[5] His father played guitar and was a fan of Hendrix and bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, and used to show him a few chords.

[5] With Faulkner on guitar, the Lauren Harris band was the opening act on Iron Maiden's Somewhere Back in Time World Tour in 2008.

[6] Faulkner has also arranged music for actor Christopher Lee's heavy metal album Charlemagne: The Omens of Death.

[8] On 20 April 2011, Faulkner was appointed as the successor of guitarist K. K. Downing in heavy metal band Judas Priest.

Friesen and Faulkner had played together in a cover band in London called Metalworks, which coincidentally is also the title of a Judas Priest compilation released in 1993.

[14] Halford said in a 2015 interview; "Let's face it, to some extent Richie saved Judas Priest, because if we hadn't have found him at the crucial time that we were looking for a guitar player, things could have turned out quite differently.

[18] On 27 September 2021, Judas Priest had to postpone their "50 Heavy Metal Years Tour" in the United States due to Faulkner undergoing major emergency heart surgery.

[19] In a statement shared on Judas Priest's official website on 5 October 2021, Faulkner explained that when the band was performing "Painkiller" at Louder Than Life in Kentucky on 26 September 2021, his aorta ruptured and started to spill blood into his chest cavity.

Faulkner said that this was totally unexpected for him since he had no history of a bad heart, no clogged arteries nor high cholesterol, and then urged the fans to get themselves checked.

[20] Faulkner has cited bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, UFO,[5] Rainbow,[5] and Metallica as his early musical influences,[21] as well as guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian May, David Gilmour,[22] Eddie Van Halen, Dave Murray, Randy Rhoads, Zakk Wylde, Kirk Hammett,[22] and Michael Schenker as major influences on his guitar playing.