Judas Priest are one of the most influential and long-running Heavy Metal bands to grace stages around the world, leaving an undeniable impact on Metal as we know it. However, while other Metal pioneers such as Black Sabbath¹ and Led Zeppelin tried to distance themselves from the tag, Judas Priest have worn it like a badge of honour, leading to Ozzy Osbourne to dub them "the last of the Mohicans" and their fans to call them the Metal Gods.

The twin lead guitars of Glen Tipton and K.K. Downing have influenced a large number of Heavy and Power Metal bands, most noteably Iron Maiden, while vocalist Rob Halford's falsetto style and leather'n'studs attire effectively set the trend for what Metal fans would wear and how a Metal frontman should sing from the 1980s onwards. Their catalogue has seen a range of styles and changes in direction, yet has always been rooted in traditional Heavy Metal.

Judas Priest 1967 - '70

The beginning of Judas Priest, however, actually lies with a completely different band. Around 1967 a band called Sugarstack, comprised of singer Al Atkins, bassist Bruno Stapenhill and drummer John Partridge lost their two guitarists. Sugarstack renamed itself Judas Priest, after the Bob Dylan song The Ballad Of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest, and drafted in guitarist John Perry. The music of this version of Judas Priest was rooted firmly in the blues, and would have been very far removed from anything that came later. Sadly, only days after joining Perry was killed in a suicide-related car accident. The band set about auditioning a replacement. One hopeful was a young K.K. Downing, who was deemed too heavy and passed in favour of Ernie Chataway.

After prolonged gigging the band got a management deal in 1970 and recorded a two song demo. The tape aroused the interest of Immediate Records, and the band played a showcase gig for them at a Walsall hotel. A certain Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame was in the audience. A three year deal was signed, but Immediate Records went bust before any product could be released. Judas Priest split up in the summer of 1970.

Judas Priest 1970 - '73

Meanwhile, around 1968/'69 the aforementioned K.K. Downing had teamed up with his schoolmate bassist Ian Hill and drummer John Ellis and formed an outfit called Freight. Al Atkins was recruited as a singer soon after the demise of Judas Priest. As Freight was something of a feeble name, Atkins suggested they use the now free name of his old band instead.

With Downing acting as bandleader, Judas Priest began playing heavier music than it's predecessor, mixing originals with covers by the likes of Quartermass and Jimi Hendrix (whom Downing was greatly influenced by). The band began gigging and were regulars on the support slot circuit, opening for the likes of Budgie and Slade. John Ellis quit after a gig supporting the latter in 1971, setting into motion a revolving door of drummers that is almost certain to have inspired Spinal Tap's 'exploding drummer' gag.

Ellis was replaced with Alan 'Skip' Moore, who lasted barely a year before being replaced by Chris 'Congo' Campbell. Moore would join Sundance, performing on two of their albums. Judas Priest had further established themselves by supporting bands like Status Quo, Family and Thin Lizzy.

The band signed a management deal with IMA. Included in their roster were Bullion (Bruno Stapenhill's new band), and the Flying Hat Band, who featured future guitarist Glenn Tipton in their ranks. The gigs and management did not appear to be good enough for Al Atkins, who quite in May 1973. Chris Campball followed him, believing the band had no future having lost its singer. Atkins would reunite with Stapenhill and form Lion with ex-Budgie drummer Pete Boot.

The Gull Years 1973 - '76

The band was on the verge of splitting up until Ian Hill's girlfriend suggested her brother Rob Halford as a singer. Halford was singing in a band called Hiroshima, and brought their drummer John Hinch along with him. A demo was cut for Gull Records and a deal secured with them in 1974, and the band toured Norway and Germany. However, the tour did not run exactly to plan. The band ran out of money in Germany, and ended up brushing their teeth with snow!

In April Glenn Tipton joined the band, having just come off a European tour supporting Deep Purple with the Flying Hat Band. The twin guitar idea was the brainchild of manager David Howells, using Wishbone Ash as his model. This would set the precedent for twin-guitar Heavy Metal bands - K.K. represented the wild, experimental guitarist, balanced by the more controlled Glen, whose solos were mostly built around 'phrases'.

In October the band released it's debut album Rocka Rolla. The album was a slightly strange product - heavier songs from the band's live repetoire such as Victim Of Changes (a malgamation of Whiskey Woman by Al Atkins and Red Light Lady by Rob Halford), Genocide, Tyrant and The Ripper were excluded. Gull had wanted a horn section added to the album but luckily the band managed to stop this. While most Metal bands start their careers full of energy and at their heaviest, maturing and mellowing with time, with Judas Priest the distinct opposite is the case. Rocka Rolla is a very laid back record, almost pub-rock in its sound.

