ROB HALFORD On JUDAS PRIEST's Farewell Tour: 'It's Been A Fantastic Journey For 40 Years'

December 9, 2010

On Tuesday, December 7, Mario Tarradell of The Dallas Morning News conducted an interview with JUDAS PRIEST/HALFORD frontman Rob Halford. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the optimism expressed in the lyrics on HALFORD's new CD, "Halford IV: Made of Metal", which he calls "the most personal release of my solo career":

"I'm not one of these musicians that put moaning into their songs. I'm not really the kind of guy to reflect on my painful experiences. There's always a light at the end of the tunnel. I have an optimistic streak in life. I got it from my mother. No matter what you go through it's all relative. There's always somebody in a worse position. If you've got two arms, two legs and two eyes, then stop complaining. That's a little rallying cry that is part of my character."

On JUDAS PRIEST's upcoming 2011 trek, dubbed "Epitaph", which will be its farewell world tour:

"I'd like to think that PRIEST and all of metal isn't one-dimensional. Everything doesn't have to be connected to leather. We tried to create with PRIEST a really entrenching, varied, exciting heavy-metal band. By definition we've always called ourselves a heavy-metal band, but we've done many, many things in our music. The legacy of JUDAS PRIEST is the songs that we've made. It's been a fantastic journey for 40 years."

On feeling fortunate that he's never had to forgo his livelihood even after publicly announcing his homosexuality in 1998:

"I'm just going through my life like we all do regardless of what we are and what we do. If I do reflect upon the trials and tribulations ... it's to empower myself. You can make yourself stronger by being most honest and truthful. Some people can't make the decisions that I made. It's very important to respect everybody's final choice and how they want to go through their sexual orientation. It just displayed the passion ... and the tolerance of metal fans around the world. They don't care about that."

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