JUDAS PRIEST frontman ROB HALFORD spoke with Josh Rotter from Planetout.com recently about his new clothing line, Metal God Apparel. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Planetout.com: Rob, you're such a style icon. How did you first develop what would become the metal "uniform"?

Halford: "A lot of it was out of experimentation. As I recall, the whole imagery came out of a song called 'Hell Bent for Leather.' We had an idea of bringing a motorcycle on stage and it made sense that if I ride a bike, I should wear a biker's jacket. It felt right. ELVIS was doing it, and he was Mr. Rock 'n' Roll. It was a tough thing, a macho thing. And we had things around at the time that I felt should be utilized, like our fashion designers at the time, who took a jacket and vest and put studs on them all over the place. The sound was there, loud, brash and aggressive, but the look was not yet in place. That's what's so wonderful about the journey we've been on. Once we established a look, you just looked at yourself in the mirror before going on stage to make sure your fly was zipped. We finally looked like the music sounds, and everyone picked up on it and it became the look."

Planetout.com: Why did you decide to launch an apparel collection?

Halford: "In my golden years I'm looking to fulfill a lot of dreams and ambitions that I still have. One was to be in the world of apparel. I have to confess that I'm not like 'The Real Housewives of Orange County.' I'm not in Neiman Marcus every two seconds. But I love fashion. I think it's fun and important, culturally, and I have my eye on that side of the world. Being connected to rock 'n' roll life, I can see how you can go from the roots of cowboy boots and that Ralph Lauren thing to some of the extremely flamboyant displays like the Elvis outfit last night on American Idol. It's what we're all about. Also, we need to wear clothes, so there's a natural interest to explore that. I've always had fun with costume changes with Judas Priest and my solo work and I wanted to see what would happen with this new venture. It's just another project with my company; I got my record company up and running, a clothing line about to launch, with even more things on the back burner as we speak. Life is great… I love life… I just wanted to see how much I can get out of it really. And it's a good feeling to have that contact, musically, with people."

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To check out Halford's t-shirt collection or to place your order visit www.MetalGodApparel.com.