I didn't know until a few days ago that Dave Holland (their former drummer, not the jazz bassist) died in January due to liver cancer in a Spanish hospital. Holland had served time (full sentence of 8 years for attempted rape and sexual assault of a challenged drum pupil he had, he denied it until the very end, which probably saw him staying as long in prison as he did).
He was an untypical heavy metal drummer, very much in the "don't get in the way of the guitars"-vein. You might say that he drummed much like a simplistic drum machine. And in fact, starting around Defenders of the Faith, much of the Priest drumming on records wasn't him anymore. But it was a choice the band made in the early 80ies, when they dumped his predecessor Les Binks who was a much more complex and technical drummer. And they reverted back to that with his successor (Racer X refugee) Scott Travis.
No matter, his sparse style was part of the 80ies Priest sound. Uncluttered.
He played quite a bit differently with Trapeze - the only video material available from them is apparently from their 1994 reunion tour which saw Galley, Hughes and Holland reunite with Caig Erickson on 2nd lead guitar.
Priest (and Glenn Hughes too) at least had the decency to say a few nice words about him and not blend him out altogether. It is highly unlikely that he was a court trial victim, but whatever happened, he paid dearly for it.
