Judas Priest Then And Now

I recently caught Judas Priest on the Masters of Metal tour with Heaven & Hell and Motorhead.  Somehow I knew we weren’t going to hear “Dreamer Deceiver” or “Run of the Mill” (although Halford had specifically mentioned the latter song in a recent interview, which shows he hasn’t completely forgotten that era), so what we could expect would be the best of their more recent material.  I have to divide their material into two phases:  “old” and “metal”.

The “old” phase includes the first two albums Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings of Destiny.  Rocka Rolla has a few so-so songs, “Rocka Rolla” itself and “One For The Road”, the better ones, “Winter”/“Deep Freeze”/”Winter Retreat”/”Cheater”, “Never Satisfied”, “Dying to Meet You”, and the best of all of them, “Run of the Mill.”  Sad Wings has “Victim of Changes”, “Tyrant”, “Genocide”, “The Ripper”, “Island of Domination” (a great closer); the two light songs to balance it out, “Prelude” (opening side 2) and “Epitaph”; and my favorite Judas Priest song, hell, one of my favorite songs, period, by any band, “Dreamer Deceiver”/”Deceiver”.  Ages ago a pair of US teenagers killed themselves over this song, but I never heard anything in it which would lead to depression or suicide, or which I perceived as a call to either; “Beyond the Realms of Death”, however, would fit that role far better.  Priest were sued over the issue but won – rightly so.

This older material has a 70s feel and vibe to it, and Halford sometimes even sings with a normal voice (wait, is that the same guy? Do they have two singers?).  The clear highlights are “Run of the Mill” and “Dreamer Deceiver”, which have long, winding guitar solos and really take you up into the clouds, or deep into Hell.  I can hear some vague touches of this on Nostradamus, emphasis on the word “vague”.   Even the logo – in an English font – is somehow older than the more modern version they’ve had since Stained Class.  We picked these up on vinyl back in 1984.  Just like Rush prefer to avoid mentioning Fly By Night and Caress of Steel (I’m sure Neil Peart cringes whenever anyone even mentions “The Necromancer”) Judas Priest tend to avoid these albums.  Even “Ripper” and “Victim of Changes” are out of the setlist these days.  With “Live At Wacken” the Scorpions played with Michael Schenker and Uli Roth, and played songs from their first two albums Lonesome Crow and Fly to the Rainbow, which have a similarly stylistic relationship to the rest of the Scorpions’ mainstream metal material.  If the Scorpions can Accept their past, why not Judas Priest?  In addition to the usual gripes about the sound quality, they talk about not having the rights to this material – so it can’t be properly remastered the way Sin After Sin and later albums were redone.  What we need is a tribute band to play a 1975-era Judas Priest lineup.

Alan Atkins.  This was the first singer, before Rob Halford.  His name still appears on credits for some songs on the first two albums, including “Victim of Changes”.  In a more recent interview he explains that he left the band because he didn’t think it was going anywhere; most likely it was Halford’s voice which made the difference, so yes, they weren’t going anywhere – with him.  I got his solo album, which contains reworked versions of some of those songs.  Verdict?  Excellent voice, but not Halford – like comparing a Z/28 to a Corvette.  [Hmm… maybe get Atkins to sing for that tribute band….]

The “metal” era starts with the third album, Sin After Sin, and continues to the present, including the classic albums British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance, and Defenders of the Faith.  Of these, Defenders is my favorite, even over British Steel.  From “Freewheel Burning” all the way to “Defenders of the Faith”, the album is solid.  The production kicks ass, without being too polished (it also happens to be the very first Priest album I ever listened to, which may affect my objectivity somewhat).  Ram It Down and Painkiller were a little too raw and obnoxious; I analogized Painkiller to daring someone to drive fast, and they did so pulling their tired, broken-down Chevy Nova (80s era) to 100 mph with the damn thing falling apart.   I’ll probably catch hell from the entire faithful for saying this (especially since I don’t like Painkiller), but I like Turbo.  “Parental Guidance” and “Private Property” are bit too catchy and goofy, but the rest – particularly “Out in the Cold” and “Reckless” are fine. 

