Rob Halford interview, 2000

LA Weekly, 8/16/00
by Greg Burk

You know what’s gotta be the toughest thing about being Rob Halford? Though he’s been screaming the metal message for nearly 30 years, every time he does something new he has to go around explaining himself again. Like, he’s got this just-released album, Resurrection (Metal Is Records), on which, in the wake of a recent detour into industrial pop, he returns to the heavy-metal foundry where he forged and reforged Judas Priest over a period of some 18 years before splitting in 1991. The current band (called just Halford) and CD: They plain burn. But before we get to that, let’s whip the man through some of his headlines. We need the ritual, like a bedtime story. This is Halford, and part of what keeps us coming back to him is the ornately carved barge of contradictions that seems perpetually moored to him. Like:

The gay thing. Halford left the closet several years ago, after fronting a generation of unaware and heavily homophobic metal audiences with titles like “Some Heads Are Gonna Roll,” “Ram It Down,” “Eat Me Alive” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” and strutting the stage in full motorcycle-leather-boy regalia. He was snickering the whole time, right?

Halford: “I was never into that part of gay culture. But obviously I was aware of it, and the fact that I went out for so many years dressing that way is something that I look back at and half smile. I’ll tell you why it isn’t a full smile: It’s because the sincerity of the performance, the genuineness of what I was trying to create, was detached from the gayness of it all. All it was about was, ‘This looks right for the music.’ But in reflection, it’s the irony of ironies.”

Hmm . . . okay! Well, what about the satanic angle? The character Judas Priest, see, was Bob Dylan’s personification of Mephistopheles. Priest titles? Uh, “Sin After Sin,” “The Hellion,” “Hell Patrol” . . . And it’s not like Hellford — er, Halford is repenting. Among other choice forays into Eviltown on Resurrection, “Made in Hell” offers, “We’re all on the road to hell, and that’s Route 666.” And as a visual aid to those who’re a bit slow on the uptake, the disc itself is emblazoned with a skull and the devil’s PIN.

Halford: “When I’m writing my words, it’s very free-flowing, and I don’t really know what I’m doing until it’s finished. A good example of that is the track ‘Silent Screams,’ where at the beginning it’s very self-reflective, talking about the friends I’ve lost, about all these intimate things — I’m still standing, I’ve survived, I’ve come through all this crap — and then I go into this part of the song that just explodes, and I’m talking about ‘I am . . . your disillusioned God . . . I am black, I am white, I’m the blood upon the knife.’ What the hell does that mean? I don’t question it, because . . . it just feels right? But I often wonder, where is that from? It’s definitely a Jekyll and Hyde scenario, isn’t it? What makes somebody live a very simple life and then go ballistic and do something very terrible or evil or crazy? I think we’ve all got that potential, I really do. And it’s not something I want to think too much about.

“I was looking at a concert tape of myself the other day, which I rarely do. And I really feel detached, I can’t relate to that person. Especially in songs like ‘The Ripper’ or ‘Night Crawler,’ or anything where there’s that degree of pure metal fantasy, characterization, creation of an X-Men type of person-thing-object. I lose myself in that. It is something completely separate.”

One more topic. Lyrics from Resurrection: “I’ll do to you/Just what you did to me/I’m gonna shoot it”; “Son of Judas bring the saints to my revenge.” 1982 Priest album title: Screaming for Vengeance.

Halford: “I’m not a vengeful person. I’m a real easy guy to get along with, and I don’t like confrontation.”

Is the Stygian artist the same guy as the one answering the questions? You can hardly imagine a gent more harmless than the latter: The atmosphere of a Rob Halford interview is like tea with Auntie. His voice is wheedling, concerned, as if he’s insisting you really should eat more vegetables. Wearing baggy shorts and a tank top, he hunches toward you with his hands clasped over his knees, makes friendly eye contact. One is reminded of the early-’90s courtroom documentary footage in which Halford defended Judas Priest against bizarre charges that the band, through “backward masking” of subliminal messages on a record, had influenced the suicide attempts (one successful) of two teenagers. On that occasion, Halford took the witness stand in an elegant suit, his bald pate agleam. Looking like nothing so much as a London art dealer, he made the jury understand, in the calmest â and most sympathetic of terms, that he might as well be accused of having horns and a tail. It may have been his greatest performance.

Or it may have been the real, honest-to-God Halford. And at this point in his life, he seems especially interested in telling you who that is. Resurrection begins with the saga of where he’s been lately: He’s undergone a stretch of self-examination (he’s a recovering alcoholic) and artistic experimentation (having been produced by Trent Reznor in the dark but melodic noise band Two). Lest old-time fans fear he’s left them behind, he proclaims his rebirth and “Resurrection” in the Church of Metal, and in “Made in Hell” proudly recalls the factory towns in which both he and other Birmingham-area Brit music–smelters such as Black Sabbath breathed in the literal fumes of metal. He bares his loves and hates (“Night Fall,” “Locked and Loaded,” “Twist,” “Temptation”); confesses his Internet addiction (“Cyber World”); accepts the “needle in my heart” — the music, he explains — that has been both his salvation and his taskmaster (“Silent Screams”); follows doctor’s orders (“Slow Down”).

The doctor may not be delighted with Resurrection, but fans will be. Produced by Roy Z, who’s been doing superb work with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson (Dickinson sings on “The One You Love To Hate”), the CD sticks both feet in your chest and doesn’t let you up till it’s had its way with you. Halford has assembled a young unit of special forces from all over the place: Guitarist Patrick Lachman from L.A., guitarist Mike Chlasciak from Poland, bassist Ray Riendeau from Two and drummer Bobby Jarzombek from Riot are at once heavier, nastier and slicker than Judas Priest ever were. Resurrection cuts loose with the double-kick-drum assault of modern metal, coupled with an ultradynamic, melodically disciplined studio sound and the most challenging vocal screeches and proclamations Halford has pulled off in many a season. And the songwriting (mostly by Halford, Roy Z and the band) is diamond- crafted, with the operatic “Night Fall,” the schizo epic “Silent Screams” and the transcendent title track cutting especially deep.

Now all that’s left is taking it to the stage. Gosh, what do you suppose Halford will wear?

Breath, sigh, twinkle in the eye: “Ah . . . leather.” Halford laughs with glee. “Leather — lace . . . no, the leather. What’s next? A suit of armor, I don’t know.”

What did he think when Pat Boone stole his leather-dude-on-a-hog look for the good-humored metal tribute Boone essayed several years back?

He guffaws. “Pat’s waaaay too deep in the closet. Come out, Pat! Oh, dear.”

Though no longer closeted himself, Halford claims not to be the party boy he once was, notwithstanding “Temptation” (another Resurrection title). Still, this interview was conducted in a West Hollywood hotel. “Whenever I stay in L.A., I stay in this part of town, just because I’m close to my own kind. But I can’t go to the clubs, and I can’t go to the bathhouses, because I have to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning to do fucking interviews. I have to be in bed at 9 o’clock at night!”

Halford looks completely serious as he describes the scene. “A Harry Potter book. And my hot chocolate.”