In April 1975 the band performed on The Old Grey Whistle Test, playing Rocka Rolla and an early version of Dreamer Deceiver/Deceiver ². Shortly after, John Hinch was fired for "musical incompetance", and Alan Moore re-joined the band. Their second album Sad Wings Of Destiny was released in 1976, still drawing from material the band had been playing live for the last few years.

Despite the fact that the material from the first two albums had been drawn from the live repetoire, Sad Wings... represented a great leap for the band, both in terms of creativity and heaviness. Victim Of Changes was the first of many seven minute epics that would form cornerstones of future Priest albums, Dreamer Deceiver/Deceiver showcased Rob Halford's immense vocal range ³, while Tyrant was an early example of how the band would use their duelling lead guitars. The album is now acknowledged by Metal fans as a defining moment for the genre. Earlier bands created a Heavy Metal sound by adapting existing forms of music, but this was one of the first all-out Heavy Metal records.

Hell Bent For Leather 1977 - '79

A successful tour resulted in a worldwide deal with CBS Records, however the band were still under contract to Gull. Gull soon went bust, and to this day the band still do not own the rights to their first two albums, resulting in a multitude of tacky re-issues. CBS gave the band a £60,000 advance, and the band secured the services of ex-Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover to produce their third album Sin After Sin, released in 1977.

Alan Moore had once again left the band, this time for good, and session drummer Simon Phillips was brought in. This album also opens with a seven minute epic, Sinner, marked by the frantic guitar solos of K.K. Downing. The track is followed by a cover of Joan Baez's Diamonds & Rust⁴, which the band had originally recorded for Gull Records. This set a smaller precedent for Priest, as other seemingly unusual covers found their way onto future albums.

Phillips was asked to join the band on tour, but had to decline because of studio obligations. Jazz drummer Les Binks was found in June to replace him, his previous work including time with the band Fancy and an appearence on one of Roger Glover's solo albums.

A tour supporting REO Speedwagon began in America, climaxing with support for Led Zeppelin at the Day On The Green festival in San Fransisco. When the band returned to Britain they were now headliners, supported by another Birmingham band Magnum. One show at the London Victoria Theatre ended in a riot as fans clashed with aggressive security.

1978's Stained Class was arguably their best album so far. It's opening track Exciter featured a double bass drum intro that surpassed any speed these drums had been used at before, and along with the title track provided the first taste of Speed and Thrash Metal that would hit the shelves five years later - indeed, Thrash titans Slayer began life covering Judas Priest songs. Stained Class' galloping riff would also serve as an influence on Iron Maiden, who frequently copied this style throughout their career. Also of note is the emotive Beyond The Realms Of Death, a collaboration between Rob Halford and Les Binks, an a cover of Spooky Tooth's Better By You, Better Than Me. Stained Class was Priest's first album to enter the Billboard Top 200 in America. The album also saw the band tour Japan for the first time.

Around this time a change in image occured. Rob Halford had been shopping for leather in gay and S&M shops in San Fransisco, and used this for his onstage performances. The colourful hippy garb that the band had worn a few years earlier was phased out by large amounts of leather. To begin with this style was used only by Halford, who complimented it with a peaked leather cap and a bull whip. As the years went by leather would become more and more predominant in Priest's image (and the Metal scene as a whole), peaking in 1990, where promo photos for Painkiller showed a band literally covered from head to toe in studded leather.

Halford also took to riding motorbikes onstage, favouring a Harley Davidson for American tours and a Triumph for Britain and Europe. Halford easily summed up the love affair between Heavy Metal and motorbikes:

"They're loud, smelly, they piss people off!"

Album #5, Killing Machine, featured the band's first chart successes, with the singles Take On The World and Evening Star. Both earned the band appearences on Top Of The Pops. It has been said that when the band were performing the former, The Osmonds were due to perform on the same programme, and were so shocked by Halford lashing out with his whip that they threatened not to perform if he didn't put it away. No whip can be seen in the footage of the song.

A problem emerged with the release of the album in America when CBS decided the title was too violent. It was released there as Hell Bent For Leather, with a cover of Fleetwood Mac's Green Manalish included.

The band embarked on two sellout UK tours, and an American tour with rock veterans UFO. An amusing incident occured at St Pauls in Minneapolis when Halford appeared onstage on his Harley Davidson, and promptly drove straight into the orchestra pit!

