Ian Hill, the bassist who has anchored JUDAS PRIEST since the band's formation in Birmingham in 1969, has retired. The band shared his personal statement on social media on Friday, October 9, and confirmed that Dave Rimmer of URIAH HEEP and ELEGANT WEAPONS is taking over the bass slot.
In a short note of their own, JUDAS PRIEST called Hill "the backbone" of the band, said he "will be greatly missed by us all," and welcomed Rimmer "into the PRIEST family."
Arthritis and a snapped tendon
Hill explained that his answer to the question of how long he could keep going had always been "until my performances suffer" — and that the moment has now arrived. For several years he has been fighting arthritis that is now advanced in his left shoulder and right hand and has spread to his right shoulder and both knees, managing it with painkillers, gels and, more recently, cortisone injections.
He was able to record bass lines for the band's next album, but there were doubts about whether he could make it through the recent European tour, so Rimmer was asked to learn the set as a standby. That plan came into play when Hill snapped a tendon in his left shoulder just before the encores at the Brussels show. Two days later, on September 21, Rimmer played the tour finale at London's Eventim Apollo in his place — the first time PRIEST had ever played without Hill, as we reported at the time. Hill praised his stand-in's "incredible performance at such short notice."
Specialists have told him surgery may not be necessary, but there is no guarantee he would regain enough strength to get through a full show. Citing that, and nearly six decades of putting the band ahead of his family, Hill said he is stepping away to make up for lost time with them. He called Rimmer "the obvious choice" — "a great bassist, and a genuinely nice bloke" — and closed by thanking the fans for the life they let him live.
The new man
Rimmer is no stranger to the PRIEST camp: he plays alongside guitarist Richie Faulkner in ELEGANT WEAPONS, the band Faulkner fronts with singer Ronnie Romero and drummer Christopher Williams.
Hill's exit leaves JUDAS PRIEST with no founding members. Rob Halford joined in 1973 and Glenn Tipton in 1974, while co-founding guitarist K.K. Downing left in 2011. As recently as 2024, Hill was still saying retirement would only come once his playing started to slip.
The band's most recent studio album, 2024's Invincible Shield, reached No. 2 in the U.K., topped the charts in Germany, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland, and has kept them on the road ever since.
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