JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford was interviewed on the October 22 edition of “Whiplash”, the KLOS radio show hosted by Full Metal Jackie. You can now listen to the chat using the widget below. A few excerpts follow (by Blabbermouth.net).
On how he found out about JUDAS PRIEST being nominated for a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction:
Halford: “Yeah, we found out a little bit before the news broke, which I think is generally the case in terms of nominations. It’s just to give you maybe a little bit of a ‘heads up,’ [but] I don’t know. When we heard, especially from my perspective, spending most of my life here in America these days and being so aware of all of these great moments that can happen to you for the first time ever… I mean, I was walking on air; it was just absolutely fantastic. So, yeah, what a thrill, what a buzz. And then, of course, when the news broke and went public, everything just exploded for the band and for the heavy metal community, the fans, everyone at our management and the label, and family and friends. It was just a really exciting 24-, 48-hour initial burst of metal, power and energy.”
On what JUDAS PRIEST being nominated for a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction for the first time means to him:
Halford: “Well, again, just because I think everything that PRIEST has done in the four decades that we’ve been together, we’ve always taken this perspective that whatever we’ve done in metal obviously begins within the band itself and that’s obviously vital to everything. But running alongside that is this fantastic, really truly established loving relationship we have not only with PRIEST fans but, I’m sure, with metal fans around the globe. So, we’ve kind of run side by side in terms of looking out for each other and supporting each other through everything related to the metal scene. And in this respect towards some metal coming into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for the first time, I don’t think it should be looked at too lightly. It is important for lots of reasons, but primarily to have the opportunity… Firstly, to be nominated is a thrill, but just simply seeing metal being talked about globally, because the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, even though it’s an American institution, it has global reach. So it’s a great kind of ceremony celebrating those two words — heavy metal. It was fantastic when the announcement was made. And it made everybody kind of lift their heads up and think about not only PRIEST but metal in the broadest sense of the word.”
On the most important reason, to him, why JUDAS PRIEST should be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame:
Halford: “Well, I think if you really understand what the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame stands for, it really is the quality of your work, the substance of what makes you a band. And so, as I know now, and I must admit it wasn’t until just recently that I really got to grasp what this represents, which is that your music, your body of work is really scrutinized — everything is scrutinized. It’s not just the one song or one album or one tour or whatever; they look at absolutely everything. They really investigate everything about you as a band or solo artist, whatever. So that, again, makes it more of a deeper and more of a meaningful moment for that reason alone. They look at all of your music for 25 years plus, and so with PRIEST, that’s from, say, ‘Rocka Rolla’ up to wherever we were 25 years later. And it’s easy to get lost, you know, when you’ve written so many songs and you’ve done so many things. You lose track yourself as a musician, being in a band that’s been… that had a great, long life in metal. I mean, I put on ‘Rocka Rolla’ a few days ago and I was listening to tracks like ‘Dying To Meet You’ and ‘Run Of The Mill’ and I’m going, ‘Yeah, these are good songs.’ So it is quite… they do go really deep, and so that adds another dimension to, I think, the whole Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction.”
JUDAS PRIEST will release their new studio album, “Firepower”, in early 2018.
