Continuing our 40th anniversary celebration week for the classic RAINBOW “Rising” album, today it is the turn of the Metal God himself Rob Halford! The whole interview with Rob, discussing many subjects including his thoughts on “Rising”, can be heard on the audio player below.
Metal God Rob Halford had already released his first album “Rocka Rolla”,with NWOBHM legends to be JUDAS PRIEST back in 1974, a year before Ritchie Blackmore’s RAINBOW’s first self-titled album and two years before “Rising”. Several parallels can be drawn here – both bands built their careers in the 1970’s and became hugely successful, creating a plethora of classic music which are still favourites of many today. Decades later, in various ways they are still very active in the music industry, both with an extremely devoted fan base.
So here is a man who 17 albums later, knows a fair bit about quality music! Rob spoke very highly of Ritchie and RAINBOW, discussing how the sound stands up to the test of time. Rob also pinpointed the fact that RAINBOW were leading the rock music scene at that time, with their innovative sound and style:
“It’s a significant record. It’s a thrilling album – to hear that kind of performance from Ritchie at that particular time was a big deal. It plays as well and sounds as well and feels as good now as when it first came out. That shows you how important and how valuable that music still is.”
Discussing his favourite track on “Rising”, Rob stated: “Stargazer definitely. The band were so important at that time in how they were defining certain sounds and styles.”