Ian Hill has retired from Judas Priest after 56 years as the band’s bassist, citing advanced arthritis in his shoulder, hand and knees. The decision follows an injury on the current tour that left him unable to raise his arm high enough to play. Uriah Heep’s Davey Rimmer is standing in for the remaining dates.
Hill tore a tendon in his left shoulder just before the encores at the band’s Brussels concert. Rimmer was brought in for the following show at the Eventim Apollo in London and will now complete the tour. Hill said he had been managing the pain for some time with painkillers, gels and cortisone injections. The injury brought an abrupt end to a long run of shows in which he had played through the pain.
Specialists told him he might be able to avoid an operation, but Hill said nobody could promise that his shoulder would recover the strength needed to get through a full concert. He added that he now wants to spend his remaining years with his family, whom he felt he had neglected during decades on the road. In a farewell message to fans he wrote: “Thank you for the life you’ve let me live.” His statement made clear that the decision was final rather than a temporary break.
Hill joined Judas Priest in 1970 and played on every one of the band’s 19 studio albums, up to and including Invincible Shield in 2024. That run made him the only member to appear on every Judas Priest studio record. Earlier this year he was still on stage with the band, including at the Bloodstock festival at Catton Hall in Derby in August. Few musicians in heavy metal have stayed with a single band for so long.
His departure comes in the same year as The Ballad of Judas Priest, a documentary co-directed by Tom Morello, which NME rated four stars. The band have not said who will take over the bass role on a permanent basis once the current run of dates ends, or whether Rimmer will be asked to stay on beyond the tour. Judas Priest have not announced any change to their upcoming schedule as a result of Hill’s exit. For fans, the change marks the end of the longest unbroken membership in the band’s history, stretching across more than five decades of recording and touring.
