JUDAS PRIEST Singer 'Can't Wait To Hear' JAMES DURBIN's Solo Album

In the video clip below, JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford tells Artisan News that he "can't wait to hear" "American Idol" finalist James Durbin's hard rock and melodic-metal influenced debut solo album, "Memories Of A Beautiful Disaster", which comes out on November 21 via Wind-Up.

Durbin performed JUDAS PRIEST's classic songs "Living After Midnight" and "Breaking The Law" with the British heavy metal legends themselves during the "American Idol" May finale.

Durbin sang the JUDAS PRIEST classic "You Got Another Thing Coming" on the March 1 edition of "Idol". His rendition marked the first time, according to AEROSMITH singer and "American Idol" judge Steven Tyler, where a JUDAS PRIEST single was performed on the "Idol" stage.

In a recent interview with SoundSpike, Halford called Durbin "brilliant. Absolutely sensational." He added, "The first we heard about James and the connection with PRIEST was when he covered our song 'You've Got Another Thing Comin''. We were really excited to hear that was taking place. As we kind of followed his growth through the last season of 'Idol' and listening to him speak, it became clear he was a champion for heavy metal music.

"I can recall, right from these early weeks, thinking, 'If this guy gets to where we hope he's going to get, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if something comes our way, in terms of do we want to get involved.' When the call came, we weren't 100 percent surprised. We were absolutely delighted. We dropped everything to fly to Los Angeles and then fly back to London, all within the space of a couple days. It was a great moment for James and, more importantly, it was a great moment for heavy metal music because it was suddenly in the arms of 30-odd-million-plus households throughout the USA. And then, of course, it bounced around the rest of the world afterward. Everything that we've done in those types of appearances for us has been not only for Priest but championing the cause of heavy metal music."

In a recent interview Revolver magazine, Durbin stated about JUDAS PRIEST's classic track "Painkiller", "How could you not love that song? It's fucking crazy. Every single aspect of what is metal is included in that song. It's heavy, there's parts of it that are melodic; it's screechy, screamy. I don't know."

He added, "PRIEST amazes me. Because I like the '80s hair-metal shit, I'm into their more melodic songs That's what I love about metal, is that it can be so heavy and you can totally just shred for days over it, but it can also be melodic. And there's nothing wrong with that. AVENGED SEVENFOLD is fucking incredible, and they're melodic. Their stuff is catchy. You can actually sing along with it. It's not something that's some brutal death-metal song that's like [makes gurgly noises], you know. I don't like that stuff because I can't sing along with it."