PureGrainAudio.com recently caught up with JUDAS PRIEST frontman Rob Halford to discuss the release of Metal God Essentials - Volume I. The following is a brief excerpt from the interview:

PGA: The album features thirteen tracks in total from your FIGHT and HALFORD solo releases. How did you go about deciding on the track listing for the disc? Was it difficult to narrow it down to just thirteen songs?

Rob: "Yeah, you know, unlike a brand new record with the studio, if you’re in a band and you’re doing a brand new record and your pacing and your tempos and all the other ways you put a record together are important, but this is kind of just jumping about from place to place you know. I think the running order works really well, um, I think it was cool that we started off with 'Resurrection' because that’s where, in the Halford band at least, we kind of kicked metal paydirt if you want to call it. And then we mix it up you know, to go from studio tracks into a live scenario with 'Screaming In The Dark' is kind of you know, a different thing to do. And then jumping into the Fight world and then we have a couple of new tracks with 'Forgotten Generation' and 'Drop Out'. And then we wind it all up with a remix which is called 'Redemption' on the European one, it’s different titles for different territories because we did four or five different remixes of the 'Forgotten Generation' track. So you know that combined with the DVD, it’s just a really strong looking piece of product, you know calling it business wise, it’s product. With me on the bike (on the cover) and the screaming, flying skeletons, it’s brilliant; it’s just a great looking piece of metal visual display."

PGA: Not only does the album contain some of your best solo work, but it also offers fans two new songs 'Forgotten Generation' and 'Drop Out', your first new material in over four years. When were these songs recorded and were they just leftover material or did you specifically record them for this greatest hits package?

Rob: "While I’ve been back with Priest, the main writers in the Halford band Mike is based in New Jersey and Roy Z is based in L.A., they’re just kind of swapping files over the internet and sending each other ideas. But in Priest, everything is done with Glen and K.K and myself, that’s our word, that’s our creative world, but with the Halford band, I just like to leave the guys to enjoy putting together all of the instrumentation side of it so that’s what they do. When I get the material, it’s almost finished you know and I just make my feelings felt about any of the possibilities. So as is this case, I mean we’re stockpiling a ton of new Halford material and these are two new relatively new tracks that we put together, let me think, are we in June? Let me think, when did I do this? I think we finished them off sometime last year so it is relatively new, it’s not stuff that is four or five years old."

PGA: One thing that struck me about the title of your new release was the "Volume 1" at the end. Does this indicate that fans can expect a Volume 2 and perhaps a Volume 3 of your greatest hits in the near future?

Rob: "Yeah, I think you can do that you know regardless of whatever band you’re in if you got some longevity attached to your career and we’ve got an tremendous amount of material that we can put together in this packaging. And it’s cool you know, I mean to just kind of mix it up and just show all the displays of versatility of what I’ve done with the Halford band and with Fight. So yeah, there will be a volume two at some point, I don’t know when exactly, but that’s the ambition."

PGA: The last several months have certainly been busy for you from a music and business perspective as back in November, you formed your own label, music and film production company called Metal God Entertainment. Why did you decide just recently after all these years to take such an active control over your music and your catalogue by forming your own label?

Rob: "Oh it’s brilliant; it’s a joy to actually be able to control your own music. When the Sanctuary organization was going through different changes some time ago, they afforded me the opportunity to get my music back so yeah, that was absolutely brilliant, I just ran to that idea. It was really that possibility that opened up all these other endeavors, you know, so I was able to do that with all the Halford material. I’ve had a great relationship signed to BMG who are able to let me do what I want with the Fight material so that really was the kind of impetus to spur me on and that’s when we thought of Metal God Entertainment and then that became a broad based idea with a possibility of bringing in new talent and doing radio and video and everything else for the future. So it’s never too late you know. This is not me pontificating, but I think that’s what life’s all about, it’s about taking chances and taking risks and if they don’t work at least you can say well you had a go. Have a go I say!! [laughs] Otherwise your life is behind you and you’ll say oh fuck you know, I could have done this, I could have done that, why didn’t I do this, why didn’t I do that, you know. You just gotta really run out there and be assertive and grab life by the balls and you know, see what you can do with that."

Go to this location to check out the complete interview.