A tour of Japan also yielded the group's first live album, Unleashed In The East, released in 1979 and frequently hailed as an all-time classic Metal live album. This would be down to extensive studio tinkering which is almost as legendary as the album itself, causing some people to rename the album Unleashed In The Studio. Apparently, Rob Halford had a cold during this section of the tour, reflected in bootlegs of the shows by incredibly sub-par vocal performances. The album was the first to be produced by Tom Allom, a studio veteran who had engineered Black Sabbath's first two albums. Allom would work with the band for the next 10 years.

British Steel 1980

Les Binks left the band, appearing in Tytan⁵ and Lionheart⁶ before disappearing back into the realms of session work. His replacement was ex-Trapeze⁷ drummer Dave Holland. For the first time in over 10 years the band now had a stable lineup that would continue for the next nine years.

British Steel, the band's first album of the 1980s, was recorded at Ringo Starr's home Tittenhurst Park, where Tom Allom had just produced Def Leppard's debut. The recording of the album is filled with amusing anecdotes - because sampling was non-existant at this time, sound effects were improvised using trays of cutlery, billiard cues and guitar leads for the marching and scythes in Metal Gods, and smashed milk bottles on Breaking The Law. The lyrics for Living After Midnight came about when Rob endured a sleepless night from Glenn Tipton working on the song in the room underneath Rob's bedroom in the early hours of the morning. Perhaps most amusingly, in a decade typified by the excesses and degenerate nature of rock stars, Priest's fondest memories of recording the album were revealed in the booklet of the remaster released in 2001 as:

"...homemade dinners, many pints in the local pub and long walks around the grounds..."

The album was described by Allom as the archetypal Heavy Metal album. British Steel followed Killing Machine's style of shorter songs, with Allom's production giving them a heavier edge that previous albums had lacked.

The album spawned three hits - Breaking The Law, Living After Midnight and United, the latter two earning the band a return to Top Of The Pops, while the former two were supported by the band's first promotional videos. Also of note is the opening track Rapid Fire, featuring a riff and guitar duel that would again set the template for upcoming Thrash Metal bands. Metal Gods and Grinder were to be concert staples for many years.

The band's tour shedule saw them begin to favour lengthy stints in America - 100 shows were played there alone in support of British Steel. This was preceded with a sellout UK tour featuring a young Iron Maiden as support. The tour got off to a shakey start when the band took offense to a boast vocalist Paul Di'Anno made to a Sounds journalist that Maiden would "blow the b******s off Priest". A meeting was arranged by the bands managers to ease relationships, but Priest's manager forgot to tell the band about it, resulting in Iron Maiden and their crew turning up to meet the band with crates of beer, only to be met by an annoyed K.K. Downing who interpreted this as a display of arrogance, and gave his visitors a dressing down. It is also to be noted that Downing had been irriatated by Maiden guitarist Dave Murray's apparent imitation of his guitar playing and stage attire. The incident lead to ill feeling between the band for some years.

The tour continued in Germany before the lengthy American tour began, co-headlined by the Scorpions and supported by Def Leppard. The hard work payed off. British Steel sold gold, and eventually turned platinum in 1989. The touring was rounded off by an appearence at the first ever Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington in England, headlined by Rainbow.

Interestingly, British Steel's immense success didn't end in 1980 or even 1989. In 2001 the album was featured as part of the Classic Albums TV series, generating such interest in Scandinavia that Swedish fans bought the album en masse, causing it to re-enter the charts at #17 - higher than it's position in 1980!

Point Of Entry 1981

Sadly, Point Of Entry, released in February 1981, saw the band leave out a lot of the aggression that had made British Steel so great, and was dominated radio-friendly songs. This disappointed many fans and the album is frequently overlooked today. Two songs - Heading Out To The Highway and Desert Plains - would become regular fixtures in future live sets and used to audience interaction, the latter adapted to allow Rob to showcase his vocal talents with an "Are you high?!" routine that rivalled the unprecedented pitches heard on Dreamer Deceiver. However, the studio versions of even these songs wouldn't come close to rivalling what had come before and what would follow.

The subsequent tour, however, showed the Priest's popularity had not diminished. An American tour saw Iron Maiden return as support, along with the Joe Perry Project and Whitesnake. The band's props began getting more elaborate, featuring huge banks of lights, hydraulic risers and masses of dry ice - appropriated from Pink Floyd - along with the traditional setup of massive walls of Marshall stacks behind the band. It was hardly surprising as well that little material from the new album was played.

