Detritus
Mini-Issue #478.5 - November 14, 2008
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*** CAST OF CHARACTERS ***
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Patrick Brower, Editor
patrickbrower@...

Sean P. Gahgan, Editor
lof@...
http://www.lakeoffire.net/

Tim Wadzinski, Owner
tsw512@...

Steve Shumake, Co-owner
vongoober@...
http://www.myspace.com/kdsteve

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*** LET IT BE KNOWN ***
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-Neal is really powering through his list of legends to interview --
this week it's Rob Halford. - Tim

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*** SPECIAL REPORT ***
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by Neal Woodall (MysticX9@...)

-Interview w/ Rob Halford
October 24, 2008

Now here is a man who needs no introduction! A true legend in the
metal world, Rob Halford is without a doubt one of the finest
vocalists and front men in rock history, and 34 years after the
release of Judas Priest's debut album ROCKA ROLLA Rob is still going
strong with no signs of stopping. 2001 saw Rob with his solo band
Halford playing the massive Rock In Rio festival in Brazil, appearing
in front of 250,000 rabid fans to deliver blistering renditions of
Halford, Fight and Judas Priest favorites; fortunately for us this
memorable night was captured on video and has finally been released on
DVD along with a re-mastered version of Halford's first album
RESURRECTION. It was recently my great honor and pleasure to speak
with Rob about the RESURRECTION WORLD TOUR: LIVE AT ROCK IN RIO III
DVD package as well as his thoughts about Judas Priest's new epic
NOSTRADAMUS...

DETRITUS: First let me tell you I've been a Judas Priest and Metal God
fan since 1979, so I go back with you a ways...

ROB HALFORD: Oh you do, yeah! It's great to meet someone that's been
on the same journey as ourselves in that respect, yeah, long long
time. You know, the name Judas Priest came about in 1969 so next year
it's going to be 40 years of that name being around in the world so
that's pretty remarkable.

D: Amazing! Well I've been looking forward to the Halford ROCK IN RIO
DVD ever since I saw the video for "Cyberworld" six or seven years ago
so I guess my first question is: What took so long? (laughs)

RH: (laughs) Well, you know, there's no rush, I mean at the end of the
day that's the wonderful thing about when you document anything that
you do in the music world, I think it's great to savor the time and to
-- when the moment arrives as we've recently been able to do with the
creation of Metal God Entertainment Records -- get this stuff out
under my own business venture. The time is right now you know, we've
had a steady stream of product since we created this company recently,
we're really blasting this stuff out there and we finally got 'round
to doing it; a lot of work, you know, goes into anything we create
with this company based out of Arizona, a great team of people working
really hard, putting in a lot of time and energy into the final
product whatever it might be and that's the case with the ROCK IN RIO
piece. It's a beautifully packaged DVD, re-mastered CD and booklet and
all the other things that make it really solid looking. The thing
about when you are doing a retrospective you want to create something
for the fans to cherish as much as anything else so we want to make
sure that whatever we provide is of top quality. Takes time to do it
you know.

D: I'm just happy it has finally seen the light of day!

RH: Oh me too because a lot of people have been asking about it and of
course I carry that memory inside of me, that wonderful night in Rio
when we all walked out in front of a quarter of a million metalheads,
it was just remarkable, you could never forget something like that,
and of course now we get the chance to share that experience with all
of our fans around the world.

D: The sound and visuals are incredible, I really like that "On Stage"
audio option...

RH: Yeah, isn't it cool? I think we are one of the first people to do
that...

D: Yeah, I've never seen that before. How was that recorded?

RH: Well, we just take all the feed and bleed from the mics on stage
and off the monitoring desk that you see, you know when you see a band
play there's always some guy on the side there mixing for the
performance on stage, so we just wanted to add that in there as a
little texture, something that's rarely thought about. You know when
you're performing on stage, even though I use in-ear monitors, some of
the band members prefer to have the sound coming out of the wedges and
the side-fills as they're called, so it's a whole different texture.
So yeah, that's just another opportunity among a lot of the other cool
things we put in this ROCK IN RIO piece for the fans to enjoy.

D: Very cool. Great set list -- in addition to the Halford and Fight
material I loved the awesome versions of those Priest songs!

