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.”
Where to start when talking about a vocalist and front man who has had the most phenomenal career, starting way back in 1969, before going on to achieve super stardom and success with one of the biggest, best known and loved metal bands on the planet! He is an idol to millions and was rocking and performing before so many bands that are around today. He is looked up to by peers, fans and critics – he is like a walking manual for metal. Of course I can only be talking about the one and only METAL GOD, JUDAS PRIEST‘s Rob Halford!
Rob has one of the most, if not THE most recognisable voice in metal, showing no signs of letting up any time soon, much to the delight of PRIEST fans around the globe. With an impressive seventeen studio albums under their belt, the most recent being “Redeemer Of Souls” released in 2014, JUDAS PRIEST are now set to unleash a new live album “Battle Cry”, on CD, Blu-ray and DVD on 25th March via Epic Records. The album was recorded at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2015, with some bonus clips filmed in Poland.
I was very fortunate to be able to have a chat with Rob about this forthcoming release, as well as PRIEST‘s past work, touring and plenty more. You can read some excerpts from our conversation and listen to the full audio below:
Regarding “Battle Cry”, Rob discussed the whole experience:
“As all of our metal maniacs are aware, we were out for the last eighteen months, one hundred and thirty three shows and umpteen countries, thousands of miles travelling to see all the Priest maniacs around the world on the Redeemer Of Souls tour. Thanks to everybody for supporting the Priest on that release. It was a very important record for Priest because it was our first studio album in quite a while and we were so thrilled with the way it turned out. It becomes extra qualified when your fans get behind you to give you such incredible support, so thank you everybody for doing that.
So along the way we went all over the world and did many, many kinds of shows, different kinds of venues and what we were hoping to get was a festival experience that we could film, consider for release, as we haven’t done anything like that for quite a while. So were were aware there’s the festival in Germany called Wacken, which is the premier European metal festival and we had an opportunity to work something out with all the production that was already in place and to film it all and record it all and really just use the environment and all of the great vibes, the atmosphere that exists in festivals wherever you might go in the world, but this particular one in Wacken.
It’s kinda cool, it’s kinda special in the way it’s put together. So there you go, that’s all we needed to do to plan ahead. We just went out there and did what we always do, played our hearts out everywhere we go and got it all captured live in the flesh, on the DVD, the Blu-ray and the separate audio CD. It’s a celebration of Priest to share with our wonderful fans, just add it to your Priest collection.“
Discussing the “Battle Cry” track list, Rob stated:
“Yeah it gets increasingly difficult you know, with so many albums and hundreds of songs recorded. It’s such a challenge that when we get together and decide what we’re gonna play and write a set list that we all agree on and that really is part of trying to find the balance there and then. Because I’ve got my favourite songs, Glenn’s got his, Richie’s got his, so has Ian and Scott and we try to find a balance. Any show that you go to for any of your favourite bands, it’s largely thought out in terms of dynamics – you know you start out something very strong and recognisable and powerful and then in Priest’s case, you try and take your fans through a little bit of a Dr Who and the TARDIS thing you know, jumping about from this decade to that decade. And you try to do as much as you can in the time that you’ve got to please as many people as you can. That’s very hard, ‘cos we know people go ‘oh they didn’t play so and so’, but it’s just the way it goes.
So here we were, really what was the Redeemer Of Souls tour, that was the release that we were consistently supporting and we weaved songs from that album into material from Painkiller and British Steel and so on and so on and it worked really well. It was a good solid show from a musical point of view.“
On the subject of undertaking such a huge tour in 2015, Rob expressed:
“(Laughs) It got a bit scary at the end when you look at your face in the mirror! You forget about that once the intro tape starts and your fans start roaring, you feel like a million dollars. It was pretty intense, it was a strong tour especially for some gods of our generation. And that’s what I love about metal you know, we’ve said it before – metal’s for everybody from all walks of life, all different generations. We’re still so grateful to have this opportunity all of these years later, to have our glorious fans giving us such overwhelming support. It always comes back to the fans, you can’t do anything without the fans, we can’t thank our fans enough for that.“
I asked Rob how the ever changing world of rock and metal has an impact on him:
“I think it makes you realise your music is immortal, your music is eternal but a different perspective from a physical point of view. Without being morbid, God bless Lemmy, Bowie, all these really amazing important real legends, icons in rock and metal, they’ve left us with all their wonderful music and still remain very influential. What you do really is putting one foot in front of another and it’s also celebrating what they did, what they achieved. I mean, I was always inspired by Lemmy, with what he stood for, just looking at him on stage.
