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Les Binks, Former Drummer for Judas Priest, Dead at 73

Les Binks, the former Judas Priest drummer who played with the band during the late Seventies, has died at the age of 73.

He drummed for Eric Burdon of the Animals; scored a couple of minor hits with the English pop band Fancy; and played on The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast, an ambitious concept album/rock opera spearheaded by Deep Purple’s Roger Glover. As Binks recalled in a 2017 interview, he felt that all the songs Priest had been writing were “up tempo,” and they “needed to introduce some light and shade with a big rock ballad that started softly with acoustic guitar and built up to an explosive metal riff.” Following the success of Stained Class — it reached Number 27 on the U.K. album charts, and was certified Gold in the United States — Judas Priest returned to the studio for Killing Machine(which was released in the U.S. as Hell Bent for Leather).

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