RH: Yeah, well, that's the way I am you know, Priest has been the love
of my life forever and this was a chance again to recognize and
acknowledge that, so it was a pretty good set list that night. I mean,
you listen to "Breaking The Law" and I don't even have to put the mic
to my mouth, the fans are just singing the whole tune! It's
remarkable.

D: I was listening to the CD of the digitally re-mastered
RESURRECTION, killer mix on that one -- I guess that's Roy Z's magic
again?

RH: Yeah, Roy is just one of the top men in the metal world, he's a
tremendous guy first and foremost, a very knowledgeable man in all
things in terms of sound, great guitar player, so he's just the
maestro, he really knows how to make all these things come together in
a special way, again he did another incredible job for us on the re-
mastering of RESURRECTION definitely.

D: I nearly drove off the road when I heard "Fetish" and "God Bringer
Of Death!"

RH: Yeah, I mean, again when you put this stuff out you want to add a
couple of bonus bits and pieces, just 'cause I think that's a cool
thing to do, apart from the fact that the overall sound is different,
if you are a discerning listener you can tell there's a different feel
and vibe going on, but yeah, to include it in this way rather than
just throw out the DVD we wanted to put the extra in -- we could have
released RESURRECTION re-mastered separately but we felt this was
really representative of everything we were doing together in the
Halford band at that time, so it was kind of married together in a
good way.

D: Did you record those recently or have you been saving those?

RH: No, they were a couple of tunes -- there may be some more bits and
pieces actually -- that were just in the archives, we've got a ton of
stuff and those were a couple of songs that didn't make the final cut
for the record, just 'cause when you're putting a record together
there's always these major discussions about what you're going to keep
and what you're going to leave off, and those two at the time didn't
really feel for me like they had a place; now of course time has
passed and the RESURRECTION period of release and work is left behind
and now it's just a cool thing to add as a bonus.

D: You have a DVD of the CRUCIBLE tour coming out next year, that
looks awesome...

RH: Yes, we do -- I mean, right from the get go we had cameras
everywhere, it's just an important thing more than ever in today's
world. You know these really tiny cameras that are unobtrusive, you
just stick 'em on a shelf somewhere while you're working, either
writing or in the studio or stick 'em on the side of the stage and on
the front of the house mixing desk and keep it all, you know. I mean,
I urge everybody to consider doing that, even if it's just for your
own memories, people take pictures and put them in a scrapbook or on
the laptop, whatever, you should do the same if you're in any kind of
band. It's wonderful to look back at these things that you do.

D: What's the future of Halford? Is there a new album in the works?

RH: We'd like to, yeah. I mean, I'm back with the band as you know
since ANGEL OF RETRIBUTION and I couldn't be happier, I'm in the best
place. Equally, I'm always in touch with Bobby [Jarzombek] and Metal
Mike [Chlasciak] and Z and Mike D. [Davis] so we would like to have at
least one more go at some ideas that we've got. We have a lot of
material that has been accumulating independently while I've been away
busy at work with Priest, the guys are always coming up with ideas so
we'll look at that when the time is right. Priest is just this massive
metal monster that consumes everything in its path! (laughs)

D: Yes, it is! (laughs)

RH: So when I get the chance I'd like to have just one more go at it.

D: Speaking of Priest let me ask you some NOSTRADAMUS questions...

RH: Of course!

D: I love it but were you surprised at the mixed reaction the album
received?

RH: Yeah, because it's not really like anything we've ever done
before, a concept record is nothing like a studio record, it's got its
own life and I think we gave the fans a heads-up right from the first
few days of writing. I remember we put a bit on the Priest Web site
telling everybody what we were doing, and so I think there was just
this anticipation, like you always get for any band: "What is it going
to sound like?" My feeling is this, you know, I remember when
PAINKILLER first came out, a lot of people loved it and some didn't
for whatever reason, and now PAINKILLER has gone on to be one of the
great metal albums of all time; 10 years or more has passed and I have
a feeling the same thing will happen with NOSTRADAMUS...

D: Yeah, maybe with some distance people will appreciate it more...

RH: Yeah, it's a lot to ask of anybody, to grab on to two CDs -- an
hour and 14 minutes of music -- and completely accept it. Again, it's
a concept record, the only way you can truly understand it is to
listen to the whole thing and that means if you have an hour and 14
minutes putting the headphones on or putting the player on and
drifting away into that life of NOSTRADAMUS. Equally, you can pull
tracks out, if you want to listen to "Exiled" by itself it works, if
you want to listen to the title track by itself it works, but we're
still in the early days of release yet for it to sink into people's
psyche, but I love it personally, I think it's a great achievement for
us all in Priest.

