BW&BK;'s Mitch Lafon spoke to The Metal God, ROB HALFORD (JUDAS PRIEST) during the singer’s recent Canadian promo stomp talking about his new Metal God Entertainment company and his latest CD, Metal God Essentials Volume 1 (a Best Of compilation featuring tracks from his HALFORD solo days, his band project FIGHT and a few of new tracks). Here's Part II of the chat (Part I is here):

Mitch Lafon: Would you like to get on another package like with MAIDEN or do you just want to do a couple of shows here and there?

Rob Halford: “The last show I did with Priest before I stepped away was in Toronto at the baseball stadium...”

ML: Exhibition Stadium and you had the motorcycle accident...

RH: “Well, yeah...There was a massive amount of people and then of course the turmoil came up and I was off doing the Fight thing. The first show I ever did with Fight was in Germany and it was in a club. I hadn’t played a club forever, but I knew that’s what I had to do. To go back into that environment was a real shock to my system because I love getting on the big stages. I’m a larger than life performer and that’s just part of what I do.”

ML: But it must be a more intimate setting?

RH: “Well it is and that’s how I adjusted. I suddenly really embraced that again because that’s how I started with the bands I was in before Priest. So, I do enjoy that, but I think the next time we go out things will be different. Some of the Halford shows were in very big venues. I’m just open really as long as we get to play. At the end of the day, I could really care less about the venue. It’s just getting out and playing, but I do like that intimacy. It’s great to be sweating on the first row. It’s fantastic.”

ML: Let’s talk about the other Metal God Entertainment releases. There’s the Fight box set, the Halford Rock In Rio box set and the Halford Live Crucible box set. Will you also be re-releasing the back catalogue with bonus tracks?

RH: “Anything is possible. We have a tremendous amount of material. It’s just putting it into a time-line release sequence.”

ML: Is there a lot of bonus material lying around to throw on these releases?

RH: “Yeah, there is. That’s why with Metal God Essentials we added in the DVD piece. There’s some home video stuff and I think that’s kind of attractive in today’s real world. There’s something really cool about seeing that. At the end of the day from the fans’ point of view – you just got to make sure you provide something that is worth putting money down for.”

ML: There are no specific release dates for a lot of this stuff...

RH: “Well, I’m trying to balance the window between Essentials and what I’m doing with Priest, but we’re trying to get the Fight piece out in October. It’s a retrospective kind of documentary... a rockumentary in the SPINAL TAP world – of everything I went through at that point. I think there’s something attractive about the past and people are inquisitive. They’re going to get to see and hear things that are part of the big picture of what I’ve been doing for the past three decades.”

ML: Then after that will be the Halford Rock In Rio. Will that be out next summer?

RH: “Yeah, but I think we’ll have to wait and see because once we get into the Priest cycle it’s difficult to bring product out. It has to be tied-in to promotion and touring... We’re just looking for the best way to do it and that’s why I’m here in Montreal... To support the upcoming release of Metal God Essentials.”

ML: Great album by the way.

RH: “Thank you. It’s just time and it coincides with my philosophy about everything I’ve done – I think it has some longevity attached to it and is still valuable musically.”

ML: Let me ask you some Priest questions. When you walked away from Priest and there’s obviously an untold story about the whole thing – did you see yourself just taking a break or did you say ‘look – I can’t do this anymore’?

RH: “It was a mixed thing really because I started to get the yearning to do this in the Turbo years (in the middle to late ‘80s) and I mentioned to K.K. and Glenn that I really had to do this and they said ‘well go for it and good luck. Next time we take a break – just go and do what you need to do.’ And, of course, the story goes that after the Painkiller tour I’d already said that these were my plans and they were endorsed by everybody. The problem was around the legal/ contractual side of things. I was in a very restrictive contract. It was a very unfair contract. Bruce Springsteen was going through that. George Michael was going through that. Everybody looked at their contracts and said ‘we signed this, but it’s not fair. It’s restrictive. We want to change them.’ And I tried to do that with SONY, but it was very difficult and the only way I could get out was to use the ‘leaving member clause’. I was saying ‘I’m leaving this contract’, but it was interpreted as ‘your leaving Priest’. Well, no I’m not – I’m NOT leaving Priest. I’m leaving the contract and I know on paper it looks like I’m leaving Priest, but I’m not. That’s how that whole confusion and everything built up. That Painkiller year was a very tough one for everybody both physically and mentally.”

ML: Was it because of the non-stop album, tour, album, tour cycle?

RH: “All that and we’d been through the Reno trial. In hindsight, the best thing we could have done at the end of the Painkiller thing was to say ‘see you in two or three years.’ But that’s not what happened and then it ended up being a decade of me being away from Priest while Priest carried on, of course, with Tim.”

