JUDAS PRIEST: HELL-BENT FOR EAGLE SCOUT-HOOD?

JUDAS PRIEST: HELL-BENT FOR EAGLE SCOUT-HOOD?

"We couldn't sdo this if we were on drugs. -Glenn Tipton

AUGUST '81-Judas Priest fans from Boise to Boogie have doubtlessly been thrilled with CREEM's far-reaching coverage of their fave band, and with good reason! We've put 'em on the cover lots of times just because we like the way they look! Come with us, then, as chemist/writer J. Kordosh asks significant ques-tions no one else but his extremely young son would even think of! Though it's disappointing that the "big" question-where did he get that hat?-never arises, big deal! Life's like that!

J. Kordosh

I’m sitting in the bar of the Marriott Pavilion Hotel in downtown St. Louis. It’s—what?—about 2 a m. With me are Rob Halford and K.K. Downing of Judas Priest. I am not dreaming. We are having an amicable conversation. I am not dreaming. I thought their show was damned good. I am not dreaming.

I ask Halford if he feels embittered by criticisms that have been levied against Judas Priest. -Straightforward stuff like: “They’re a bunch of creeps.”

Halford speaks carefully, as is his habit. “It has been a relatively comfortable thing to go through, although at certain times one does get very frustrated and feel—not so much bitter—but tense. You see yourself with something special to offer, with a highly professional attitude and direction. And there are people around you in the business who quite simply play a bunch of shit.”

“Who? Who?” I froth. Hey, I wanna interview them next!

“Well, I’m not gonna name names. That really doesn’t make any sense,” he replies. “Specifically, I’m talking about people in the same genre as Judas Priest. But as long as we have the ongoing situation that we have—that eventually people do relate and understand and appreciate what we have to offer—then that really is all that matters, you know? You can’t keep banging your head against the wall and saying ‘this should have happened two years ago or three years ago, ’ but it is very easy to feel that little bit of frustration. But what control have you got? You really don’t have that much.”

“I think it’s fair to say that we have experienced more frustration in the music business than most,” Downing says. “I’m not gonna say everyone else...but most other bands. Umm...I mean, I thought I was ‘a star’ at 20 years old,” he laughs.

Halford continues in his earnest fashion: “We came along at a time when people in the music industry were becoming far more cynical, choosy, playing games among themselves, and all those various attitudes that can very directly hold back bands. And I think» that today—especially today—it must be so very, very difficult for a new band to come along. If they have something good to offer—they write good songs, they’re good musicians, they make good albums—it must be so much more difficult for those people to get established than ever before. Because it’s true to say that so many people in the business now...know full well that they can make or break a band or an individual artist. And, to me, that’s a particularly saddening fact.”

“Are you saying, really, that the industry itself is repressive?” Dammit, / wanted to be the one that got to say that.

“I think up until maybe 12 months ago that was the attitude. But since that time there’s been a massive reorganization, a reshuffling of people. Presidents and owners of corporations have realized that they’re employing people that do absolutely fucking nothing. And they get paid for it? Every single person should be specifically employed to do a job that is specifically related to that corporation’s success. But so many of them—until recently—have just gone into work at nine o’clock in the morning, sat around all day with a pen and paper, made a few notes, and fucked off till the end of the day. And they got a wage for that. And, as we’ve seen with this so-called ‘general world recession,’ it’s hit people right between the eyes. And they’ve suddenly seen that they, themselves—as business corporations —have let hundreds of thousands of dollars go down the drain. Have been paying for nothing and getting no return.”

“Liggers,” offers Downing.

“Absolutely. Fucking liggers,” Halford agrees. I probably would too, but I can’t speak British.

“Do you think the industry is full of individuals—when I say ‘individuals,’ I mean music-minded individuals—everybody’s got a completely unique taste. For example, 1 could like...say, six bands, like Scorpions, UFO, Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and...Neil Diamond, right?” Downing laughs. (Yeah, we’re drinking pretty good.) “Now, Rob could think, ‘Well, 1 love all them first five, but how do you rate Neil Diamond?’ So I think everybody is unique in that respect. And so when an artist comes out, whether it’s Elvis Costello or Johnny Kidd and the Pirates or Neil Diamond, you get people that like and people that don’t like. And the people who were working on acts like Judas Priest in the early days didn’t like heavy metal. And the result was very little got done, very little promotion. Because they preferred, maybe, the Sex Pistols or the Clash or something in the New Wave.”

