In a new chat with Nikki Blakk of the San Francisco Bay Area radio station 107.7 The Bone, Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens said K.K. Downing’s choice not to do meet and greets upset fans.
“And the one I wanna do is totally different than everybody else’s,” the singer said while talking about why KK’s Priest decided not to hold meet-and-greets on their recent tours. “Now someone’s going to steal this idea; I’m going to put it out there. But I said to Ken [KK’s Priest guitarist and leader Kenneth ‘K.K.’ Downing], we do 10 people — that’s it — a night.”
He added, “Backstage, right after we’re done on stage, we have pizza, beer, sodas in the room. They walk in with us. They have some pizza. They get a poster, an eight-by-ten [photo], a signed setlist, and a laminate. But sitting and having pizza and beer and taking photos, I mean, how cool is that? It’s great. And it would be pretty fast.”
“The other problem nowadays [why] people have to do [paid meet-and-greets] is to fund the tour,” Owens explained. “I mean, it’s so expensive to tour nowadays. We’re out here with a semi and a bus and a full crew and screens and this and a stage setup. And it’s really expensive.”
Tim shared K.K. Downing’s approach, “But [K.K.’s] got that and he doesn’t wanna do it, and I think it’s cool, because he has that right. It’s, like, ‘This is it. I don’t want to make the fans have to pay for it.’ That’s his thinking…”
“[But the fans] wanna pay for it. They wanna do it. I mean, that’s all we get — people are so pissed off that we don’t do it. Oh my God. We get [that question] just nonstop: ‘Are you doing meet-and-greets?’” Owens voiced the fans’ anger towards the band.
The musician talked about KK’s Priest not doing paid meet-and-greets last December in an interview with Kevin McKay from Florida’s 99Rock WKSM radio station. He mentioned at that time, “We usually don’t do meet-and-greets. I know it’s the big thing to do nowadays. And I would be all right doing meet-and-greets, but I know K.K.’s not a big fan of ’em. He likes to get in, do the show, and get out.”
KK’s Priest is currently on a North American tour with Accept. The tour started on August 31 in Los Angeles and will stop in cities like Toronto, Montreal, New York, and Nashville, ending on October 7 in San Francisco.