Rob Halford
Rob Halford
Robert John Arthur "Rob" Halfordis an English singer and songwriter, who is best known as the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning heavy metal band Judas Priest and famed for his powerful wide ranging operatic voice. AllMusic says of Halford: "There have been few vocalists in the history of heavy metal whose singing style has been as influential and instantly recognizable", possessing a voice which is "able to effortlessly alternate between a throaty growl and an ear-splitting falsetto". Halford was...
ProfessionMetal Singer
Date of Birth25 August 1951
CitySutton Coldfield, England
We are looking at these rock 'n' roll campers, and we know what is going on in their minds because we've been there.
Their brilliant audio expert, who is a marine biologist, should really be looking after Flipper
They were and still are a groundbreaking band. Even though they haven't released any new music in ages, you can put on the first Black Sabbath album and it still sounds as fresh today as it did 30-odd years ago. And that's because great music has a timeless ability: To me, Sabbath are in the same league as the Beatles or Mozart. They're on the leading edge of something extraordinary.
I would love to be in the Hall Of Fame.
Don't put yourself on a pedestal. Because it's very easy for someone to knock you off. It's balance.
All songs have a message whether it's I love you, do you love me or this government sucks in a basic format and then you expand upon your beliefs and your thinking process about what's going on around you in the world.
It's a joy to actually be able to control your own music.
It tore us up emotionally hearing someone say to the judge and the cameras that this is a band that creates music that kills young people. We accept that some people don't like heavy metal, but we can't let them convince us that it's negative and destructive. Heavy metal is a friend that gives people great pleasure and enjoyment and helps them through hard times. “Whether there's any 'subliminal effect' from the court, I don't know, but we certainly couldn't let it interfere with our creativity.
Never lose perspective on where you are and what you've got. And how you got it.
We had to sit in this courtroom in Reno for six weeks. It was like Disneyworld. We had no idea what a subliminal message was - it was just a combination of some weird guitar sounds, and the way I exhaled between lyrics. I had to sing 'Better by You, Better Than Me' in court, a cappella. I think that was when the judge thought, 'What am I doing here? No band goes out of its way to kill its fans'.
I'll always have a totally open mind to endless possibilities. I want to do a dance album. Not Techno, but a record that's exclusively designed for people to dance to. That whole dance genre is kinda into its own world. I'd just like to get in there and mess around with that.
Metal musicians say dumb things sometimes.
Richie Faulkner is very respectful to the songs that he plays from when [founding member] K.K. [Downing] was in the band. He plays them incredibly. And he's got his own nuances and his own techniques that he puts in - as he should.
All I've got on my iPod is every single Queen song and every single Judas Priest song. Queen were an incredible heavy metal band. I saw them on their first ever tour, at Birmingham Town Hall. They just blew me away.