The frontman answers your questions on metal’s punk rivals, working with Dolly Parton, his top Priest song and his time working in a Walsall sex shop
Thu 7 Mar 2024 12.00 GMT
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Was the first heavy metal record the Kinks’ You Really Got Me (1964), Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild (1968), Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath (1970) or something else? VerulamiumParkRanger
Gotta be Black Sabbath. I love the Kinks and Steppenwolf but by definition they’re not really metal. In terms of riffage, I’ve always defined metal to the greatest extent by the bass, that big, meaty, Black Sabbath-style riff – a West Midlands sledgehammer! That’s what Tony [Iommi] was doing, so it’s definitely Black Sabbath for me.
How did you feel about punk at the time, and is it weird that as time has gone on, punk and metal have become pretty interchangeable as far as their fanbases go? johnny5eyes
It was exciting for Priest to be around when the punk movement exploded from London. I remember seeing the Sex Pistols at a club in Wolverhampton, and I thought they had some metal vibes to them – the attitude and some of the riffs. I welcome anything like this because it’s the true essence of what rock’n’roll should be all about. The unfortunate thing that happened in the industry was that suddenly all the labels and the media focused exclusively on the Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Clash. All great bands, but metal was kind of pushed out of the picture. For a while, there was this mantra that metal was dead. You can’t squash a whole movement because something else comes along, but we needed punk in the British music scene.
How is [guitarist] Glenn Tipton and will he be making an appearance on the tour? Metalizer
He’s doing extraordinarily well considering that he’s been living with Parkinson’s for 15 years. He’s such a strong man. It’s like any of these challenges, a lot of it is borne by how you fight back, and he fights back all the time. I love that people still understand his importance in Judas Priest – his input on this new album, Invincible Shield, is as it has been on all the records. Glenn and Ozzy [Osbourne, also living with Parkinson’s disease] keep in touch. They’re both cut from the same cloth with that British “get on with it” type of thing. I don’t mean to speak against other identities but there’s this thing about blokes and dignity, an extremely powerful word in what it represents – my dad was the same – and they are really strong in battling on.
Whose idea was it for Priest to work with Stock Aitken Waterman, and why have the results never been released? JacquelinePearce
That was my gayness coming to the front – I think there are certain things that come from my identity that wouldn’t be there if I was a straight bloke. And one of them was taking this adventure with Stock Aitken Waterman. I love pop – I’ve just been listening to the new Olly Alexander song for Eurovision, it’s brilliant.
That’s what I love about this band: we never say no, we’re always about having a go. We went to Paris for a couple of days, and it was extraordinary to see how SAW made music. We did the Stylistics’ You Are Everything and a couple of other bangers they made there and then. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves but when we came back, not the doubt, but the preservation came in. At that time, we felt there would have been pushback if we’d dropped those tracks, and we didn’t want that to happen. Pete Waterman’s still got them hidden away in his safe somewhere. It was heavy stuff, but it had those trademark Stock Aitken Waterman vibes.
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