Screaming For Vengeance 1982

Writing for this album began in October 1981, before the band embarked on a UK and European tour in November supported by the German band Accept. Released the following year, Screaming For Vengeance blended the commercial side of Priest with another heavier edge. As usual, the album features an unforgettable opener - the short instrumental The Hellion providing a rousing introduction to Electric Eye. This track, immediately followed by Riding On The Wind and with the title track all together worked to produce the most influencial Speed Metal songs Priest had recorded up til now. American bands such as Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax were at demo stages at this point, and these songs would have surely had an impact on them.

These songs were counterbalanced with the much more radio friendly tracks such as Bloodstone, (Take These) Chains, You've Got Another Thing Comin' and Fever. Indeed, though far from their best song, You've Got Another Thing Comin' has ended up being one of Priest's more exposed songs in the public eye, featuring in a Burger King advert in 1999 and as part of the soundtrack for the Playstation 2 game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The video for the song, climaxing with a council noise pollution workers' head exploding at the sheer volume of Priest's music, became a regular fixture on the newly-emerged MTV, providing the band with their biggest hit to date.

The tour for the album saw the previous tour's lavish stage set stripped away, with only the walls of Marshall cabinets and platforms remaining. Midway through the tour the band changed managers, being taken under the wing of Bill Curbishly, who also managed Robert Plant and The Who. The band's American tour was their largest to date, exceeding 100 gigs. At one of these, Glenn Tipton was approacked at a bar by a young drummer named Scott Travis, who would re-enter the Priest story seven years later. The band filmed it's first live video on this tour, entitled simply Priest...Live.

The tour finished with the band's largest live appearence to date, at the US Festival in San Bernadino, where they played to over 250,000 people. Interestingly the band were sandwiched between Bryan Adams and Crosby, Stills & Nash - what concertgoers would have made of this can only be imagined.

Defenders Of The Faith 1983 - '85

Only days after the US Festival the band returned to the studio where they had recorded Screaming For Vengeance to work on a follow-up. The album was preceded by the single Freewheel Burning in late 1983, with the album being released the following year.
Defenders Of The Faith featured Priest's heaviest songs to date on it's A-side. The lead guitar work is particularly stunning, including what could've been Glenn Tipton's best solo to date on Freewhell Burning, and a seven-part guitar duel on The Sentinel. The B-side opens with Eat Me Alive, which would infuriate Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center the following year with it's reference to "oral sex at gunpoint". A cover of Bob Halligan Jr's Some Heads Are Gonna Roll would be the only song to receive significant airplay in the US. Also recorded but unreleased was a song called Heart Of A Lion, which Rob Halford would donate to Racer X (featuring the aforementioned Scott Travis on drums) and later re-record with one of his post-Judas Priest bands in 2001.

The band's tour schedule began in December 1983 with a short UK stint supported by Quiet Riot, culminating in an appearence on the televised Dortmund Westfalenhalle Rock Pop festival in Germany, alongside Iron Maiden, Krokus, Def Leppard, Ozzy Osbourne, The Michael Schenker Group and The Scorpions.

Touring began in earnest in March 1984 with a US tour supported by Great White and Saxon. An elaborate stage set returned, a recreation of The Metallian from the album's cover, with massive claws that would pluck Downing and Tipton from the stage. The tour lasted until August, culminating with a Japanese tour in September. Priest also performed a much overlooked set on the Philadelphia stage on Live Aid.

In comparison with the lack of new material featured in past tours - in support of Point Of Entry and on the Unleashed In The East album - eight of the ten songs from Defenders... were performed live. This was clearly Priest's strongest album for years.

Turbo 1986

With the advent of the new guitar synthesisers that were emerging at this time, Priest recorded what could possibly be the most controversial album of their career. In the same year, rivals Iron Maiden released Somewhere In Time, which also utilised new synth technology. While Maiden followed the same formula that had kept them going for the last four years, Priest made the most drastic and sudden change of direction in their career. With the American Hair Metal scene on the verge of becoming enourmous, it was maybe no coincidence that Priest suddenly leapt on the same path.

The band travelled to Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas⁸, and set about recording a double album's worth of material. 18 songs were recorded and the more commercial ones selected for the album. Originally to be titled Twin Turbo in homage to the Porsche Turbos Tipton and Downing had just bought, the title was shortened to Turbo. The other songs would find their way onto 1988's Ram It Down, and bonus tracks when the Priest catalogue was remastered and re-released in 2001.

