ROB HALFORD On New JUDAS PRIEST CD: 'We're A Long Way From The Finishing Line'

Sweden's Metalshrine conducted an interview with JUDAS PRIEST frontman Rob Halford on January 30, 2007. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Metalshrine: I was watching the video for [the new HALFORD song] "Forgotten Generation" on YouTube and there's a lot of disturbing images with police violence and so forth. What's the story behind [that track]?

Rob Halford: I talked forever about this. "How are we gonna do this?" "Are we gonna put on a band performance?" You know, green screen, blue screen...and then I thought, "Well, what are we gonna surround it with?" We tried different formats and I thought, basically the message in the song is my belief that everybody's got a voice and everybody has an opportunity to say what they want and they DO, especially on blogs on the Internet. So it's a very assertive song in that respect and I thought, well because of what I do with the HALFORD band it lets me kind of tackle kind of real-life issues and social political issues if I want to go there and I have and I will in the future still. I don't do that in PRIEST because PRIEST is a different metal animal. I just thought that all those things that go on in life, they are terrible and they are upsetting and they are disturbing, but I just wanted to focus on that area because I hadn't done it before. I just wanted to stimulate people's thinking more than anything else. Just go, "Look at all this shit that's going on!" and still going on. It's horrible and it's terrible and some people might say, "Come on, Rob, we get enough of that as it is!" but I don't think you can push it under the carpet all the time. So I just wanted to put all those little clips together and make you sit and watch and think about it and have a reaction to it. It's very important to react! That's what rock and roll is all about — reacting! You either go "Living After Midnight" and have a rock and roll party or you go a bit deeper and a bit more objective with the real message.

Metalshrine: How far have you come in the recording of the [new JUDAS PRIEST] album ["Nostradamus"]? The structure of the songs, are they done and are you just working on the lyrics now or what?

Rob Halford: Like any band you go through the difficult stage, which is sitting down, like Glenn [Tipton] and Ken [K.K. Downing] and myself did with guitars and keyboards and go, "OK, let's start!", but "Where should we start?" (laughs) "What part of his life do we do first?" and I think, what we tried to do is actually go on a timeline from when he first discovered these abilities to prophecize and all the other things that he went through in his life. And so, that's the initial challenge and the three of us put together very rudimentary demos fully in every aspect that we want to cover instruments and arrangements and construction and then really the joy that is to replicate those very rough demos to the fully, finished and final and musical pieces. And that's what the guys are doing in England, doing all of that right now and I'll be going over there shortly to lay all my vocal tracks down.

Metalshrine: Do you have any titles ready?

Rob Halford: Titles? Of course I do and I'm not going to tell you (laughs),because everybody wants them. That's great, because everybody's like, "I wonder what this song is about and will it be a fast song or a slow song, a ballad?", and that's what I love. I was talking to somebody yesterday, a friend of mine who's a radio host here in America, we were talking about the magic and the mystic of what we do in music and a lot of those elements have faded away. I said, "I have to agree with you!" and that's what we've always tried to do in PRIEST, is keep everybody wondering and thinking, so when the moment actually comes, it's an exciting thing. It's like having a Christmas gift under the Christmas tree and knowing what it is! That's no good, is it? You don't want to go crazy and rip the wrapping paper off to find out it's a pair of slippers! (laughs) It will be a nice heavily incrusted leather diamond wristband or something. But I think it's important that you keep a little bit of secrecy going on, it's the passion, the passion that PRIEST fans have. They're all excited and wondering and anticipating what this is gonna be about and it's very tempting (laughs) to start shouting out lyrics and titles, but I can't do that. But it's wonderful and incredible music and I think that the PRIEST fans worldwide are gonna embrace it and have a wonderful time with it, especially when we play it live.

Metalshrine: Are you producing it yourselves or are you working with a producer?

Rob Halford: Well, the initial stage is we're basically looking after everything ourselves and we're gonna take it to different levels and feel if we need some kind of producer involved. We haven't decided just yet, because we're a long way from the finishing line, so to speak. Everything that we've done has been co-produced pretty much. We know what we're about and what we need to do and at some point it is valuable to bring in another individual with a another objective point of view. That's what good producers do. A producer will come in and go, "Hey guys, this is great, but have you thought about doing this and trying this?" and if they're a good producer the reaction is "Yeah, that's pretty cool, we never thought about that!" and they take you to a place that you maybe didn't think through or didn't see. But at the moment we're doing it ourselves and as when we feel it's necessary to bring in production, we'll do that.

Metalshrine: You haven't started thinking about art work for the album then?

Rob Halford: Yeah, all that's going on and the stage design is going on. All of these things are going on around the actual studio evironment.

Metalshrine: How involved are you in that?

Rob Halford: In every aspect. That's just the way we are in PRIEST, because at the end of the day we don't want to have something happen and be uncomfortable with it, because we didn't say something or speak up or dind't have any input whatever. Everything that comes from PRIEST in every aspect, comes from the input of all of us in the band and all of us agreeing that this is the right thing to do.

Metalshrine: I read somewhere that you're planning on playing the whole album live. Any truth to that?

Rob Halford: Yeah, we will do that.

Metalshrine: The same kind of thing that IRON MAIDEN did?

Rob Halford: Yeah, that's what MAIDEN's just done and I think that's gonna be another core moment, because we've never done that ourselves. We kind of put that out in the press release, while we were writing the record and we wanted people to know that that's what our intentions are gonna be and then of course when MAIDEN came out they went into that world as well and it's proved really successful for them. It'll be a full performance front to back with a very elaborate and theatrical stage show and again, that's something new for us and for our fans around the world.

Read the entire interview at Metalshrine.