Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner and Within Temptation guitarist Ruud Jolie recently appeared together on the “Side Jams With Bryan Reesman” podcast to deep-dive into their shared passion for the “Star Wars” universe.
The two musicians originally became close friends during a 2007 Within Temptation tour when Richie Faulkner was performing as the backing guitarist for Lauren Harris, the daughter of Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris. During the trek, the two players quickly bonded over their intense mutual appreciation for the legendary sci-fi franchise.
During the podcast, Ruud Jolie revealed his active involvement in the 501st Legion, a global costuming organization that requires members to maintain screen-accurate, movie-quality costumes to participate.
“We have about more than 100 members in the Netherlands. Every country in every state has its outpost or garrison. So I’m a member of the Dutch Garrison, which is a part of the 501st Legion. And every state in the U.S. has its own garrison. And yeah, it’s fun. It’s nerds galore. Nerds everywhere,” he said.
Ruud continued: “I had a new costume approved last week or two weeks ago. So I have a TK, which is a code name for Stormtrooper, for the people who don’t know. And now I am also a TB, which means [‘Return Of The Jedi‘] Biker Scout. That costume is much more comfortable because you can actually sit down in it. So during a long Comic Con visit, it’s very convenient to sit down and there’s a zipper [so you can pee].”
Faulkner shared that his fandom actively crossed over into his professional touring gear, noting that he often decorated his stage amplifiers with “Star Wars” figures and printed custom guitar picks featuring imagery of bounty hunters and the Millennium Falcon. He even revealed that Judas Priest had to secure official licensing directly from Lucasfilm to produce the picks.
“I remember when I was out with Lauren, I used to have ‘Star Wars‘ stuff,” he recalled. “And it was really for… I used to throw it to people. I had a Gamorrean guard on the amplifier. It was really for people to not throw stuff at me, because it was like: like me, I like ‘Star Wars‘. We made some picks and [that] went into Priest as well. We actually had to get them licensed by Lucasfilm. I think we had to send five of each to Lucasfilm or LucasArts. Which one it was, I don’t remember, and we could only make a certain amount of each one.”
“Our manager [Jayne] used to work for Lucasfilm back in the day,” he continued. “She had a contact in there. She reached out to them and they said, ‘Yeah, you can do it, but you’ve got to follow these parameters.’ So we did. It was super limited. I don’t have any, but we did a bounty hunter edition and a ship edition. I think there were six of each.”
The guitarist’s deep connection to the films also heavily influenced his other musical project, Elegant Weapons, a band name derived directly from a famous line spoken by the character Obi-Wan Kenobi.
“I wanted to use the [Obi-Wan Kenobi] speech for an intro,” Richie explained. “Rainbow used to have the ‘Wizard Of Oz‘ intro [for their concerts]. It was Dorothy talking to Toto. ‘We’re over the rainbow.’ I can’t remember exactly what it was. I wanted to have Obi-Wan Kenobi talking about the elegant weapons for a more civilized age, before the dark times, before the Empire, and then the song will start. But it was going to be like 100 grand or something like that to license this piece of monologue.”
“I wonder if you could do it with A.I. now, with a similar voice, and it won’t cost anything. I don’t know the technicalities of that. So ‘elegant weapons’ is about the instruments that we play, but it’s also an excuse for me to reference ‘Star Wars‘ and the lightsaber,” he added.
The conversation naturally shifted to the prequel films, prompting Richie Faulkner to recall his unique experience working alongside legendary actor Christopher Lee, who famously portrayed Count Dooku. The guitarist served as a musical arranger for the actor’s final heavy metal album, Charlemagne: The Omens Of Death.
“It was his last one. It was a cool thing. They had some songs that were very orchestra driven, and they wanted them arranged for a metal band to play. So I had to take these songs and make guitar parts and drum parts. I came up with riffs and stuff, made songs out of them. The vocals were the same, the structures were kind of the same, but it was like a metal band. I sent them about seven or eight songs, and they sent me an e-mail back and said, ‘We want them more metal.’ So I made them even more metal, and they went with that which is cool. But I never played on the record or anything like that. I just did the writing and arranging part of it.”
Reflecting on the honor of personally meeting the towering actor and WWII veteran, the guitarist expressed deep admiration for his character and intellect.
“He was great. Talking to a guy like that was from a different era. He had different ideas about stuff and different points of view, as you would I think. There was a war going on in Syria at the time, and he had some opinions on that, you know. He was just a lovely, sweet guy that had been through so much — not only the acting, but his personal life as well. It was an honor to meet him,” he concluded.
