In Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?!, Greg Ryan of NME quizzes a grizzled artist on their own career to see how much they can remember – and find out if the years in the rock trenches has affected the ol’ grey matter. This week: Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford. An excerpt follows:

NME: Which art legend did you once handcuff yourself to?

Halford: “Andy Warhol.”

NME: Correct. When you met him at an end-of-tour party at New York’s Mudd Club, before heading to Studio 54 with him.

Halford: “I think Andy was more intrigued than shocked when I handcuffed myself to him, because he’s from New York City which was a wild place. Especially in the creative world he mixed in. I always wanted to go to – but never got the chance – his Factory. But Andy was a very receptive person to everything in life and had no prejudice against anybody or anything. Everything in life was art and should be uncensored so he was a unique man.”

NME: Talking of handcuffs, you reveal in your new autobiography, Confess that you were once arrested for cruising Venice Beach toilets (in a case of police entrapment) – yet the cops don’t release it to the media because they’re Judas Priest fans. You came out as gay on your own terms in 1998 on MTV, but what effect do you think being ‘outed’ would have had on you?

Halford: “The police did me a favour by keeping it out of the press because it would have been big news. I always refer to that, slightly tongue in cheek, as my George Michael moment. I was lucky, because the sad thing is it makes people who don’t understand the gay community just go: ‘Obviously they’re all just a bunch of perverts’. And that’s horrible.”

“I’d like to think for the most part if that incident had broken into the press then a great proportion of my fans would have said: ‘We’ll support you and stand with you’. A few years later, when I came out on MTV, that was a proven fact because the feedback from around the world was positive – they just wanted me to continue being the singer for Judas Priest and get on with the job.”

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Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford's warts and all autobiography, Confess, will be released on September 29 via Hachette Books. Amazon pre-orders are available now for North America and The UK.

A description of the book follows...

 Most priests take confessions. This one is giving his.

Rob Halford, front man of global iconic metal band Judas Priest, is a true 'Metal God'. Raised in Britain's hard-working heavy industrial heartland he and his music were forged in the Black Country. Confess, his full autobiography, is an unforgettable rock 'n' roll story - a journey from a Walsall council estate to musical fame via alcoholism, addiction, police cells, ill-starred sexual trysts and bleak personal tragedy, through to rehab, coming out, redemption... and finding love.

Now, he is telling his gospel truth.

Told with Halford's trademark self-deprecating, deadpan Black Country humour, Confess is the story of an extraordinary five decades in the music industry. It is also the tale of unlikely encounters with everybody from Superman to Andy Warhol, Madonna, Jack Nicholson and the Queen. More than anything else, it's a celebration of the fire and power of heavy metal.

Rob Halford has decided to Confess. Because it's good for the soul.