In another timeline, Rob Halford and Judas Priest would be wrapping up the Midwestern leg of their 50th anniversary tour, but thanks to the pandemic, Halford is at home in Phoenix, learning how to conduct a remote book tour for his memoir, Confess. So much of Halford's story has been told over the years, particularly his (barely) closeted, leather-clad heyday with Priest, his exit from the band in the early '90s, his public revelation of his sexuality in 1998, and his reclamation of his place in Judas Priest in the mid-2000s. Confess digs deeper into all of these turning points, and provides useful context including his early work in the world of theater, the experiences that helped him discover his sexual identity, and his perspective on the arc of Priest's career.
Halford spoke with AllMusic in the midst of a scorching Arizona heat wave ("it's my vampire month...very heavy metal") to elaborate on many of the tales from his book, including working backwards from a classic song title, the book that helped him get a glimpse of the gay underground before he was ready to enter it himself, and how deliberately he worked to rejoin Judas Priest in the 2000s. Confess is out now on Hachette Books.
AllMusic: One of your first jobs was working at a local theater, how do you think that influenced your idea of what live performance could or should be?
Rob Halford: When you're a kid at that age, you're soaking life up like a sponge and just taking everything in. It was an incredible opportunity, to work in entertainment and be involved night after night with so much variety and texture and all the incredible displays, the production and the variety from opera to ballet, and I'm sure it was on the brain.
So when I became a professional musician, especially with Priest, and we were looking for opportunities to do something more than just stand there with instruments, that's what I tapped into. In those formative years, especially as a teenager, you're just trying to make sense of life and what's going on around you, but some things stay with you forever, and that would be the case with my time at the theater.
AllMusic: You write about being a white album guy, what about that record got under your skin?
Halford: I just sensed a kind of maturity in that music, for me as a Beatles fan. The big record for me was Sgt. Pepper, but the white album was very serious, the Beatles were becoming very serious musicians and were dealing with a lot of issues with their lives, and that was being reflected in their music. So the white album is one that really took hold of me, and showed me how musicians grow, like you look at Priest with Rocka Rolla and then Firepower, there's a vast expanse between the two.
AllMusic: And later you say that 'Painkiller' was Priest's 'Sgt. Pepper.'
Halford: I've always felt that the Painkiller record was a really sheer, determined effort on our part to make something that was very cohesive from beginning to end, and relentless, to a great degree, the momentum was full on. Even on "A Touch of Evil" [the album's midtempo outlier], it's still a strong message.
AllMusic: Decades later, the band still doesn't have the rights to its first two albums. Is that an ongoing struggle, or did you make peace with it at some point?
Halford: Yeah, we're not the first band that went through that type of situation, but it's unfortunate. Those first two records, regardless of how you perceive them, are an important part to the life of Priest, and we've tried so hard to reclaim them. I think there was a bit of spitefulness, from my perception, when I think of all the ways we tried to be English gentlemen, both parties, to an extent, through our lawyers, and there was just this attitude that kept coming back to us.
Eventually you have to let it go, because the important thing is that you can listen to any of those songs, from Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings of Destiny, there they are, on the internet. They may not be of a quality that I particularly enjoy myself, but they're there, so the music is free. The music will always be free, if you see what I mean by that, but the business logistics sometimes banged up against each other, and it's unfortunate, because those are important records. The first record that any band makes is a statement, and sometimes it takes two or three before you figure out who you are and what you're trying to do, and I think with us, we were focused by the time we did Sad Wings of Destiny.
AllMusic: You write about how the introduction of punk was seen as a threat not just to the prog world, but also to the metal scene. Did punk actually make you nervous?
Halford: To me, punk was two ideas: the music and the kind of social position that they tried to expand upon. Some of the punk bands got into it to be rich and famous, like the Sex Pistols, who made a lot of fun out of it, they were very smart. But as far as some of the great bands that came out at that time, like the Stranglers and the Clash, it was great, it was a very volatile, explosive, flash in the pan, crash and burn, rock and roll experience. Some wonderful bands survived, with great sounds and great songs, and it served a good purpose in that respect, because it definitely shook up rock and roll for the short time that it was alive.
AllMusic: One of the key parts of exploring your sexual identity was when you bought Bob Damron's Address Book [a list of gay bars and hangouts]. But you say you never actually used the information in the book until much later; what did you get out of just having the book without using it?