The album was released to mixed reviews, as fans and critics alike were baffled by Priest's new pop-rock direction. The change hadn't been limited to the music - spandex and leather had been replaced with elaborate, multi-coloured leather costumes and hair perms which, though far less in-your-face than what Poison and Whitesnake were doing, were still a departure for the band. Despite this, the album turned out to be a platinum success and won the band many new fans - fans who might have previously been scared off by Rob Halford's bizarre images. The album's success could have been much greater had the band not turned down an offer for the album's closing track, Reckless, to be used in the film Top Gun. The song that ended up on the soundtrack was, of course, Take My Breath Away by Berlin, and the soundtrack went quintuple platinum.

The Fuel For Life tour began in May in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Dokken as support. A stint in Canada in July saw Bon Jovi make one of their last appearences as a support band⁹. When the band returned to the USA their support was now provided by Krokus. The autumn was spent touring Europe with German band Warlock supporting, and the tour was wrapped up in December with dates in Japan. Sadly, no British shows were performed, a sadly regular occurence with British bands who find success in America.

Shows in Dallas and Atlanta were recorded for a live album and video. The album, Priest...Live!, drew heavily from Turbo and Defenders Of The Faith, with all but one of the remaining tracks drawn from the band's previous three 80s albums (and that one remaining track was only available when the album was released in 2001). Though a great album, the video was by far a better representation of Priest's lavish stage show on the tour. Aside from the masses of lights and hydraulic staircases, the stage was backed by a giant robot that would lift Halford or Downing & Tipton off the stage in its hands. Unbelievably, this footage was unavailable until the release of the Electric Eye DVD in 2003.

One other bonus of the video is the display of Priest's newly enlarged fanbase - check out all the lovely young ladies in the audience!

The band took a well deserved break in 1987 before returning to the studio with pop producers Stock, Aiken and Waterman. A Diana Ross cover was recorded along with two experimental original songs, but the sessions remain unreleased due to their 'inapprioriate'¹⁰ nature. Soon the band would record a proper follow-up to Turbo...

Ram It Down 1988 - '89

Ram It Down was comprised of four songs left over from the Turbo sessions, five new songs and a cover of Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode - intended for a film soundtrack that sadly flopped. Though it was a return to the style of Defenders Of The Faith with the faintest pop tinges from Turbo remaining, the album only reached Gold status in the States.

The Mercenaries Of Metal tour kicked off in Sweden in May with yet another German support band - this time it was pop rockers Bonfire. Most of Europe was covered in the jaunt, along with a long overdue return to Britain. The American leg of the tour ran from July to October, featuring a bizarre combination of Cinderella (who had been brought to the mainstream by Jon Bon Jovi in early '86) and Slayer as support. Coincidentally, Slayer had just paid homage to their heroes on their new album South Of Heaven, which featured a cover of Dissident Agressor (from 1977's Sin After Sin album).

Sadly, 1989 brought the Priest story into dark times. In 1985 two fans - Raymond Belknap and James Vance from reno, Nevada - had been listening to Stained Class while smoking marijuana and drinking 12 cans of beer between them, before acquiring a sawn-off shotgun that belonged to one of their fathers. Belknap killed himself with the gun, while Vance mutilated his face with his own attempt but survived, cycling round the town afterwards to display his wounds. Despite the presence of alcohol, marijuana, an unsecured shotgun and a history of child abuse, the parents of the teenagers blamed the band for the incident, and a $3 million lawsuit came about in '89.

The prosecution bizarrely centered around the idea that Rob Halford's breathing techniques on Better By You, Better Than Me caused the words "do it" to be heard when the song was played backwards. When Halford sings "beyond the realms of death" at the end of the song of the same name, the words "I took my life" can be heard very clearly when played backwards. The defense pointed out that other phrases such as "but I asked for a peppermint" could be heard when the album was played backwards, and the case collapsed. Vance died of a methodone overdose a few months before the trial began.

The absurdity of the case only continues to grow when you realise that there are apparently around 80 different backwards messages on the album - this works out at about one every 30 seconds. The prosecution also failed to understand that several million people still listen to Judas Priest songs including Better By You, Better Than Me and Beyond The realms Of Death, and are still alive.

The case was documented by David Van Taylor in the documemtary Dream Deceivers, which was broadcast to an international audience. After the case the band performed at the annual Foundation Forums convention in California. Better By You, Better Than Me was played live for the first time in 10 years.

The pressure of the case, plus the large tour schedules that Priest were doing caused Dave Holland to quit that year. Holland was replaced by longtime Priest fan and Racer X drummer Scott Travis, and would put great amounts of effort into trying to bring about a Trapeze reunion.

