Lost your password?

halford

HALFORD LOVES GETTING OLD

Manos Spanos
JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford who revealed earlier in the year that he was suffering from umbilical hernia, a condition where the belly button pops outwards due to a weakness in the muscles in or around the belly button, tells The Morning Call in a brand new interview that his health is good. "Yeah, I'm not bad," he says with a laugh. "I mean, creaking out of bed at 63 is not as easy as leaping out of bed at 16. But I love it. I love getting old, I really do. I just think that I embrace it because I'm a lucky guy. What a joy — a man of my generation being able to do this sort of thing. It's just remarkable. "I've had a few health hiccups the last few years, but nothing as dramatic as some people go through in life and I'm grateful that I can still get up and do my work. I do it 'cause they keep coming back. I'm more like the Perry Como of heavy metal," he says, laughing again. "No! Strike that. I'll use a living person: I'm the Tony Bennett of heavy metal. There you go — use that. Which means I kind of glide across the stage these days." Halford was last year seen hobbling around with the aid of a walking stick. He told RollingStone.com at the time: "I've got a bit of a back issue, which is fixable. Thank the lord it's not happening while we're touring, because we'd be in a terrible state. "But apart from that, everything is working fine. My voice... is wailing. It's strong, it's powerful... I'm 99.999 per cent working." Recalling a meeting with his longtime friends Lemmy and Rob Trujillo at the 2013 edition of the Revolver Golden Gods awards in Los Angeles, Halford said: "I'm in the dressing room... and Lemmy's sitting across from me. Lemmy, God bless him, is going through heart difficulties. I'm comparing my ailments with Lemmy, and Rob, the bass player from METALLICA, is doing these stretches... I don't know, these guys, a guitar is 15 pounds, and when you've got that slung around your neck for two and a half hours a day — I think it's just degenerative. It's accumulative injuries. "There's no difference from some aspects of sports. You think of a golf player just hitting a ball — 'Well, that can't be too strenuous.' But it is. It's incredibly strenuous when you do that for 40 years. You're going to have a few nicks and bruises." JUDAS PRIEST's new album, "Redeemer Of Souls", was released in North America on July 8 via Epic Records.
03 min read

HALFORD Says Controversy Over DICKINSON’s Teleprompter Comments Is Much Ado About Nothing

Manos Spanos
Rob Halford says that the recent controversy surrounding IRON MAIDEN frontman Bruce Dickinson's apparent condemnation of the JUDAS PRIEST singer's use of a teleprompter during live performances is much ado about nothing. A teleprompter, or autocue, is a display device that prompts the person speaking with an electronic visual text of a speech or script, and it is usually used by singers — including Halford and BLACK SABBATH's Ozzy Osbourne — who are getting on a bit and have a large body of work to remember. "I never realized that people were using autocues," Dickinson told The Guardian in a recent interview. "What the fuck is that all about? People pay good money and you can't even remember the sodding words." He continued: "The daftest one I ever saw was [JUDAS PRIEST's] 'Breaking The Law'. It's on the fucking autocue. 'Breaking the law, breaking the law/Breaking the law, breaking the law/Breaking the law, breaking the law/Breaking the law' — guess what? — 'breaking the law.' It's ludicrous." Asked by Nikki Blakk of the San Francisco, California radio station 107.7 The Bone to respond to Dickinson's comments, Halford laughed out loud and said: "What we British say is it was just a storm in a teacup [Editor's note: 'Storm in a teacup' is a British variation of 'tempest in a teapot,' an idiom meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion]." He added: I love Bruce. I love Bruce. He's a great friend of mine. And he's very outspoken. [He's a] great frontman, a great singer from a great band. And, you know, these things are said in many ways, and I'm sure he didn't mean it in any other way than Bruce sometimes goes off in one of his rants. You know, it's just the way it goes. "But, yes, storm in a teacup. Storm in a metal teacup." In a 2010 interview with the QMI Agency, Halford spoke about how using a teleprompter helped him when he was asked to fill in for Ozzy with BLACK SABBATH for a show after Osbourne was taken ill. "[Like Ozzy], I use a teleprompter now too because I do so many things," he said. "I can't remember. I wish I was like my mate Bruce Dickinson and could do everything, but I need that safety blanket." During the 2005 edition of Ozzfest, the traveling festival's founder, Ozzy's wife and manager Sharon Osbourne, famously cut the venue's public-address system and the main stage's power on at least three occasions during MAIDEN's performance at the tour's final stop in Devore, California because she said that Dickinson was "talking shit about my family, night after night," and was being "disrespectful" to her husband during Bruce's "nightly outbursts from the stage" by saying that "we don't need a teleprompter' (like Ozzy)."
03 min read

