Interviews

 

Judas Priest

 

Words: Rod Yates

 

AMONGST THE litany of bills, schedules and photos stuck to Rob Halford’s fridge is a piece of paper listing some important dates. To the uneducated, they look like nothing more than a whistlestop jaunt through Europe; an itinerary that would give any Contiki tour a run for its money in terms of places visited in number of days. For Rob Halford, though, these dates represent the rebirth of Judas Priest.

 

They’re not the first shows he’s done since rejoining the band last year, but they will be the first in support of their new album, Angel Of Retribution; the release of which signifies once and for all that Judas Priest are again a force to be reckoned with in metal. And so when you ask Rob Halford about this tour, you can’t help but detect the zing of excitement and enthusiasm in his voice.

“It starts on February the 23rd over in Denmark . . . and let me have a look on the fridge, I’ve got all the dates on the fridge here,” he buzzes in a softly-spoken voice that, despite years of living in America, hasn’t lost any of its Brummie flavour. “Copenhagen on Wednesday the 23rd in Denmark, and then we finish in Barcelona on April the 17th.”

 

Are there likely to be any Australian dates scheduled at some point?

 

“I would bloody well hope so!” he chuckles. “If anybody deserves us it’s Australia. Get the promoters to call our management and get something sorted and we’ll be down there as fast as we can.”

 

How does it feel to be talking about a new Judas Priest album?

 

“It feels amazing, it feels sensational. I was always hoping that this day would return, and it has, and we’re just thrilled not only to be reunited but also to have such a great record. So everybody’s in great shape.”

 

Up until what point did you think the reunion was an impossibility?

 

“Well, I think in our hearts we all hoped that it would happen, but rock’n’roll is such a crazy world that you can never say for certain what’s going to happen. It wasn’t really until we were at my place in Birmingham over a year ago now, we were doing the Metalogy box set, and it was the first time we’d actually sat down together in over 10 years. We’d seen each other occasionally on and off, but it was the first time it was like a band meeting. It wasn’t until that day that we confronted the question, and it was typically British, it was very underplayed. It was like, ‘Well, do you want to do it?’ ‘Well, I want to do it do it.’ ‘If I do it will you do it?’ ‘Yeah, I’ll do it then.’ [Laughs] So it was just a very simple answer to a 12 year old question that had been hanging over our heads. But it was brilliant, it was a great feeling of, oh, thank God, now we can get back on track.”

 

Were you apprehensive before that meeting?

 

“Not really. I think that there was definitely some excitement in the air about what might be discussed. Of course on that day we were really focused on the box set, but obviously in the back of our minds we were all wondering if this would be the day of acceptance in regards to the reunion. I think that we were all just being very open minded to everyone’s feelings and emotions.”

 

You said you’d hoped that day would come. What had gotten in the way of it previously?

 

“I think that time just had to take its course, really. The great thing about this reunion is that there isn’t any bad blood left after it. We’ve obviously talked in recent times about why that separation happened . . . On the surface you’d think, Why do these things happen when you’ve been mates for three decades? But I think that’s just very normal. Even outside of music, you change, you have a different perspective on life when you’re 15 to when your 50. But I think that really, the most important thing that we now accept and understand is the value that Priest represents and still contributes to heavy metal. The band, the name, is bigger than all of us individually. And that’s what’s driving us now.”

 

But after some of the things that have been said in the press over the years, there had to have been some clearing of the air...

 

“There’s wasn’t. There was no need to finger point or yell at each other or anything of that nature. I don’t know if that’s just the British reserve, but what needed to be discussed was discussed, it was very private and simple and everybody shared their feelings and emotions and that was that. It wasn’t like one of these knockout fight things that sometimes happen in bands, it was just treated in the right professional way. Having said that, there’s no way that this band could have reunited with any bad blood feelings. It wouldn’t work. Our working class roots wouldn’t allow that. We tell each other exactly how we feel. And you can sense it. Any moment of the day we’re all in touch with each other emotionally.”

 

TO OUTSIDERS, Rob Halford’s decision to leave Judas Priest in 1992 came as a shock. Coming off the back of 1990’s Painkiller – a genuine return to form after 1996’s much derided Turbo and its follow-up Ram It Down (1988) – it was a decision, he says, borne out of the fact that the band had been working nonstop for 20 years and he needed to try something new. Initially this came in the shape of Fight, his attempt to move away from the realms of classic metal and into the sphere of Pantera-like brutality, followed by the outwardly camp, electro-industrial rumblings of Two. Indeed it wasn’t until he embarked on the Halford solo project with 2000’s Resurrection album that the frontman made a return to his classic metal roots.

Judas Priest, meanwhile, took nearly four years to find a replacement for Halford, eventually settling on Ohio native Tim “Ripper” Owens, who – in a scenario so fanciful it was soon used as a basis for the movie Rock Star – was singing in a Priest tribute band before being plucked from obscurity. Together they released two studio albums, 1997’s Jugulator and 2001’s Demolition, that, while not completely tarnishing the Priest name, hardly set the world on fire either.

How do you look back on the past 13 years without Priest?

 

“I look back on that time now as . . . it’s not regretful, I wish things could have been different, especially in the lines of communication that were severed, and the business shit world that got involved contractually and so forth. But I think it served a very important purpose for me, because it enabled me to appreciate and understand how vital and important Priest is in my life as a metal singer. And the best things that I do in terms of satisfaction and trying to maintain success and moving forward and growing, comes within the dimensions of Judas Priest. I think we all feel that way. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

 

How much of an eye did you keep on the band during that time?