Halford: It brings up so many thoughts and emotions in my mind. I'd be touring with Priest, and as we'd pull into a town, I'd look at the book and sometimes see the street that a certain club or a bar was on, and realize that I was so near and yet so far away from being able to make that connection. The angst of that was really, really strong, and we talk about that quite deeply in the book, because it needs to be talked about, the closeted identity that so many men and women have, where people are afraid to step out and be who they are.
Halford spoke with AllMusic in the midst of a scorching Arizona heat wave ("it's my vampire month...very heavy metal") to elaborate on many of the tales from his book, including working backwards from a classic song title, the book that helped him get a glimpse of the gay underground before he was ready to enter it himself, and how deliberately he worked to rejoin Judas Priest in the 2000s. Confess is out now on Hachette Books.
AllMusic: One of your first jobs was working at a local theater, how do you think that influenced your idea of what live performance could or should be?
Rob Halford: When you're a kid at that age, you're soaking life up like a sponge and just taking everything in. It was an incredible opportunity, to work in entertainment and be involved night after night with so much variety and texture and all the incredible displays, the production and the variety from opera to ballet, and I'm sure it was on the brain.
So when I became a professional musician, especially with Priest, and we were looking for opportunities to do something more than just stand there with instruments, that's what I tapped into. In those formative years, especially as a teenager, you're just trying to make sense of life and what's going on around you, but some things stay with you forever, and that would be the case with my time at the theater.
AllMusic: You write about being a white album guy, what about that record got under your skin?
Halford: I just sensed a kind of maturity in that music, for me as a Beatles fan. The big record for me was Sgt. Pepper, but the white album was very serious, the Beatles were becoming very serious musicians and were dealing with a lot of issues with their lives, and that was being reflected in their music. So the white album is one that really took hold of me, and showed me how musicians grow, like you look at Priest with Rocka Rolla and then Firepower, there's a vast expanse between the two.
AllMusic: And later you say that 'Painkiller' was Priest's 'Sgt. Pepper.'
Halford: I've always felt that the Painkiller record was a really sheer, determined effort on our part to make something that was very cohesive from beginning to end, and relentless, to a great degree, the momentum was full on. Even on "A Touch of Evil" [the album's midtempo outlier], it's still a strong message.
AllMusic: Decades later, the band still doesn't have the rights to its first two albums. Is that an ongoing struggle, or did you make peace with it at some point?
Halford: Yeah, we're not the first band that went through that type of situation, but it's unfortunate. Those first two records, regardless of how you perceive them, are an important part to the life of Priest, and we've tried so hard to reclaim them. I think there was a bit of spitefulness, from my perception, when I think of all the ways we tried to be English gentlemen, both parties, to an extent, through our lawyers, and there was just this attitude that kept coming back to us.
Eventually you have to let it go, because the important thing is that you can listen to any of those songs, from Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings of Destiny, there they are, on the internet. They may not be of a quality that I particularly enjoy myself, but they're there, so the music is free. The music will always be free, if you see what I mean by that, but the business logistics sometimes banged up against each other, and it's unfortunate, because those are important records. The first record that any band makes is a statement, and sometimes it takes two or three before you figure out who you are and what you're trying to do, and I think with us, we were focused by the time we did Sad Wings of Destiny.
AllMusic: You write about how the introduction of punk was seen as a threat not just to the prog world, but also to the metal scene. Did punk actually make you nervous?
Halford: To me, punk was two ideas: the music and the kind of social position that they tried to expand upon. Some of the punk bands got into it to be rich and famous, like the Sex Pistols, who made a lot of fun out of it, they were very smart. But as far as some of the great bands that came out at that time, like the Stranglers and the Clash, it was great, it was a very volatile, explosive, flash in the pan, crash and burn, rock and roll experience. Some wonderful bands survived, with great sounds and great songs, and it served a good purpose in that respect, because it definitely shook up rock and roll for the short time that it was alive.
AllMusic: One of the key parts of exploring your sexual identity was when you bought Bob Damron's Address Book [a list of gay bars and hangouts]. But you say you never actually used the information in the book until much later; what did you get out of just having the book without using it?
Halford: It brings up so many thoughts and emotions in my mind. I'd be touring with Priest, and as we'd pull into a town, I'd look at the book and sometimes see the street that a certain club or a bar was on, and realize that I was so near and yet so far away from being able to make that connection. The angst of that was really, really strong, and we talk about that quite deeply in the book, because it needs to be talked about, the closeted identity that so many men and women have, where people are afraid to step out and be who they are.
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