Judas Priest’s Rob Halford Says Heavy Metal Is Musical Freedom
Judas Priest singer Rob Halford said that the heavy metal genre is musical freedom. He also touched on the next Priest album and said it will have its own separate character.
Rob Halford is known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Judas Priest. At first, the singer had joined the band in 1973 and performed with them until his departure in 1992. Later then, Halford rejoined the band in 2003 and still rocks with them.
Throughout his tenure with Priest, Rob Halford appeared in twenty studio albums of the band. Those were some of the band’s hit albums such as Painkiller, Killing Machine, British Steel, Turbo and Redeemer of Souls.
However, recently, Rob Halford chatted with Masa Ito from Rock City to share his feelings about the heavy metal music genre. At first, the musician informed fans about the next Judas Priest album by touching on each Priest albums’ characters. Later, the musician said heavy metal is musical freedom.
“This next [Judas] Priest album will be just as full of separate character,” Halford says. “Judas Priest is ‘Painkiller’; Judas Priest is ‘British Steel’; Judas Priest is ‘Screaming For Vengeance’; Judas Priest is ‘Sin After Sin’. Every album has its own legs, its own metal boots.
“We’ve always said that even though we’re a heavy metal band, we don’t let that confine us; we don’t let heavy metal put us in a box. We think heavy metal is freedom — musical freedom.”
Rob Halford Says Next Judas Priest Album Will Be Unique
Later then, Rob Halford once again touched on the band’s follow-up to Firepower, which was the band’s eighteenth studio effort released in 2018. When the musician compared two Judas Priest albums to each other, he said that Judas Priest fans are going to get something that they have never heard before.
“When we played Bloodstock and twenty thousand metal maniacs were singing ‘I’m your turbo lover,’ it’s metal,” he continues. “And then, twenty minutes later, twenty thousand metal maniacs are going, ‘He is the painkiller,’ it’s metal.
“From two different worlds — from the ‘Turbo’ world and from the ‘Painkiller’ world — but it’s still heavy metal.
“And this, I feel, has always been what sets Judas Priest in a place that no one else explores. And that’s why I feel that when our fans hear that Judas Priest is making a new metal album, they know they’re going to get something that they have never heard before, they’re going to get the sounds, they’re going to get the songs, they’re going to get the compositions and the arrangements in a way that, again, is new; it’s fresh.”
Rob Halford had also touched on the band’s longevity for more than five decades. According to him, they’re thinking about Judas Priest fans whenever they write new songs for the band.
“I feel that’s also a part why we’ve lasted 50 years in own world, in the Priest world — is because when we start to sit down and write, like I’ve been writing with Glenn
and with Richie, internally, we know, we think about our fans, we think about the excitement that our fans are feeling, we think about what our fans are wondering this next Priest album will contain,” Halford reveals.
“And we know that our fans are also as full of adventure and acceptance and open-mindedness and freedom as Judas Priest is when we [come together] to make these new metal songs.
“So, yeah, every single Priest album — if you look at the cover of ‘Point Of Entry’, you can hear the songs in your head; if you look at the cover of ‘Firepower’, you can hear the songs in your head. It’s the same band, but they’re two different dimensions.
“And this is what makes Judas Priest, again, unique. There is no other band in heavy metal like Judas Priest, and we’re very proud of that.”