 

“As much as everybody else did. And that was initially only in the recording sense, because we didn’t have much contact for quite a while. I experienced Jugulator and Demolition and felt that it was really important that the band was still showing its mettle and was alive and kicking.”

 

What do you think of those albums?

 

“I don’t think my opinion . . . everybody thinks it’s important that they know what I feel about it, and I would never say. But I don’t want that misconstrued – just because I don’t have an opinion doesn’t mean I have a negative opinion. I don’t think that those opinions are important quite frankly.”

 

THOUGH HALFORD began working on a new album with guitarists Glen Tipton and K.K. Downing almost immediately after their decision to reunite, it wasn’t until the band decided to go on tour halfway through the writing process that the world got its first look at Judas Priest circa 2004. Débuting with a show at the Stadion Sporthalle in Hannover, Germany, on June 2 – Halford contends with a laugh that the only words they said to each other before walking onstage that night were, “Don’t fuck up” – the band then embarked on last year’s mammoth Ozzfest tour alongside Black Sabbath. It felt, says the singer, like a triumphant homecoming.

 

“I think that really gave us a good kick in the arse: ‘Look how the fans are still loving this band and wanting the band to carry on’. We went back into the studio with a lot more fire and energy, and refocused further to make what we all feel is an amazing Judas Priest record. It’s not a reunion record, it’s another record in the catalogue of Priest, but I think it’ll have its place in the repertoire of the highlights of this band.”

 

Was there a moment during the writing of Angels Of Retribution where it became clear that this reunion was going to work?

 

“Right in the first few days. Stress or pressure [never] even came into the equation. I think we were just so content to be in each other’s company again and we knew that we had this very successful formula for writing metal as a trio; we just moved ahead. What did surprise us was the abundance of material, and we had to stop, because we were working on a calendar. I think after about three months of writing five days a week we said, ‘Okay, now we have to stop and make sense of all of this; bring in our producer Roy Z and try and whittle it down and get what we feel are the important moments that we want to display on the recording.’”

 

Given that so much is riding on this album, was there a feeling that you had to make a definitive Priest record?

 

“Well, I think we probably made one whether we knew it or not. When I listen to it all I think that this is an important record for the band in every aspect – musically, primarily, but I think that instinctively we’ve made a great Judas Priest metal record. I would hope that the fans feel that way too.”

 

Are you anxious about the fans’ reaction?

 

“You never know do you? You can only make your best efforts, and because we’ve been a part of the metal community for 30 odd years we should have a grip on what we’re doing. But again, you don’t know. Our fans are so much like the band, they’re very real people, and they’ll be the first to speak their mind. You get some portion of Priest fans who want everything to sound like Painkiller, and then you get a portion of the fans who want it to sound like British Steel; that’s because they’ve been delivered such a tremendous variety of material. This band has never been redundant or repetitive, so the Priest fans never know what to expect. But I think this record will take care of business as far as what the vast majority are looking for.”

 

Do you sing about the reunion in any of the songs?

 

“We talk about the band in the autobiographical sense in Deal With The Devil. So there’s a bit of that, but I think that’s about as close as we get to it. The rest of it is very much an open book. I just try to be interesting. Give somebody something that they can go, ‘Oh, that’s pretty cool.’ That’s what we love about the imagery of Loch Ness; I mean, what other band in the world could write a song about the Loch Ness Monster and get away with it? It’s brilliant! So it was a challenge to look at that and I think we came out on top, and it’s a brilliant piece of music. So, again, it’s all about maintaining the interest and showing something new that you’ve not done before.”

 

Plus it means you can have a Loch Ness stage prop now...

 

“[Laughs] Yeah, Ian [Hill, bass]’s gonna wander around the back of the drum kit and just have a Loch Ness rubber head on his neck! Either that or a hand puppet!”

 

THE BIGGEST question surrounding any reunion of this type is, what’s the point? Certainly there’s a financial aspect to consider, particularly when each member’s career has been less successful apart than together.

 

The truth here, though, is that Angel Of Retribution is too good an album to have been written purely for financial gain. Spitting with trademark Priest venom when it’s needed, and showing off the band’s equally powerful command of dynamics when it’s not, Angel Of Retribution is a classic Judas Priest record; the kind fans have been waiting for since Halford split with the band all those years ago.

 

All of which leaves one final question: does Judas Priest have anything to offer kids who weren’t even born when Halford quit in 1992? After all, it’s one thing to reunite and try and move forward, but it’s another to be content to simply play the nostalgia circuit. For Rob Halford, the band’s stint on the Ozzfest tour has convinced him that there’s no reason why Priest’s fanbase can’t extend to a new generation of fans.

 

“When you look from the stage now you’re seeing all different generations enjoying what you do, and it’s an extra kick when you see a fresh face in the crowd and you see them reacting to the music, cos it blows the myth about how long you should question your stay in rock’n’roll. The fact is that great music lives forever. The physical presence is not as important as the music. As long as you can deliver the music on the same level and standard that you’ve set, there’s no end in sight, really.”

 

JUDAS PRIEST’s new album, Angel Of Retribution, is out now via Sony.

 

 

 

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