Painkiller 1990 - '91

1990's Painkiller marked another dramatic change for the band. As well as parting ways with Dave Holland, the band also stopped working with longtime producer Tom Allom. His replacement was Chris Tsangarides, who had engineered 1976's Sad Wings Of Destiny. The album also gave another dramatic change in style. Fuelled by the ill-feeling of the previous court case, Priest turned their backs on the commercial leanings they had followed throughout the 1980s, and released their heaviest album ever.

Scott Travis' presence was announced from the first seconds of the album. Painkiller's title track harks back to Exciter from 12 years before - a Speed Metal album opener about mankind being purged by an avenging angel, prefaced by a groundbreaking drum intro. Travis' double bass drumming gave the band a heavier edge that had been previously impossible to acheive. Guitar pyrotechnics abound the album, with Metal Meltdown giving Glenn and K.K. three blistering solos each. The album was Priest's first to receive a Grammy nomination.

The Painkiller started off with yet another large and successful American tour, supported by Megadeth, Testament and Pantera. Interestingly, when the tour came to Reno, Nevada, only 4000 fans attended, despite the band donating profits to local charities.

Priest then made their first appearence in South America, headlining the first Rock In Rio, which would become one of the largest music festivals in the world. The band was joined onstage by Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine for an encore performance of Living After Midnight. A stint in Europe with Annihilator followed, along with shows in Japan and Hawaii before another return to the US mainland. This time the band were co-headlining the Operation Rock'n'Roll tour wil Alice Cooper, supported by Motörhead, Metal Church and Dangerous Toys.

The tour finally ended in Toronto, Canada, in August 1991, although not on the best note. At the beginning of the show a ramp was to be lowered below the drum riser, from where Halford would ride onstage on his motorbike. The process was choreographed with the rest of the stage set, but when it was put in motion at the start of the show certain band members had not turned up. The ramp was lowered, then raised again when the members turned up. In the confusion, Halford rode onstage on cue, only to drive into the ramp face first, breaking his nose. Knocked off his bike and lost in the dry ice, the rest of the band came onstage and played their first song, Hell Bent For Leather, as an instrumental!

The Giant Sleeps 1992 - '97

With touring commitments fulfilled, Halford turned his attention to other projects. Considering he had been totally committed to Judas Priest for the last 18 years, he performed in a surprising number of other outfits.

Originally Halford had planned to remain in Priest while making a solo album. An idea of the direction it would take was given when Halford joined Pantera onstage in March '92, singing Grinder and Metal Gods. He collaborated with the band on the song Light Comes Out Of Black, which appeared on the Buffy The Vampire Slayer film soundtrack. Halford later appeared onstage with Skid Row, singing the Priest song Delivering The Goods¹¹, and contributing backing vocals to the Ugly Kid Joe song Goddamn Devil.

Halford shocked the Metal community by announcing his split from the band in September '92, 1989's court case cited as a primary motivation for his leaving. Shortly after, the band were dropped by CBS. While Priest remained inactive, Halford remained in the limelight by performing two shows fronting Black Sabbath in November, after Ronnie James Dio refused to sing as support for Ozzy Osbourne.

A new band called Fight was formed with Scott Travis, and guitarist Brian Tilse and bassist Jay Jay from a Phoenix, Arizona based hardcore band Cyanide. The band also featured guitarist Russ Parrish, who would be replaced by Mark Chaussee, who would go on to do a brief stint with Danzig after Fight folded.

The band resigned themselves to an extended sabbatical. Glenn Tipton planned a solo album in 1994 that was released in '96, called Baptizm Of Fire. The album featured bassists Billy Sheehan¹², Robert Trujillo¹³ and John Entwhistle of The Who, as well as drummers Shannon Larkin, Brooks Wackerman (ex-Suicidal Tendencies) and the legendary Cozy Powell¹⁴, as well as keyboardist Don Airey (see Cozy's footnote). As Scott Travis was drumming with Fight, rumours abounded that he might be replaced with Cozy Powell. However, these rumours were unfounded, and Travis remains in the band.

In 1997 Judas Priest's influence on the world of Metal was acknowledged with a two volume tribute album released by Century Media, starring Helloween, Saxon, U.D.O., Testament, Rage, Mercyful Fate, Iced Earth, Blind Guardian, Nevermore, Kreator, Angra, Stratovarius, Fates Warning, Strapping Young Lad and Overkill.