JUDAS PRIEST Singer ROB HALFORD To Guest On ‘The Simpsons’

Manos Spanos
According to Entertainment Weekly, the voice of JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford wil be featured in an episode of the animated series "The Simpsons", set to air sometime next year. The episode will also star Will Arnett, director Judd Apatow, and his frequent costars Leslie Mann, Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen. Simpsons executive producer Matt Selman tells Entertainment Weekly that in the episode, titled "Steal This Episode", Homer is taught by Bart how to illegally download films, and he starts screening them in his backyard for folks in Springfield. "Even though Homer is stealing, he's doing it for the community, he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart," says Selman. An overzealous FBI director in charge of anti-piracy subsuqently goes after Homer, andHalford winds up singing a parody of the JUDAS PRIEST classic "Breaking The Law" in an effort to nab Homer. In 2002, Halford had a small film role as a pornographic video store clerk in "Spun", a crime comedy-drama dark-comedy directed by Jonas Åkerlund, who has helmed music videos for some of the biggest pop and rock artists in the world. Rob told Screamer Magazine earlier this year: "I had a fantastic opportunity to work on that 'Spun' movie with Mickey Rourke. And to watch Mickey Rourke, I just don't know how he does it. He just switches it on, and he's a different person almost. That's the great challenge that these actors have. It's not easy, but these actors make it look easy because they are so good at what they do." Given a chance to act again, Halford said that he would certainly consider it. "I never say no to anything," he said. "I think if you do, you don't know what you've missed. I think you should try everything in life. If it doesn't work out, then at least you can say you've tried it. There's nothing worse than having regrets. If life affords you an opportunity and you can go for it, then you should."
02 min read

JUDAS PRIEST Settles Breach-Of-Contract Suit With ROB HALFORD’s Longtime Manager

Manos Spanos
According to Law360.com, JUDAS PRIEST lead singer Rob Halford, other PRIEST members, and the band's management team have reached a settlement with Rob's longtime manager John Baxter in a breach-of-contract suit. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel granted the parties' joint motion for dismissal on Thursday after they said they’d reached a settlement. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Halford, his PRIEST bandmates and the group management team were sued by Baxter to the tune of around $50 million. Rolling Stone reported that Baxter's suit, which can be found as a PDF document at this location, alleged "fraud, breach of contract, and intentional interference with contractual relations." Shortly after Halford fired Baxter in August 2012, Baxter claimed that he realized that the PRIEST frontman owed him millions due to "contract breaches, including failure to pay commissions, salary and expenses dating back to 1992." He said that Halford misled him by saying that he was unable to pay Baxter the monies owed him, but promised to do so when he had the money at hand.
02 min read

JUDAS PRIEST’s ROB HALFORD: ‘I Would Love To Be In The ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME’

Manos Spanos
In a recent interview with Music Radar, JUDAS PRIEST lead singer Rob Halford was asked if RUSH's recent induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame gave him some hope that PRIEST could be next in line to be honored. "I hope so, sure," Halford replied. "I think it's great. I would love to be in the Hall Of Fame. Are you kidding me? [laughs] I think we're worthy contenders. Without standing on a soapbox, I think we meet all of the credentials. If and when that moment comes up, we'll be tremendously honored, and we'd be in the company of the world's greatest musicians from all walks of life." He continued: "Getting into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame is out of our control, really. We won't know that it's happening till it does. But I can tell you this: if it does come about, you'll see some very happy metalheads in the U.K. – and worldwide, too. It would be such an affirmation for PRIESTand metal music."
03 min read

HALFORD Discusses FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH Collaboration, Upcoming JUDAS PRIEST Album

Manos Spanos
Singer Rob Halford of British heavy metal legends JUDAS PRIEST was interviewed on this past Friday's (May 10) edition of Eddie Trunk's"Friday Night Rocks" radio show on New York's Q104.3 FM. A transcript of the chat follows below. Eddie Trunk: I saw you get up and do [JUDAS PRIEST's "Rapid Fire"] with METALLICA [on May 2 at Revolver Golden Gods in Los Angeles]. Rob Halford: Yeah, was another great night. Let me quickly bring everybody up to speed about that. Out of the blue, I get this really cool e-mail from the guys from FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, and much like you do in metal, you know, you just throw things out there and see what happens. And they said they had this cool song ["Lift Me Up"] and they wondered whether there was a chance of me jumping in and doing some singing on the track. And I asked them to send it to me, and, man, as soon as I heard it, I just lit up. I said, "I want to be a part of this." So a few days later, I was in Las Vegas recording it.
016 min read