Bowie was one of my all time heroes from a singer’s point of view, but also in the amazing work that he created in his life. And my mate Ronnie, the same deal with Ronnie, all these beautiful people that left us with all of these treasures to really still enjoy and to bounce off, to get ideas and get a rush from. You’ve really got try and get over the hurdle of the sadness and then how great it is that we’ve got the music left to enjoy, to bang our heads to and have good times together with.“
When asked about new material to come from our metal legends, Rob revealed:
“The writing sessions will come first and I think much like any band, you start off the day in a writing session and you’ve got nothing you know. You turn the amps on and you start riffing and jamming and maybe by the end of the day you’ve got something that will turn into a really good piece of music, that’ll potentially last forever. So that creative side of Priest is as strong as it ever was and we’re all very very pumped up and thrilled for the opportunity that’s about to come to us again. There’s a new Priest record on the way and when it’s ready we’ll be letting everyone know it’s on the horizon. I would like to think that by the end of this year we’ll have the bulk of it created, but you can’t say for certain. The thing about Priest is that we treasure everything that we do, we so love being in this band Judas Priest. We can guarantee that we’ll give you a big solid dose of Priest metal!“
Regarding KK Downing‘s recent statement about playing with JUDAS PRIEST again, Rob said:
“It’s funny that is because I think that’s a dream of a lot of people, to imagine Maiden and Sabbath and Priest and Zeppelin. Can you imagine what that would be like at Wembley? Oh my God, it would be mad, it would be like multiple nights! Forget about fifty shows Michael Jackson didn’t do, it would be like a hundred shows at Wembley. It’s great to hear there’s that passion still in KK’s voice for Priest. We go around the world slogging away working really really hard playing the songs that we wrote together and really forging that back catalogue, just putting on incredible shows night after night with so much strength and power and energy. It’s beautiful that Priest still has conviction and still has that desire and passion and love for what we do in metal, so it’s all good vibes.“
Talking about what else Rob has left to achieve, he stated:
“Well I’m still very hungry to do a blues record, I love the blues. Before I joined Priest, in my early years as a musician, I listened to a lot of blues like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Bessie Smith, John Lee Hooker, the people that invented it of course. The story goes everything comes from the blues.
I’m just curious to see what my take could be. I’ve no idea – would it be traditional, would it be heavy, a metal blues, what could it be? I think the best thing for me to do would be to do it with people that could direct me, give me some ideas as to where they think this voice, ‘cos it’s all about the voice, could be best utilised. That’s one of the things on the bucket list yeah, doing a blues album.“
Discussing the recently published interview with ACCEPT‘s Mark Tornillo, Rob enthused:
“Yeah great, he’s a brilliant singer, great front man, love that band Accept. It was unusual, a call to have a chit chat from two guys that do the same type of work, it was a lot of fun to do. I think there should be more of that ‘cos we love having chit chats with our friends in the business and with journalists like yourself. When you’ve lived the life there’s a lot of common ground, but it’s also an opportunity to pick up on stories that you probably don’t know about, you know, things you wouldn’t know about if you’re kind of outside what it’s like to be in a band.“
Last year when metal giants ACCEPT were in Finland as part of their “Blind Rage” world tour, vocalist Mark Tornillo had an interview with Metal God Rob Halford from JUDAS PRIEST.
The interview has just been released via the official ACCEPT website here and you can check it out below:
With kind permission by Jayne Andrews, Holger Stratmann and Thomas Kupfer.