Meanwhile, Rob Halford met Nine Inch Nails mainman Trent Reznor at a Mardi Gras festival, and founded the industrial project Two. Voyeurs was released is 1997, Halford declaring "Heavy Metal is dead" while promoting it in the press. He also took the opportunity to come out as a homosexual in an MTV interview, a move that was wrongly interpreted by some as a marketing ploy to try and draw attention to the album. In fact, Halford had wanted to admit his sexuality throughout the 80s, but was held back by Priest, who did not want to ruin their 'macho' image. Few were surprised, and Rob's sexuality has long been regarded as Rock's Worst Kept Secret.

Jugulator 1996 - '98

Meanwhile, after making the most of their break and expending excess energy on side projects, Judas Priest were ready to find a new singer and get back to work. Rumours abounded that ex-Gamma Ray singer Ralf Scheepers would be picked, a rumour he helped stir by touring with a Judas Priest tribute band! Ralf did not get the job, and now sings in Judas Priest clones Primal Fear.

Other candidates included short-time Accept singer David Reece, and an American called D.C. Cooper who would later join Danish Metal band Royal Hunt. The eventual candidate was Winter's Bane singer Tim 'Ripper' Owens, who had fronted a Judas Priest tribute band, and got the job in Priest through a video of one of their gigs.

Their first album for seven years, Jugulator had a lot of expectations to live up to, and probably because of this is disregarded by many Priest fans. Downing and Tipton's songs continued the heavy style of Painkiller but without the old school Speed Metal tinges, and Ripper's voice differed greatly to Halford's. While he could reach falsettos that far surpassed anything Halford had acheived in the studio since the 1970s, his regular singing voice was much lower, and the switches from this to a falsetto could be quite bizarre. Chris Tsangerides had been approached to produce the album, but was unable to commit as his wife was pregnant. Production chores were handled by Tipton, Downing and Sean Lynch.

Nevertheless, attendences were still strong in the live arenas, beginning with the mandatory American tour, supported by Motörhead in its later stages. The band returned to Europe with Gorefest as support, and hitting the UK in early 1998, though only two shows were played. The tour continued in America and Mexico and included shows with Megadeth. The album Live Meltdown was released later in the year to prove that Halford's replacement could cut it both in the studio and onstage.

Demolition 1999 - 2002

Though the signs were pointing to a Judas Priest undiminished by it's lengthy sabbatical, change in singer or the faded popularity of Heavy Metal, the truth was that the band were entering a rather uncertain stage in their career. The emergence of Ralf Scheepers with Priest clones Primal Fear occured at the same time as the re-emergence of Al Atkins, who had released an album entitled Victim Of Changes, and included Dave Holland in his new band.

Bizarrely, Les Binks also resurfacing at this time, drumming in an Iron Maiden tribute band called Metalworks 2000, founded by one of their earliest guitarists Tony Parsons.

After receiving another Grammy nomination for the Jugulator track Bullet Train, Priest's profile should have been kept high by appearing on Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest tour in America in 1999. However, the band was negotiating a new record contract with Atlantic and the dates had to be cancelled.

Around this time, rumours were spreading of a film to be made about Ripper Owens' rise to fame as Priest's singer. The film was rumoured to be called Metal God, and would star Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston. Judas Priest would distance themselves from the film, but it would appear in it's finished form two years later.

A new album had been expected for late 2000, but did not appear. A US stadium tour woth Nazareth and the Scorpions - which surely would have been massive - was cancelled at the drawing board as the band booked more studio time. Century Media repackaged and re-released the Winter's Bane album Heart Of A Killer, and Racer X reunited briefly for a new album. Rumours began flying that a split in the band was inevitable. It was suggested that Ripper and the rest of the band had fallen out over songwriting, that Ripper was going to join Pantera and Rob Halford would reunite with the band. In 2002 Metal Maniacs magazine suggested that Owens had been rumoured to be joining Progressive Metal band Symphony X.

Indeed, Halford had launched a new band - imaginatively named Halford - that was a great depature from Two and even Fight, playing traditional Heavy Metal with a contemporary feel. Earlier in 2000 Rob announced to Metal Hammer magazine that he had written letters to Tipton, Downing and Ian Hill - his first correspondence with them since leaving the band. In later interviews he would openly admit to wanting to rejoin Priest, a fact underlined by a 2CD live album released by Halford in 2001 entitled Live Insurrection - two thirds of the material was Judas Priest songs.

