The Metal Breakdown Daily is one page, every weekday: the episode on the player below and the three stories in print, so you can listen, read, or both. Today leads with the Ian Hill retirement interview, his first since the statement last week: arthritis in his shoulder and thumb, a tendon that snapped in Brussels after six shows in eight days, and a decision he says he’d already made. ‘I had no choice, really.’ His bass is on the next Judas Priest album anyway.
Also today: Dream Theater post a photo of all five members at Ytse Jam Studios with the caption ‘DT17 is underway’, months ahead of the timeline James LaBrie gave in May, and Sharon Osbourne tells Rolling Stone why Megadeth were the only Big Four band missing from Back To The Beginning: ‘There was no time.’
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Scott Penfold opens today’s Metal Breakdown Daily with Ian Hill in his own words on why he walked away from Judas Priest, then Dream Theater’s early start on album seventeen, Sharon Osbourne’s nine-word answer on Megadeth, and a Take on the one thing a good ending in this business always has in common. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and stream the show now.
Ian Hill: ‘I Had No Choice, Really’
Ian Hill has given his first interview since retiring from Judas Priest, telling Ukrainian metal YouTuber Vladyslav Stadnyk that arthritis in his shoulder and thumb, a snapped tendon after six shows in eight days, and a decision he’d nearly made at the end of the previous tour left him ‘no choice, really, than to knock it on the head’.
The injury is the headline but not the story. Hill says the arthritis has been a fight for the last couple of tours, concentrated in his shoulder and a large lump on his thumb, and that ‘arthritis doesn’t get better’. The tendon went around the Brussels show: ‘six shows in eight days, and I’d never had time to recover.’ After that, ‘I couldn’t move it at all’, though he could still move from the elbow down. Specialists are hoping to avoid surgery, since nobody can guarantee it would work.
Then the part that changes how you read last week’s statement. ‘I think I’d have retired anyway,’ Hill says; he’d nearly done it at the end of the last tour, and the injury only moved the date. He wouldn’t risk the band mid-run: ‘I couldn’t put the rest of the guys in jeopardy.’ Fifty-six years on the road, by his own account, cost him two marriages. The London show on September 21 would have been his last, and he was ‘really, really gutted’ to miss it, but he says Rob Halford wouldn’t have billed it as a farewell and he ‘just didn’t think it felt right’ to make it one.
Two things fans will want to know. Hill recorded his bass parts for the next Priest album, due next year: ‘At least I’ll be on the record, if nothing else.’ And he’s open to walking out for an encore at a landmark show, the way Glenn Tipton has, if the band asks, though he won’t push Dave Rimmer aside to do it. Rimmer, the Uriah Heep bassist who learned the set at Andy Sneap’s house with two days’ notice while Hill listened from the kitchen, ‘is gonna get flack’ for a year or so, Hill predicts, the way Richie Faulkner and Sneap did. He calls him ‘a wonderful bloke’ and ‘a great bass player’.
There’s no dignified way to be told. There is a dignified way to decide, and this is what it sounds like from the man who played on every one of these records. He’s right about Rimmer, too. Give the man a year.
Dream Theater: ‘DT17 Is Underway’
Dream Theater confirmed on October 13 that work has begun on their seventeenth studio album, posting a photo of James LaBrie, John Petrucci, John Myung, Jordan Rudess and Mike Portnoy at Ytse Jam Studios with the caption ‘DT17 is underway’.
That’s the entire announcement: no title, no date, no producer named, though Petrucci produced the last one and nobody expects that to change. What makes it news is the calendar. In May, LaBrie said writing and recording would begin in late 2026 or early 2027, with a tour in late 2027 or early 2028, and stressed none of it was concrete. Portnoy said in December that the band would take summer 2026 off once the tour cycle ended in the spring. Evidently they took the summer off and went straight back in.
The context is Parasomnia, released in February 2025, the first Dream Theater album with Portnoy behind the kit since 2009: eight songs in seventy-one minutes, a twenty-minute closer in ‘The Shadow Man Incident’, and a tour that played the record front to back plus ‘A Change Of Seasons’, a twenty-three-minute song on its own. Portnoy’s first show back was the O2 in London in October 2024; the band turned forty the following year and marked it with the Paris live album Quarantième.
The reunion album was the test, and it passed: it sounded like a band, not a legacy act with its old drummer back. The second one is where reunions usually fall apart, because the novelty’s gone and all that’s left is whether these five people still want to write together. The photo says they do. We’ll believe the record.
Sharon Osbourne On Megadeth: ‘There Was No Time’
Sharon Osbourne told Rolling Stone that Megadeth were left off Back To The Beginning, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s July 2025 farewell at Villa Park, because ‘there was no time, we couldn’t fit everybody in on one day’, adding that the family ‘really, really wanted’ the band.
Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax all played the ten-hour show; Megadeth were the only Big Four band absent, and fans have asked why ever since. Sharon’s answer came in the same interview in which she revealed that six doctors warned the family the show would kill Ozzy. ‘We really, really wanted Megadeth,’ she said. ‘There were so many bands that were due to play that we just couldn’t because there was not enough time.’ She didn’t name the others; Judas Priest, Soundgarden and Wolfgang Van Halen all had conflicts reported at the time.
There has been no response from Dave Mustaine, which, for Mustaine, is itself notable. Megadeth spent 2025 announcing their final album and farewell tour, so the band was in the middle of its own goodbye when the Birmingham bill was being built. The concert film premieres in Los Angeles on October 14 and hits cinemas on October 28; Sharon says every artist who performed is in it, which means the absence will be visible again.
‘No time’ is the polite answer and it may be the true one. But Megadeth were the one Big Four band in the middle of their own farewell, fronted by the one man who has spent forty years being the guy left out. Of all the bands to not have time for. Where that leaves the Megadeth catalogue is unchanged; where it leaves Mustaine’s relationship with the Osbournes is anyone’s guess.
The Take: Who Gets To Say It First
Three stories about the same thing: how a metal career ends, and who gets to decide.
Ian Hill decided. He was going to retire at the end of the last tour, a tendon moved the date up, and he walked before the band had to have the conversation for him. Dave Mustaine decided: final album, farewell tour, announced on his own schedule, and then got left off the biggest metal show ever staged. And Dream Theater decided the other way: forty years in, original drummer back, seventeenth album started early because they felt like it.
The counter-argument is that none of them really decided anything. Bodies decide and markets decide. Hill’s shoulder retired him, Megadeth’s farewell is a business plan, Dream Theater are recording because the reunion sells. All true, and all beside the point, because the same things were true of every band that ended badly, and those bands ended badly anyway.
The difference between a good ending and a bad one in this business is never the circumstances. It’s whether the person it’s happening to got to say it first. Hill said it. Mustaine said it. Ozzy said it, against six doctors. The bands that break your heart are the ones where you read about it before they did. Rob Halford has said he’ll know when it’s time; his bass player just showed him what that looks like.
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TL;DR
- Ian Hill, in his first interview since retiring, says arthritis in his shoulder and thumb and a tendon that snapped after six shows in eight days left him ‘no choice’, but that he’d nearly retired after the previous tour anyway; his bass is on the next Judas Priest album, and he’s open to guest encores.
- Dream Theater confirmed album seventeen is underway with a studio photo of all five members including Mike Portnoy, months ahead of the late-2026/early-2027 timeline James LaBrie gave in May.
- Sharon Osbourne told Rolling Stone that Megadeth were left off Back To The Beginning because ‘there was no time’; the family ‘really, really wanted’ them. No response yet from Dave Mustaine.
- The Take: the difference between a good ending and a bad one is whether the person it’s happening to got to say it first.
FAQ
Why did Ian Hill retire from Judas Priest?
Hill says arthritis in his shoulder and thumb had been getting worse for several tours, and a tendon snapped around the Brussels show after six shows in eight days, leaving him unable to move his shoulder. He says he’d nearly retired at the end of the previous tour anyway and didn’t want to put the band at risk mid-tour: ‘I had no choice, really.’
Is Ian Hill on the next Judas Priest album?
Yes. Hill says he recorded his bass parts for the band’s next album, which is due in 2027: ‘At least I’ll be on the record, if nothing else.’ He has ruled out a full return but says he’s open to guest appearances, such as an encore at a landmark show, if the band asks.
Who replaced Ian Hill in Judas Priest?
Dave Rimmer, the bassist for Uriah Heep since 2013 and Richie Faulkner’s bandmate in Elegant Weapons. Rimmer learned the set with about two days’ notice at producer Andy Sneap’s home and played the September 21, 2026 London show in Hill’s place. Hill calls him ‘a wonderful bloke’ and ‘a great bass player’.
Is Dream Theater making a new album?
Yes. On October 13, 2026 the band posted a photo of all five members at Ytse Jam Studios with the caption ‘DT17 is underway’, confirming work on their seventeenth studio album, the second since Mike Portnoy’s 2023 return. No title, release date or producer has been announced.
Why weren’t Megadeth at Back To The Beginning?
Sharon Osbourne told Rolling Stone it was a scheduling problem: ‘We really, really wanted Megadeth. There was no time, we couldn’t fit everybody in on one day.’ She says several bands due to play couldn’t be fitted into the ten-hour show. Megadeth were the only Big Four band not on the July 5, 2025 bill.
Metal Breakdown Daily is Loaded Radio’s weekday news show: three stories, one opinion, under five minutes, with a new episode every weekday on the free Loaded Radio app for Apple iOS and Google Play. Follow Loaded Radio so you never miss one.
The post Metal Breakdown Daily: Six Shows In Eight Days Ended Ian Hill’s Priest Career, Dream Theater Are Back In The Studio, And Why Megadeth Missed Ozzy’s Farewell appeared first on Loaded Radio.
