“There’s your kitty cat,” Rob Halford says with a smile from behind the circular sunglasses he’s wearing in his Chicago hotel room. About halfway through our video call interview, Max, a green-eyed feline, saunters across my laptop’s camera. “You know me, I love cats,” says Halford, who often posts cat-centric images to his Instagram account.
Halford is probably the greatest heavy-metal singer to ever live. If he isn’t, he’s second only to the late great Ronnie James Dio of Black Sabbath, Rainbow and the band Dio fame.
Halford’s octave-scaling range and hellcat tone are archetypal not just to the sound of Judas Priest, his Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame band, but all heavy-metal. Just as integral to the genre as crunchy guitar and headbanging grooves. See Priest classics like “Living After Midnight,” “Breaking the Law,” “Exciter,” “Painkiller” and “Victim of Changes.”
More than 50 years into their history, Judas Priest continues to set the pace in metal. Released this March. “Invincible Shield,” the band’s 19th studio album and a worldwide chart hit, cooks. Songs like “The Serpent and the King, “Trial By Fire,” and “Devil in Disguise” deliver vintage Priest sound in present tense. In addition to Halford and classic-era members Glenn Tipton on guitar and Ian Hill on bass, “Invincible Shield” boasts star guitarist Richie Faulkner and longtime drummer Scott Travis.
As lauded as he is as a singer, Halford’s vocal melodies are underappreciated. Take “Crown of Horns,” a standout track off “Invincible Shield.” Also see Priest all-timers like “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” and “Electric Eye.”
“It’s one of the thrills of songwriting, is trying to come up with melodies,” Halford says. “Much like Glenn and Richie with the riffs. It’s the same kind of endeavor, really. You’re trying to establish something that really captures the essence of what the song is all about, the message that the song is going to try and portray.
“And that’s always good to have it in your mind, you know, to appreciate that you’ve got you’ve got all of this material, it’s preceding this moment. And you’ve got to kind of push through and find something fresh and original in its melodic gestures and phrasing and everything that’s never been done before. And I’ve always had a feeling that your previous work kind of subconsciously plays a little bit of a role in this place that you have to go to.”
To come up with vocal melodies, Halford usually listens at the recording workstation in his Phoenix home to a song’s basic instrumental tracks before they’ve been completely finished. And listens again. And again.
“Sometimes, the melodies come really quickly,” Halford says. “In fact, with ‘Crown of Horns,’ it was almost instantaneous. Where did these things come from? I guess it’s just the blessings that musicians have. It’s not easy writing music. Never has been and it shouldn’t be, especially something that’s good and you hope is gonna last.”
Halford will set down with a track with some ideas already jotted down. He keeps a running list of song titles and opening lines. Creating a vocal track, he’s looking for something that “connects.”
Many singers like to cut with few other people around besides a producer and recording engineer, but Halford likes to have bandmates there, too.
“I like to have support when I’m doing my work – always have,” Halford says. “It’s very important to be open minded in the studio, to listen to people’s suggestions and ideas. Whether it’s ‘Crown of Horns,’ whether it’s ‘Electric Eye,’ whether it’s “Another Thing Coming,’ these things are what you go down the heavy-metal coal mine for, picking away. ‘Oh, there’s a diamond.’”
Before exploding into a blistering charge, “Invincible Shield” opening track “Panic Attack” opens with a neon-toned intro reminiscent of “Turbo,” Priest’s polarizing 1986 album known for its sleek contours and poppy hooks.
Faulkner put the “Panic Attack” intro together in a Nashville studio and sent it to Halford. “And he goes, ‘Is this is this risky?’ Halford recalls. “I go, ‘Why?’ He goes, “Well, it’s a little bit synth-y. It’s a little bit of a reference. I was thinking of Glenn when you made the ‘Turbo’ album, and that machine that he had specially made for him and these cool sounds that were happening.’
“And I go, ‘No man, I think it’s really cool.’ I think it’s very evocative of something that we’ve done from the past, but it’s like a redesign. It’s like a restructure. It’s also an attention-grabber. We knew pretty much right from the early moments of the album that this was going to be the opening track. You’re also aware that fans around the world are just waiting. What are they going to do? What’s the first thing that I’m going to hear? So we were having a little bit of fun with that opening sequence, but at the same time, it felt absolutely relevant. You know how a [baseball] pitcher winds up before he throws the ball? It’s a little bit like that.”
“Panic Attack” has racked up more than 7 million Spotify streams so far. It’s also the opener on the setlist for Judas Priest’s current tour. The trek includes the band’s first show in Huntsville, Alabama (my hometown), in 40 years, back when they were supporting their “Defenders of the Faith” album.
Halford will turn 73 in August. But during our video call, no doubt thanks to the formerly hard-living singer’s decades-long sobriety, he looks closer to 53. There are tattoos on each side of his shaved head. Wizard beard. He’s wearing rings, bracelets and necklaces and a plain tee. Metal God casual. As anyone whose been to a recent Priest show will attest, Halford’s still singing his ass off, too.