“But do you know why that is?”

“Umm.. .it’s down to individual taste.”

“The criticism against Judas Priest as opposed to, say, the Sex Pistols, is that the Sex Pistols were doing something, quote, new. Or something, quote, different. Or trying to shake things up. Whereas Judas Priest is trying to maintain the status quo.”

“Uh hum,” Downing says, relatively unconcerned. “That’s going back to what I was saying (earlier) about people following trands. They think something new is gonna happen, so before everybody does it they all rush out at the same time and buy that particular hat or that particular wear. And, as a result, everybody buys it in two weeks. So after two weeks everything’s old hat and boring and it falls off the market. OK, not two weeks; two months, six months, whatever. Y’know, it’s gone. And what are you left with? You’re left with something that was there originally that is substantial. ” ☆ ☆ ☆

I met The Priest—which is what some of their road crew and CBS promo calls ’em (don’cha just love it.. .it’s so fucking obnoxious)—earlier in the afternoon, when we all drove to Keil Auditorium for their sound check. 1 didn’t say much of anything during the ride for a number of reasons: one, I was tired. Two, Halford had come down wearing those damned studded wrist bands (I mean, for a lousy sound check.) Three, take a look at their picture. Four, I thought it might be funny if they started wondering what in the world 1 was gonna write about if I didn’t talk to ’em.

(Dave Holland, their drummer, had been at the auditorium most of the afternoon, working to get the snare to sound right on their monitors. Jesus, the guy could’ve been sleeping and there he was screwing around with a thing like that. Later on, the workmanlike Holland asked me how the drums sounded “all around the arena.” Hey, gimme a break. From where 1 sat, they sounded great, but I’m training for the hundred-yard dash or something?)

Things started to loosen up when we got to the arena, where The Priest acted not unlike we the people, drinking beers and carousing and having the kind of fun you can find only in a backstage dump. I made myself a sandwich and asked guitar-guy oienn lipton n ne warned to talk. He said sure.

"People take thing far too seriously -Rob Halford

“What’s the title of the album supposed to mean?” I wondered. Tough question, huh?

“Point Of Entry? It means a lot of things to us: we’ve just started the 80’s and that’s the main thing about it. We’ve always felt that we’re a band that’s changed with the times...never really sticking to a 1973-vein of sluggish riffs. And we just felt this title was very appropriate. It’s slightly different from anything we’ve ever done, but it’s still well within the range of Judas Priest.”

I noticed that Tipton speaks very easily and with unusual lucidity. “Who do you listen to?” I asked, trying to think of more stupid questions, which I’m usually pretty good at.

“I don’t really listen to anyone. That’s absolutely true. To me—after recording, writing, rehearsing, playing on the road—when I get home, I just want peace and quiet for a while. I think it’s very important, whether you’re a band, singer, lead guitarist—you’ve gotta have your own identity. There’s only one way to achieve that: that’s to listen to things in general. Then, when you write, you write your songs and they come out as your own. You’ve gotta be recognizable—you haven’t got to try to be, it’s just gotta happen that way.”

Hmm, must be some kind of Zen trick. “Are you ever afraid—or do you think— that the show is sometimes overshadowing your music?” I hadn’t seen the show yet, but I figured 1 can guess about as well as the next guy.

“No. If our music were weak, it would. A lot of bands cover weak music with big show. What we do—our music’s very strong—and what we do is put on a show that is basically a visual show for the kids. Occasionally, we still do small clubs...we love it. We don’t really mind going back into that four or five hundred capacity atmosphere. And you couldn’t do that it you had to rely on the show.”

“What's your favorite Beatles’ album, Glenn?” I asked, apropos of nothing. Hey, it’s hard thinking up all these questions, and it was either that or asking him what his favorite episode of Hoppity Hooper was.

"I’ve got all the Beatles’ stuff,” he said. “I’ve got to give you a truthful answer: I can give you tracks, but to give you an actual favorite album, it’s very difficult. You know,

I like the very early stuff. But I think the actual best stuff was right around the time of Let It Be. when I think McCartney really started to come to the forefront. Between Lennon and McCartney, I lean toward McCartney.”

Huh? Later on, he told me he thought that McCartney actually writes a lot of songs specifically for children, and that many people don’t understand that. He even pinned me down on my favorite Beatles’ album (second side of Abbey Road) and said “it’s nice to meet somebody that likes the Beatles.” Jesus Christ! Judas Priest??

