JUDAS PRIEST's ROB HALFORD Says His Upcoming Memoir Will 'Shock' People

Rob Halford says that his upcoming book will be "more of a memoir" than an autobiography.

Earlier this year, the JUDAS PRIEST singer confirmed that he was finally working on a book, after having previously insisted he would never do so because of privacy concerns.

Speaking to Ultimate Classic Rock, Halford said that his memoir will offer a candid look back at his life.

"There's no point in putting a book together if you don't have full disclosure, in my opinion," he said. "Since I've been clean and sober, I've probably been more honest and truthful about myself than I ever have been. You only get a chance to do it once and do it properly.

"I'm excited, but I'm also kind of apprehensive as we move along," he admitted. "Because you don't know what you [should include]: Should I say this, should I say that? I don't know."

As for what the book will be like, Halford said: "I don't want it to be an autobiography — I want it to be more of a memoir. It's going to have a lot of things in there that you're going to go, 'Oh, I'm not really interested in that.' You're also going to go, 'Oh my God, I never knew he did that!' But it's going to make you feel happy, it's going to make you feel sad. It's going to make you feel angry, it's going to shock you. It's going to have all of the things that I think have been in most people's lives."

According to Halford, he has already begun working on the book. "It's coming together and it's exciting, and I think we're hoping for it to be released sometime toward the back end of 2020, hopefully," he said.

Back in 2015, Halford was less enthusiastic about sharing personal details about his life in book form, telling Australia's Brisbane Times: "I know that my own life, my own experiences have something in them that people could learn from, that could really help somebody. And that it could be written in a way that needn't be exploitative or titillating. But I'm a private person, and I can say right now, it won't happen."

Halford said the same was true of JUDAS PRIEST, whose wild 1980s were chronicled in a "Behind The Music" episode but which has yet to release an official band autobiography. "We've talked about it and we're not interested," Rob said. "It seems the only way you can get these things to stick is to make it a tell-all, to dig up all the dirty laundry. We've never been to drawn to the tabloidy, gossipy side of things; we've never been desperate for attention, or gone around shooting our mouths off like other bands. We're more than happy — right now as much as ever — to be like Oz behind the curtain, to not pull that veil away, and to keep our fans directed to our albums and our shows."

Former JUDAS PRIEST guitarist K.K. Downing released his autobiography, "Heavy Duty: Days And Nights In Judas Priest", in September 2018 via Da Capo Press.

Photo credit: Mark Weiss