Asked what he’s learned as a singer over the past four decades, Halford says, “It took me a while to realize, you know how everybody has a happy place? Somebody has a walk in the park as a happy place, some vacation is a happy place. My happy place is singing. It completes me as a person. And I don’t think I’ve ever realized that until some years ago when I started to appreciate how important this voice is to me as a person. How it makes me live completely.”
Halford believes his sole purpose in life is singing. It’s his destiny.
“So I’ve appreciated as I’ve gotten older this gift is just a treasure,” he says. “I enjoy the emotion, energy, power, connection -- particularly live with our fans. Because there are certain parts of the show where I sing certain songs, where you can see everybody lights up, you know? And that’s the power that the voice has.
“And that’s the same for a lot of singers, when you have a favorite song, and you hear it sung by the person that actually made it on the record. So there’s all this kind of emotional connectivity that is more important to me now than it was as a younger metalhead, as a younger person. And I think that’s life. You gain wisdom in life, at least you should. So I’ve just learned to feel great about this, this fact that I’m able to do what I do all these decades later with this band that I love more than anything else in the world, and have a fan base that is just invincible. It’s absolutely glorious, you know?”
Andy Snead, producer on “Invincible Shield” and co-producer along with frequent Priest collaborator Tom Allom of the band’s previous album “Firepower” from 2018, also serves as touring guitarist. Tipton, who along with former guitarist K.K. Downing forged Priest’s patented and highly influential dual lead guitar attack, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease a few years back, impacting his ability to tour. I can tell you though, when Tipton joined the band onstage at their 2022 concert in Nashville for the last three songs, his shredding could still rattle a coliseum and thrill fans.
While Halford takes his singing and music very seriously, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Offstage, he often sports T-shirts emblazoned with images of cats, a contrast to his signature onstage looks of studded leather.
Judas Priest’s the quintessential metal band, but they’ve looked outside the genre when they’ve recorded cover songs. For 1974 debut album “Rocka Rolla,” Priest reimaged folk singer Joan Baez’s song “Diamonds and Rust” as Queen-style hard-rock. On ‘78 LP “Killing Machine” (titled “Hell Bent for Leather” in the U.K.), Judas Priest put their imprimatur on “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown),” a song from Fleetwood Mac’s bluesy, Peter Green-led and pre-Stevie-Nicks-and-Lindsey-Buckingham era. Hot versions of both songs featured in Priest’s ‘79 live release “Unleased in the East.” “The Green Manalishi” is in the band’s current setlist.
“You’ll find that most musicians are very open minded in the way that they absorb music,” Halford says. “Music is a very, very, very powerful force. And yeah, we all have all favorites. We prefer this kind of music to that kind of music. Or we will we’re completely turned off by this kind of music, we’re drawn to another.
“Back to when I was a little kid, you know, there was always music in my family. The radio was always on, or the television was always on. My mom and dad used to like variety shows with a lot of music, different talent. And wow, what a great time to grow up in England. By the time the swinging ‘60s came around, and we had everything from The Beatles to The Rolling Stones to Cilla Black to Gerry and The Pacemakers to The Tremolos. I could go on and on and on. All these great stars with great voices. It taught me at a very earl age to be receptive, to absorb music in every way, shape and form.”
Cut to the 2022 Rock Hall induction ceremony. There’s Halford onstage with country legend Dolly Parton singing her classic hit “Jolene” together.
“And I love that song and I love Dolly,” Halford says. “It’s just part of this magical journey. I love my Hank Williams, I love my Willie Nelson, I love my greatest classical singer of all time, [Luciano] Pavarotti. Singers I’m particularly drawn to. Just because I know all singers feel the same when they sing. It’s a very deep kind of almost spiritual thing when you’re singing, because it comes from your heart, your soul. So I’m attracted to all kinds of music and all kinds of singers.”
Halford and Judas Priest have etched their own monolithic legacy. His talent has also intertwined their arc to intersect with his heroes.
Early in the band’s career, Priest got to open for Led Zeppelin at a stadium concert. Extra thrill for Halford since Zep’s Robert Plant is one of his key inspirations on the mic. Decades later, he filled in with Black Sabbath, another personal touchstone as Sabbath and Priest both hail from Birmingham, England: Once for Dio in 2004, and once for original Sabs frontman Ozzy Osbourne in ‘92.
When those gigs come up as we’re closing our 15-minute chat, Halford smiles fondly and bows toward the video camera in a Chicago hotel.
Judas Priest performs May 7 at Huntsville’s Von Braun Center and May 12 at Mobile’s Mobile Civic Center Arena. For Huntsville, tickets range from $49.50 to $99.50 plus applicable fees via ticketmaster.com and the VBC Box Office, address 700 Monroe Street. Mobile tickets are $45 and up plus fees via asmglobalmobile.com. More info at judaspriestinvincibleshield.com.
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