            As for the other albums, Sin After Sin gives us “Sinner”, Stained Class gives us “Beyond the Realms of Death” (now THAT’S a call to suicide), Hell Bent For Leather gives us “Delivering the Goods” and “Before The Dawn”, and Point of Entry gives us…well ok, it’s a shitty album.  For some reason, I can’t get too excited about the Halford comeback album Angel of Retribution, though I can’t identify any truly Point of Entry moments on it.  In any case, these albums established Judas Priest as one of metal’s defining elements, even before Iron Maiden came around to give them competition.  [Incidentally, if you subtract out the people wearing t-shirts of bands actually appearing at a metal concert, which includes freshly purchased tour shirts, and disqualify an Iron Maiden concert (for obvious reason), the most common band’s t-shirts at most metal shows seems to be Iron Maiden.  They must have an entire village in Indonesia doing nothing but making 1000 different Maiden shirts.]

Halford’s solo & Lifestyle.  For a brief period of time, Halford went off on his own, with two thrashy/industrial projects, Two and Fight (neither of which I’ve heard) before establishing a very brief solo career of material which sounded more like Judas Priest than Priest itself, which at the time was indulging its thrashier tendencies with Ripper Owens for two albums, Jugulator and Demolition. 

            Back when we were in high school, our friend Sean claimed that Halford was gay.  At this time Halford was still denying it – but dressing in leather, with the spikes, etc.  Hey, he denied it, it was good enough for us, even if we did share Sean’s suspicion, if not his conviction.  After Halford left Priest, he finally came out of the closet, and admitted that – despite all the denials to the contrary all this time – he had always been gay (he revealed that his dream celebrity crush was on…Howie Long!  I wonder if Long himself has ever been notified of this as-yet unrequited love).  Looking back, none of the songs have lyrics which would indicate this, with the possible exception of “Raw Deal” from Sin After Sin,  Was Point of Entry an anatomical reference?  It would be more accurate to say that some songs such as “Eat Me Alive” and “Before the Dawn” could be interpreted as having a female OR male love interest, but they are deliberately vague and ambiguous.  The reality was that we really didn’t care much when he did come out.  Part of that was because we already “knew” (despite the denials – and thanks to Sean!) and part was because the music really didn’t reflect his orientation.  We enjoyed the music before, and we still do.  What he does behind closed doors is his own business, as distasteful as we may find it.  We’ll focus on the music instead.  If the next Priest album, after Nostradamus, is called Penetrator, with songs about “between the pitcher and the catcher”…then we’ll find another band to listen to.

Ripper Owens.  Talk about up and down.  On one hand the guy went from being in a Judas Priest tribute band, to replacing Rob Halford himself.  On the other, he was put in the position of singing thrash songs on two Priest albums, Jugulator and Demolition, which are extremely atypical albums.  Vocally he acquits himself well, and he also does a passable Halford impression on the classic JP tracks on their live album from this era.  Similarly, these albums sound like well-executed thrash metal performed by competent musicians.  If you like or want that kind of stuff, it’s not bad.  For some reason, though, I can’t bring myself to compare it to Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, or Trouble, which are “real” thrash bands; I can only compare it to other Judas Priest material, and it comes up short.  By being put in this bizarre position, Owens was doomed to failure.  It was as if the Beatles hired a different drummer to replace Ringo, but only to make two albums of reggae music.  Of course Halford eventually came back, and of course, Owens was let go.  The whole thing is surreal, like a dream that’s so fucked up you can’t even call it a nightmare.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot.  If they ever gather all the Judas Priest live DVDs together as a group package, they should definitely include this.  Although it clocks in at all of 15 minutes – and the band itself is completely absent from it - this low budget (local access cable) documentary clearly captures the audience of a Judas Priest concert at its worst…er…best.   And I have to confess that had I been there in May 1986 at the Cap Center parking lot, waiting for the Turbo show to begin, I’d have been just as stupid and incoherent as any of the live action Beavis & Butt-heads they found cheering, hooting and hollering.  The extra features are just as entertaining, including “Neil Diamond Parking Lot”, a reunion with some of the HMPL morons, and one fan’s fairly accurate analysis of Judas Priest’s albums.  This movie is definitely a must-see for any true Judas Priest fan who was “there” in the 80s, even if they weren’t in that particular parking lot.  However, for anyone not into this music to see this film would give a grossly inaccurate picture of the music itself, as Judas Priest are far more intelligent and competent musicians than their fans would indicate.  However it is, after all, heavy metal, just some of the better examples of that genre.