Turbo Lover' and 'Locked In' were going to do it for us, but they didn't. The tour was very successful, the album was successful, but it wasn't the big-selling album that we hoped for. I think quite a lot of that went on with the acceptability and success of a lot of other bands that you would look at on MTV. Even Ozzy went to the hairdressers."