Before ACCEPT embark on the next chapter of the band, writing new material, the band accepted invites to play two special US shows. On March 3rd, ACCEPT are heading to Sioux Falls to play at Badlands then make their way to The Arcada Theatre in St Charles, Illinois on March 5th!
“After touring so much, we thought it would be great to have a long break to write songs,” commented guitarist and main songwriter Wolf Hoffman. “But than – we changed our minds and thought – it would be great to do a few shows – just to stay sharp and keep up with the cool dynamics between us! May be – we just need to get hot and sweaty on stage again. See ya all very soon!”
Upon the completion of the US dates, ACCEPT will cross the Atlantic to play in Austria then make their way to South America where they will play in Argentina followed by five dates in Brazil! Don’t miss your chance to watch Accept live in all their glory.
Confirmed dates for the ACCEPT 2016 Blind Rage Tour are:
3/3/2016 Badlands – Sioux Falls, SD USA
3/5/2016 The Arcada Theatre – St. Charles, IL USA
4/2/2016 Full Metal Mountain – Hermagor-Presseggr See, Austria
4/6/2016 Teatro Vorterix – Buenos Aires, Argentina
4/8/2016 Carioca Club – Sao Paulo, Brazil
4/9/2016 Imperator – Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
4/10/2016 Music Hall – Belo Horizonte, Brazil
4/12/2016 Teatro Manauara – Manaus, Brazil
4/14/2016 Opera de Arame – Curitiba, Brazil
Rob Halford says he listens to Ronnie James Dio to get himself in the right frame of mind before a gig, according to classicrock.com.
The JUDAS PRIEST frontman has always been a fan of the late Sabbath, Rainbow, Dio and Heaven & Hell singer, and he has revealed that Dio is his number one inspiration as a vocalist.
Halford tells OC Weekly: “I always listen to Ronnie before I go on stage with Priest because I find his voice invigorating. It gets my blood pumping and gets me in the zone before I go out and do my thing with Priest. I pretty much listen to him almost every time.
“I listen to Ronnie for so many weeks at a time. I find his voice so inspiring and so powerful for me as a singer. He was a very influential singer. If you listen to him now, you can almost imagine what he was like behind the mic in the studio because he’s so committed.
“You can tell in his delivery, presence and performance. It’s almost as if he’s just recorded it and laid the track down last week. That’s the great thing about Ronnie – he had that kind of engineered dynamic that is very difficult to capture in the studio, but he delivered that at every show night after night.”
The Metal God has also spoken about his admiration for military personnel and his pride that openly gay people can serve in the US forces. America scrapped its controversial ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy on gay servicemen and women in 2011.
Halford adds: “The fact that there are now gay men and women who can openly serve their country is a wonderful thing. I think it’s also possible it has to do with my own struggles as a gay man. Being a masculine gay guy, and please don’t take that the wrong way either. I love all of my gay friends no matter how they appear, I’m trying to use that as an open reference.
“In my own journey as a gay guy in a straight band and a gay guy in a straight world and a metal world, I found the connection again through the Marine Corps.”
This week, Halford gave a thumbs up to next year’s Download festival lineup which includes Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. Priest will return to the studio next year to record the follow-up to 2014’s “Redeemer Of Souls”. They begin a European tour next month.
JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford has commented on Kim Davis, the woman who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Kentucky, saying that we all should “give each other the respect and equality that everybody deserves on this planet”, reports blabbermouth.net.
Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Davis is an Apostolic Christian who has said her faith prevents her from issuing the licenses. She spent six days in jail earlier in the month for refusing to comply with a federal judge’s order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Davis has become a lightning rod for the same-sex marriage debate, her case prompting supporters to tie her defiance to follow the law to the passive resistance at the center of the Civil Rights Movement.
Halford, who came out as a gay man during a 1998 interview with MTV, says that the Davis case isn’t actually about gay marriage or religious freedom but is rather is about the county clerk’s refusal to uphold the law, as she was sworn to do.