D: For sure! Will there be a DVD of a performance of the entire album?

RH: Yeah, we've got some ideas for doing that. It makes sense next
year when we're talking about performing the whole of NOSTRADAMUS live
and in concert. We're already in discussions about recording that you
know, so that will be coming out probably towards the end of 2009 I
imagine. In the meantime we're still working on the road, we've just
had a bit of a break, we got back from Japan, Australia and South
Korea a couple of weeks back and this week we're off down to Mexico
and South America, then we're going to wind things up and take a
Christmas break and then get back out on the road again and do another
leg of the American tour -- hopefully we'll come back down to your
neck of the woods!

D: I hope so because you missed Atlanta this time! (laughs)

RH: I think we did Atlanta on the ANGEL OF RETRIBUTION tour...

D: I did see you on ANGEL OF RETRIBUTION there...

RH: It was a mixed first leg because we did the Metal Masters thing,
which we were hoping Live Nation would take to Georgia but for
whatever reason it didn't swing through so we do need to come back and
play for you guys.

D: Your vocals sound great on the album. How are you keeping your
voice so strong?

RH: Well, I have no idea, it's just a gift, I count my blessing and
thank the Lord that I can still do a lot of the things that I want to
do. It's an instrument like anything else so you just take care of it
and do what you need to do to keep it in shape and it's just part of
your physical well being more than anything else; for a lot of singers
it's a matter of looking after yourself insomuch as getting enough
rest and not straining the voice too much between shows, but I always
talk about it separately because it does have a life of its own, it
seems to just take off into a different place, it comes from the soul
really, but yeah, I don't do anything, there's no rituals or potions
or incantations, I just pick up the mic and wail.

D: I know NOSTRADAMUS was just released over the Summer but are you
thinking about the next Priest album yet?

RH: Well to be honest we haven't really put much thought to it yet
'cause we're still immersed in supporting NOSTRADAMUS. I'm sure that
time will come but for what's left of this year and pretty much for
all of next year it's all relative to NOSTRADAMUS then we'll see after
we go through those two periods what happens next.

D: Looks like you're going to be in Mexico next week, I bet that's
going to be a party!

RH: Well yeah, that's the wonderful thing about being in Priest and
the fact that metal is still this worldwide, global phenomenon, no
matter where you go. When we finish our world tour we literally have
been all around the world but there are still places we want to go to
that ordinarily you wouldn't think of, for example India that's huge,
we want to go there, certain parts of the Middle East like Dubai,
obviously Israel, I mean there are metal bands in Iran and Iraq, you
know we recently played Turkey and a bunch of kids came out from Iraq
to see us, that's just the wonderful thing about heavy metal music, it
knows no barriers...

D: It's international...

RH: Yeah, it's international, that's what music is about,it should be
void of all the terrible things that are going on in the world, you
know you put a bunch of metalheads together from all over the planet
and they can relate to each other because they have this wonderful
love of the heavy metal sound so yeah, there's still places for us to
go and visit and keep the metal pouring.

D: It has been a full year for you. What would you say the highlight
has been?

RH: Oh, I would without a doubt say the release of NOSTRADAMUS, we
worked hard at that for two years. You know, it's always in the back
of your mind how it's going to be received and you're never really
certain whether you are a musician in a band or on a movie screen or
writing a book, it's out of your control really. I think all you can
say at the end of the day is if you are doing it from the heart it's a
genuine expression of your artistic creativity, it's a really pure
thing. So that would definitely be one of the highlights. Another
mention, going to places we haven't been to before like Istanbul in
Turkey and also to Seoul, South Korea where we'd never visited before
and to Australia recently where both Priest and myself had played
previously but we went there this time as the reunited band. There's
always a highlight through any year, and those are just a few of 'em.

D: Well thanks so much Rob, you've given me almost 30 years of
incredible music and I look forward to the next 30!

RH: Thanks Neal, I hope to see you when we come back through!

Relevant links:

Rob Halford
http://www.robhalford.com/
http://www.halfordmusic.com/
http://www.myspace.com/robhalford

Judas Priest
http://www.judaspriest.com/
http://www.myspace.com/judaspriest

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*** OUT ***
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