☆ ☆ ☆

Well, came showtime, and The Priest put on a good one. All the amps were screened off so that all you could see were the front guys with Holland poised above ’em on a ten-foot drum riser. Sort of Las Vegas Heavy Metal or something.

I guess the most memorable thing about the show is that it was really hard to see or hear anything until it’d been over for a half-hour. The only bands I’ve ever heard anywhere that were any louder were the MC5 and this one time the Stooges played some University of Michigan classroom with about 63 Marshalls. Tipton and Downing are exceptional guitarists—tasteful, in fact, considering the decibels. Tipton plays especially nice fills while Downing fiddles more with the effects, but if there’s a band out there with two better guitarists I wanna bet five bucks on ’em.

My only complaint was that the show was too long and it tried to kill me. I later opined that the whole thing would’ve been neater if they’d held it to 45 minutes or so and they actually agreed! “But the kids would keep calling us back anyway,” Tipton said, accepting his fate.

On another humorous note, My Fair Lady was being staged in an adjoining auditorium and Rex Harrison refused to go on because of all the noise. No kidding, he actually made his stand-in do it. Even funnier. Judas Priest held two tickets for ol’ Rex, having been warned in advance of the threatened walk-out, but I never heard if he took advantage of the surely never-to-berepeated offer.

Anyway, I doubt if too many bands could even keep up with these guys onstage. Downing and Tipton do all sorts of choreographed synchromotions and they’re all running and jumping around all over the place. “We couldn’t do this if we were on drugs," Tipton told me. Listen, I couldn’t do it if I were on fire.

☆ ☆ ☆

We’re back in that bar again, which is good because I was getting pretty thirsty. By now, I’ve realized that there are actually two bands called Judas Priest and the one I’ve read about isn’t the one I’ve met. These guys are stupid in the same sense that Ronald Reagan is unelectable.

Downing is offering more musical theory: “I’ll tell you, all the ‘new wave’ bands—we know, we live in England and we’ve seen it—a large majority are failed rock musicians. We know guys who supported us on tour in England, all right?—mentioning no names—they did a support tour. They were a good rock act but they couldn’t get a recording contract; they couldn’t get off in any way. And somebody came along and said, ‘You should turn punk, it’s the big thing.’ And for a while they had a very small amount of success—more success than they’d had as a rock band—but when people found out that they were really a rock band before, it just killed them dead. ”

“The good thing that did come out of the new wave or the punk thing—more so the new wave—were artists who did have something to give to the world on a musical basis. Y’know bands, off the top of my head—on a commercial basis, because new wave was very commercial to me—were the bands like the Police, Blondie...I suppose Elvis Costello...bands that came out with something so that when it (new wave) died, it left the bands that did have something to offer. So many bands fell by the wayside. In England, it’s untrue. I would say probably 150 bands. You know, the Snivelling Shits, the Slits—real outrageous names. ”he laughs.

Downing and I are getting pretty sloshed, laughing at silly names. Wait a minute, I’m talking to Judas Priest. Downing suddenly realizes I’m taping the whole thing. “I wasn’t gonna mention any names. Those are bands I’ve never seen, never heard of— and probably never will,” he giggles. He leans over the tape recorder: “BUT they could have probably been very good. I’m sure they were.”

Halford, still relatively sober, brings things back around to The Priest and what they’re doing. “Quite literally, at this point in time, we aren’t out to try to do anything.”

“There must be pure alcohol in the bottom of this,” Downing adds, staring into his glass.

“The actual situation of trying or proving anything after this amount of time quite simply doesn’t enter the subject. At the end of the tour we’re given a date to go into the studio and we write. We write songs that are essentially pleasing to ourselves, initially. It has to be said that we write songs that we enjoy and, beyond that, we’re very fortunate in the respect that we don’t have to set ourselves aside and think which of the songs the general public are gonna like. Because we’ve been in the position, over the years, of writing material that is not only acceptable and pleasing to ourselves, but also to our audience.”

The tape starts to make Downing and I sound like we’re common drunks—last time I buy those K-Mart three-packs, I wanna tell you—as we come to some muddled agreement that the most important things in life are sex, music, alcohol and relaxation.

“I’ll tell you,” Halford tells me, lowering his voice to a secretive level. “People take things far too seriously. I take a one-to-one situation with family... um, ’reasonably seriously,’ but then, my family’s as looney as me.”

I believe him. Heck, I’m probably only dreaming anyway.