Speaking to the C103 radio station, Halford said: “First of all, you know, it’s been very interesting to watch all of that going on, ’cause I’ve been here in America while all that came about. And firstly, I just love freedom and democracy and freedom of speech and everybody being able to say what they feel. Having said that, when you are employed in a situation that comes with basic, accepted ground rules and you try to kind of manipulate them to your perception so that it interferes with your job and interferes with other people’s lives, then I take [exception to that].”
He continued: “But, look, again, from my perspective 64 years later, living this long, it is just… It’s simple, man: just give each other the respect and equality that everybody deserves on this planet, no matter where you’re from. So all this business about gay, straight, bi, black, white, Jew, Catholic… it’s all these ridiculous labels. We’re all people. We all need to just try and find a way to love each other and accept each other and try and make the world a better place. Amen.”
Halford told The Press Of Atlantic City that he expected metal fans to alienate him when he first spoke about his homosexuality. “I probably deluded myself into thinking I would get rejection,” he said. “Nothing could have been further from the truth.”
He continued: “When you make that choice of stepping out and facing the issue of disclosure, you do create this kind of self-imposed negative fear. It’s unfortunate it still happens today. ‘Do I step out and say I’m a gay guy?’ But you have got to do it and live your life on your terms and no one else’s terms. Don’t say you can’t do this and you are worried about people being offended. If they push you away, then they push you away. Grab life by the horns and tell them, ‘Take me for what I am and who I am and if you don’t like it, that’s your thing. Not my thing.'”
He added: “If I had been in the band at the time … I think when it happened was a good moment. The fans were amazing.”
Rob Halford says JUDAS PRIEST will start recording their next album next year, according to metalhammer.teamrock.com.
Rejuvenated by the addition of new guitarist Richie Faulkner, the band released 17th album Redeemer Of Souls in 2014. And just a few months later, Halford said he was already thinking ahead to their follow-up.
Now Halford tells Sixx Sense: “We’ll be out for the rest of this tour until Christmas, take a break, and then more than likely in the studio early of 2016 and see how quickly we can turn this around.
“It won’t be a rush job, because we treasure everything we do – but I think that the mindset is there to make this record efficiently, and hopefully have it out there as soon as we can.”
He says the positive reaction to “Redeemer Of Souls” is also a big driving factor. “That really motivated us to crack the whip and get on with making the next record pretty quickly,” he says.
“The clock is ticking. We can’t afford to wait three years, or five years now, to make the record. Who wants to go home and sit down for a year? And especially while the band is buzzing and the energy’s there creatively.”
Halford adds: “We had so much stuff happening in the studio we had to put blocks on because we were on a time schedule with the label. So we do have some stuff kind of left over from Redeemer Of Souls.”
JUDAS PRIEST TOUR DATES
Jul 11: Biloxi Hard Rock Live, MS, US
Jul 13: Grand Prairie Verizon Theatre, TX, US
Jul 15: Sterling Heights Freedom Hill Amphitheatre, MI, US
Jul 16: Oshkosh Rock, WI, US
Jul 18: Cadott Rock Fest, WI, US
Jul 25: Barcelona Rock Fest, Spain
Jul 26: Madrid Auditorio Miguel Rios De Rivas, Spain
Jul 29: Szekesfehervar Fezen Festival, Hungary
Jul 30: Graz See Rock Festival, Austria
Aug 01: Wacken Festival, Germany
Oct 24: San Bernardino, Knotfest, CA
Nov 23: Bradford St Georges, UK
Nov 24: Glasgow Barrowlands, UK
Nov 26: Wolverhampton Civic, UK
Nov 28: Manchester Apollo, UK
Nov 30: Portsmouth Guildhall, UK
Dec 01: London O2 Brixton Academy, UK
Dec 04: Karlstad Lofbergs Arena, Sweden
Dec 05: Stockholm Ericsson Globe, Sweden
Dec 07: Tallin Saku Arena, Estonia
Dec 08: Vilnius Siemens Arena, Lithuania
Dec 10: Gdasnk Ergo Arena, Poland
Dec 12: Brno Rondo Arena, Czech Republic
Dec 16: Brussels Vorst Nationaal, Belgium
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