Further Judas Priest tributes, including an extreme Metal tribute called Hell Bent For Metal in 1999, and a L.A. Hair Metal tribute and a punk tribute both released in 2001, continued to show that Judas Priest had had an undeniable impact on the scene. Pop group American Hi-Fi honoured the band with the video for Flavour Of The Weak, where the band members reverted to their teenage years, waiting in the car park for a Judas Priest gig. Yet one crucial factor was missing - Judas Priest itself.

When Demolition finally arrived in July 2001 it received a severe slamming from critics and fans alike, though a sizeable portion of fans readily admit their fandom of it. The album had been preceeded with a Spanish tour supported by Savatage, followed by festival appearences across Europe. A sellout show in London was to precede the American tour in September, beginning in Mexico. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon three days before the tour was due to start made the tour unwise to see through, and the US dates were cancelled and resheduled for the following year.

Meanwhile, the film Metal God hit cinemas in its finished form, now entitled Rock Star. Based on a 1997 New York Times article on Ripper Owens entitled "Metal Head Becomes A Metal God", the band were supposed to have provided music and acted as advisors on the plot. However, disagreements over the direction of the film lead to the band distancing themselves from it, and in interviews they explicitely stated that if the film made any implication that it was based on them, they would sue the producers. The film-makers now stated that the fictional band the film focusses around - Steel Dragon - was based on Queensryche or Journey, however fans knew the truth behind the story, which lead to the film looking somewhat bizarre in its now unspoken homage to Judas Priest.

Mark Wahlberg now played the lead role alongside Jennifer Anniston, and the film still managed to feature stars of the music world. The drummer of the tribute band Wahlberg's characters fronts was played by Slaughter drummer Blas Elias, while Steel Dragon's music was played by an all-star band comprised of Ozzy Osbourne/Black Label Society guitarist Zakk Wylde, ex-Dokken and Dio bassist Jeff Pilson and drummer Jason Bonham, son of Led Zeppelin drummer John.

Priest resumed their American tour in January 2002, supported by Anthrax, whose name was courting them controversy in the wake in recent terrorist attacks. Further US tours commenced over the summer and autumn, with long unheard songs such as Exciter and Devil's Child being dusted off for the setlists.

Amusingly, animal rights campaigners P.E.T.A. finally caught up with the band's leather-heavy image, demanding in an open letter that the song Hell Bent For Leather be retitled Hell Bent For Pleather - a leather substitute. The absurd demands were not seen through.

Return of the Metal God 2003 - '04

Throughout the time before and after the release of Demolition, rumours had persisted that a reunion with Rob Halford was imminent. Such rumours had been repeatedly denied, with some fans complaining on the internet that Glenn Tipton's arrogance was holding back the band by refusing to let Halford back in. However, now Scott Travis was the one circulating rumours that Owens had quit. In an interview with Canadian magazine Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles he stated that he hoped for Rob Halford to join the band. An official statement from the band denied this yet again.

Following disappointing sales of Demolition the band split from Atlantic and signed with SPV (their European label) for American distribution. A 2CD live album and DVD, Live In London, was released in February 2003.

On July 11th 2003 the long-awaited announcement came - Rob Halford was officially back in Judas Priest. A new DVD featuring all the band's promotional videos, BBC performances and the Priest...Live! video was released towards the end of the year, entitled Electric Eye. Sony Music, who the band have re-signed with¹⁵, released a 4CD box set called Metalogy in March 2004. At the time of writing the band are currently in the studio recording a new album, scheduled for a summer release. Producing the album is Bruce Dickinson and Halford producer Roy Z, who is expected to give the album a contemporary sound that will compliment Priest's traditional songwriting. The band are to co-headline the Ozzfest tour this summer, supported by Slayer, Slipknot, Dimmu Borgir, Superjoint Ritual and Black Label Society.

With the currently changing musical climate and the re-emergence of Heavy Metal as a popular and, god fobid, fashionable form of music, it seems only appropriate that one of the founding fathers of the genre should re-emerge to steal the thunder of everyone who has followed in their footsteps. 30 years after their debut album the band are still a force to be reckoned with, long after most of their peers have fallen by the wayside.

Discography

• Rocka Rolla (1974)
• Sad Wings Of Destiny (1976)
• Sin After Sin (1977)
• Stained Class (1978)
• Killing Machine (1978)
• Unleashed In The East (1979)
• British Steel (1980)
• Point Of Entry (1981)
• Screaming For Vengeance (1982)
• Defenders Of The Faith (1984)
• Turbo (1986)
• Priest...Live! (1987)
• Ram It Down (1988)
• Painkiller (1990)
• Jugulator (1997)
• Live Meltdown (1998)
• Demolition (2001)
• Live In London (2003