JUDAS PRIEST Singer Talks About Filling In For OZZY At Camden OZZFEST: Audio Available

JUDAS PRIEST frontman Rob Halford spoke to Doug Podell of Detroit's WRIF 101.1 FM last month about his historic performance with BLACK SABBATH on August 26, 2004 at Ozzfest in Camden, NJ (photos).

"That was a remarkable moment in itself," Halford said. "I mean, that just came out of the blue one day. It was the day after my birthday, actually. I was in Philadelphia and we had a show that evening in [New] Jersey. And I got a call from Sharon [Osbourne]. And I thought she was calling me to say, 'Did you get the gift that Ozzy and myself sent you?' which was like this really beautiful hand-made luggage with, like, skulls and crossbones all over it — typical Osbourne material. But then she said Ozzy wasn't feeling too good and he got a really bad case of bronchitis and he couldn't sing, so 'Can you help us out?' And I said, 'Sure, what do you want me to do?' 'Well, can you sing tonight?' 'You're kidding me!' I'm about two hours away from a PRIEST show. [And she said], 'We really need your help, because if we can't have you kind of helping out, stepping in for Ozzy, then SABBATH will have to cancel,' which would have been nothing short of a riot had that happened. So I said to Sharon, 'It's a bit short notice, but send me a tape of everything that they do' — I'd seen most of the shows standing on the side of the stage, being the BLACK SABBATH fan that I am — but she sent me a video of the performance and I was singing along with Ozzy in the back of the tour bus going to the show. Got off the bus, did the PRIEST show, took a shower, [and] 10 minutes later I was back out fronting SABBATH. And it was such a whirlwind. I mean, I got back to the hotel room that night and my whole body was, like, humming. Like it was this [makes buzzing noise] going on for two days. As I said, being a huge BLACK SABBATH fan, it was just an ultimate moment for me. But yeah, you do what you can. I mean, Ozzy and I, we're mates. We've known each other forever, we're from the same neighborhood in Birmingham. The originators of metal are SABBATH and PRIEST, so it was a spectacular evening."

Listen to Halford's 27-minute interview with WRIF, which covers the group's new album, "Angel of Retribution", and their plans for a North American tour, at this location (Windows Media).