The Metal God Roars Again

08/23/2000 2:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Bryan Reesman

Rob Halford is a born-again metalhead. That might sound strange to veteran headbangers who remember him fronting the world's greatest heavy metal band, but even Halford doesn't deny it. "Isn't that bizarre?" he ponders. "It's that experience totally." And it's an experience that he's successfully translated into his newest solo work, Resurrection.

It's not that Halford actually abandoned metal, but he did leave behind the classic British sound that his former band Judas Priest championed for two decades, founding first the Pantera-ish modern metal unit Fight, then the short-lived and under-recognized industrial/ electronic rock ensemble Two, which featured future Marilyn Manson guitarist John Lowery. Throughout the 1990s, those two groups allowed Halford to experiment with different sounds and styles, but the legendary screamer later had an epiphany that led him back to his roots.

"I've just found all the things were inside of me all the time; they've never left," he remarks. "The lamp just got turned down a little bit, and now it's up full roar, burning bright again. That's just come out of the experiences that I've had over the last few years, particularly the Two experience, which in itself was a very unusual and somewhat controversial time. But out of that came the full understanding and realization that this is my life, [I'm] the Metal God dude," he says with a chuckle, acknowledging his longtime fans' affectionate nickname. "I've got to be the Metal God. That's what I am. It's been a great few years, it's been important and relevant, and it's brought me back home to the place I need to be, the place I love."

The high-voltage Resurrection practically screams, "I'm back!" It's a collection of 12 songs bristling with metallic intensity and stamped with the personal, introspective lyrics that have become his post-Priest trademark. "Made In Hell" chronicles what inspired Halford to become a metal singer; "Silent Screams" acknowledges his rocky road back to being a metal messiah (and the genre's premier psychotherapist, to boot); "Cyberworld," inspired by his older Priest tune "Electric Eye," explores the dark side of the Internet; and his antagonistic duet with Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, "The One You Love To Hate," pokes fun at the angry reactions provoked by both singers splitting from their famous bands.

Halford certainly made quite a stir when he abruptly left Priest back in 1992, angering longtime fans who thought his departure spelled the demise of the band and an era. Beyond that, many hardcore Priest devotees had mixed reactions to the primal power of Fight and the Nine Inch Nails-influenced sound of Two. A small, clueless minority were also bothered by his coming out in early 1998 on MTV and in the leading gay publication The Advocate.

Then there was Rob's infamous "Metal is dead" statement, made the same year. In a recent interview with Germany's Rock Hard magazine, Halford had to atone for that sin. "I tried to fudge my way out of that by saying, 'I didn't mean really that, what I meant was the metal where I came from, bands like Priest and stuff, there's no more bands like that,'" he says. "When in reality, there are bands of that ilk from Europe. I think that just went to prove my emotional state of mind at that time. I remember I was sitting on the bus with [former Metal Edge editor] Gerri Miller, I was just so frustrated and not settled, and I made that ridiculous statement that metal is dead, which is a f--king stupid thing to do.

"I've been confronted all over Europe by that statement, and I've just been making amends by saying that I was off my John Rocker," Halford quips. "It was a stupid thing to say, and you've got to be able to admit your mistakes, and that was a big mistake on my part."

In its own way, the title track of Resurrection is an apology. "It's for me and it's for the fans," Halford says. "Metal fans are extremely loyal, devoted people, and if you rub them up the wrong way, like I did, you've got to step up to the plate and put your hands up and go, 'I'm sorry.' Some of the language I'm using on the record explains that, hopefully in one fell swoop. I'm hoping that when people listen to it they'll go, 'It's okay, Rob, we know, you're saying what you need to say, and let's move on.' There's a human quality as well, it makes it more real. People f--k up, it's as simple as that."

While the past is the past, for Halford it has also been the key in looking straight ahead to the future. His latest project, simply billed as Halford, was 18 months in the making. The singer assembled a band that includes guitarists Mike Chlasciak and Patrick Lachman, former Two bassist Ray Riendeau, and former Riot drummer Bobby Jarzombek. They recorded with producer/ Tribe Of Gypsies guitarist Roy Z, who has produced, written, and toured with Bruce Dickinson and is currently producing Helloween. Working from the template of Priest's British Steel era, Halford produced a 12-song testimonial to his renewed faith in metal that is fresh and invigorating.

The singer feels that "Silent Screams" is the key to the album. It was the first song he demoed, releasing it on his website in MP3 form. The overwhelmingly enthusiastic response from fans encouraged him to forge ahead in that direction. "I think everything connects to that one song because it has so many elements from the great world of metal music all scrunched into seven minutes," Halford observes. "It's just got a lot of flavor, and a lot of things branch off of it."

For his current live shows opening up for Iron Maiden and Queensryche, Halford is mixing in new songs like "Locked & Loaded" and "Nightfall" with the Fight tune "Into The Pit" and long-lost Priest chestnuts "Tyrant" and "Stained Class," songs that his former band have inexplicably failed to play, even though they now have a young frontman capable of tackling the material. However, do not expect Rob to come out on his Harley. The prop is included in the artwork of his new album as a renewed declaration of his identity, but he feels that bringing it onstage would intrude upon the Priest legacy, something he does not wish to do. He further states that he has met with his former bandmates after an eight-year period of not speaking, and while there have been rumors of a reunion, for now Rob simply wishes to rebuild an important friendship that previously spanned two decades.

As a statement of personal intent, Resurrection is easily Halford's strongest work since Judas Priest's 1990 masterpiece Painkiller. But Rob has grown up since the fantasy-laced lyrics of those days. "I'm just telling people what's been going on," he says, "where I've been, and what I've felt like."

Welcome home, Rob.