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<\/p>\nJudas Priest roared out of industrial Birmingham, England in the early 1970s. Once the group found its footing \u2013 bringing on powerful, operatic and charismatic lead singer Rob Halford \u2013 Judas Priest\u2019s hard-charging, twin-lead guitar attack broke through in a big way. Leaders in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement, Priest earned critical praise and widespread popularity. The band racked up more than a decade\u2019s worth of hit albums; every album from 1977\u2019s Sin After Sin<\/i> through 1990\u2019s Painkiller<\/i> went Gold or better.<\/p>\n
And the band is going strong today, more than 50 years after the release of its first record. Judas Priest\u2019s latest, Invincible Shield<\/i> serves up the group\u2019s patented metal for modern-day audiences. Just ahead of a North American tour that would bring Judas Priest to more than two dozen cities, bassist and founding member Ian Hill spoke with me about the band\u2019s early days, its rise to fame, and the new music it\u2019s still making.<\/p>\n
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Judas Priest toiled for years before really hitting the big time. What do you think explains that relatively slow climb to being a success? <\/b><\/p>\n
There’s no such thing as an overnight success. There’s only a decade’s hard work going into the overnight success. I think you can put it down pretty much to one song.<\/p>\n
We’ve been together since 1969. We were learning our trade and just building up locally. We were having a steady build with the first record, Rocka Rolla<\/i>, which came out in \u201874. It was released by a small record company called Gull; I think they were sort of hoping that we would make them [successful] rather than the other way around. It became apparent that they really hadn’t got the financial clout to get us abroad, especially to America. Getting all the gear and whatever to America for a tour would have cost quite a bit of money, and they just didn’t have the funds.<\/p>\n
Long story short, we ended up with CBS Records in \u201876. At the time they were one of the biggest record companies. This was in the days when record companies were prepared to wait for their profits; they could see potential not just with us, but other acts as well. And they [understood], \u201cOkay, we’re not going to make money overnight with this lot, but we\u2019ll stick with them and we’ll earn it in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that’s what happened: We had a steady build right up to [our eighth album, 1982\u2019s] Screaming for Vengeance<\/i>. We started recording that in a small island in Spain called Ibiza, and finished it off at Beejay Studios in Orlando, Florida. But we were one song short on the album.<\/p>\n
This was in the days of vinyl; you could only get so much music on a record before [the quality] started to deteriorate. The grooves got closer together, they got shallower, less information; what have you. But we discovered we could squeeze one more on, so we threw together \u201cYou\u2019ve Got Another Thing Comin\u2019.\u201d And mainstream radio picked it up and played the hell out of it!<\/p>\n
My lasting memory of starting that tour was that [small-venue] gigs were being canceled and [new dates at] larger venues were pouring in. And it was all because of the heavy airplay that we got with that song. That lifted the band\u2019s status from playing town halls \u2013 Agora Ballrooms and things like that, 5,000 people, maybe 6,000 at a push \u2013 and suddenly we played to ten or twelve thousand people. And I believe that it was all down to that one track.<\/p>\n
When you recorded \u201cYou\u2019ve Got Another Thing Comin\u2019,\u201d did you have a sense that you had something special? <\/b><\/p>\n
To be honest, we knew we had a strong album. The album we did before, Point of Entry<\/i>, went with a slightly more commercial edge, and it was met with a sort of mixed reception: a lot of the older fans didn’t particularly like it, though a lot of the newer fans did. So we thought, \u201cWell, okay, we’ll make this one a little bit more heavy and involved. We knew we had some good material there already, so when we got that other song together, that was just the icing on the cake.<\/p>\n
I think if the album hadn’t been as strong as it was already, I don’t think that one song would have made that much of a difference. Because even though the mainstream media had picked up on it and was playing the hell out of it, eventually you listen to the rest of it, you know? And it was quality stuff all the way through.<\/p>\n
In retrospect, it’s clear that Judas Priest was at the forefront of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. At the time, did you feel part of something, a bigger movement?<\/b><\/p>\n
We didn’t. When we got that first record contract, one of the reasons that we didn’t get a major record deal to start with is because all of them had already got their heavy metal band, if you know what I mean. They\u2019d checked that box. Deep Purple, Black Sabbath\u2026 they weren’t looking for another one.<\/p>\n