ML: So, you didn’t walk away for ‘creative differences’ or something like that.

RH: “No, it was never that and it’s important for me to keep restating that. If that had been the case what would have been the point... why would I have even come back to Priest? I love working with Glenn and Ken as writers and creators of Metal. I love being in that band, being on stage, recording and everything else that goes with it, but I still have this urge to fulfill these outside things that are pulling at me all the time.”

ML: When you first saw Priest with Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens on stage or heard the records – how did you feel?

RH: “It was very tough obviously. I listened to both those records Jugulator and Demolition and to hear somebody singing... Firstly, Tim is a very good friend of mine and I think he was the best man for the position and I think he did a fantastic job.”

ML: He does a great job with ICED EARTH...

RH: “I never went to a show because that would have been impossible, but I did see the DVDs and I thought ‘this is great. The band is still alive. The band is still vital and working. And that’s all that matters.’ None of us knew if there was going to be a reunion. Nobody had a clue until we came together to sort out the first box set. I’d seen K.K. and Ian prior to that meeting at my house for the box set. I saw Glenn and it was good to be in each other’s company, but it wasn’t until we got together to do the box set that we discussed the possibility of a reunion. It had been cycling around for years ‘it is going to happen? Will it happen?’ But it wasn’t really until the meeting at my house for the box set that we agreed that we’d be reunited... that I’d go back.”

ML: How did that feel? Do you think ‘I’m home’ or ‘well, this is a nice business arrangement’?

RH: “Home is the best definition quite frankly because that’s what it feels like. The bulk of my career has been with Priest and it continues to be with Priest and it’s a very comfortable place to be in. I feel very much at home and enjoy the whole experience – you know writing with Ken and Glenn then going out on stage and performing around the world... That’s still what drives me and I’m afforded the luxury of a solo career, but first and foremost it’s Priest.”

ML: Do you have a time limit on how long you want to keep performing? Or is it more I’ll do like Mick Jagger and ALICE COOPER and just keep on performing forever...

RH: “Well yeah. Look at the STONES. I saw them some years ago and I was just amazed by it all. I think at the end of the day it’s two things – if you want to do it and can you do it at a level you feel is strong. What’s to stop you? And at the same time if you have a fan base that’s calling for you – again that’s what drives you on. In Priest, we’ve never talked about how much time we’ve got left because I think once you do that internally you start closing down. I’m going to be 56 on August 25th and part of me says there’s no way I’m going to be doing this at 60 surely to God, but who knows. More than likely I will - God willing, but you just don’t know. I think the passion is still there and the need to do it is still there. I think in any band you have to have an agreement – you can’t be doing it for the sake of doing it. There has to be a payoff and the payoff has to be the feeling you get from writing, recording and performing. I’m sure that’s why Jagger still does it. He HAS to get onstage – God knows he doesn’t need the money. He HAS to get onstage. He loves being onstage. So does Lemmy (MOTÖRHEAD). So does Alice. And any of us that have been able to go through the courses and the hurdles of Rock and Metal over the decades and still survive. We’re there because we love what we do, you know. It’s not really working – in the work respect.”

ML: Well, it’s hard being away from home...

RH: “Yeah, it’s the human element. We’re all the same as everybody else and it’s just fulfilling those needs and urges to keep doing it. You’re addicted to it and it’s a good addiction.”

ML: Let me ask you about Nostradamus. Might be a single album. Might be a double album. So, where are we now?

RH: “We’re still tracking so it’s hard to say what the final outcome will be. It’s just an extraordinary endeavor to try and tell the story of this Frenchman’s life that lived 500 years ago and is still in the world today. There’s countless books written about him. There’s always TV documentaries going on about him. A bunch of them surfaced recently. I guess it was coincidence. One minute you hear on the website that Priest is going to do Nostradamus then I switch on the TV and there’s a program about him or an article in a magazine or newspaper. I guess we were lucky to get an idea. A platform, a vehicle of a man who is relevant all around the world. That’s the other bonus if you want to call it that. No matter where you go in the world people know of this man called Nostradamus. We’re just trying to tell the story of his life besides the quatrains that he wrote. You know, he’s just a regular guy and he went through the same kind of ups and downs as everybody does on this planet. There’s a nice human element that we’re trying to convey with the music.”

ML: Is it simply ‘themed’ around him or it is truly a concept album – where the first song leads into the second and the second into the third... Is it a sequential story?

Rob's answer will be posted here soon!

As previously reported, Rob Halford is the celebrity interview at the North By Northeast Music and Film Festival, tomorrow Saturday, June 9th, from 2 PM to 3 PM in Regency Room C at the Holiday Inn On King (370 King West, Toronto, ON).