DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH
Two men who have done more to define heavy metal than anyone else in its 50-year history. With Black Sabbath bowing out for good last year and Judas Priest preparing to unleash a brand new studio album, we united the two icons for the first time ever to t
Halford and Iommi bro down in Birmingham. We talk Priest’s new album, Sabbath’s retirement and what it means to be metal in 2018.
the Dark lord can’t remember exactly when he first met the metal God, but it was a long, long time ago. “Blimey, it’s been years,” says tony Iommi, the man who, as guitarist with Black Sabbath, invented heavy metal virtually single-handedly. “must have been the late 60s or early 70s.”
Next to him, Judas Priest’s rob halford isn’t much use. “Yeah, it was around the time I joined Priest, which was in 1971,” says the man who created the image and the sound of the definitive metal frontman. “or maybe just after.” he mock-grimaces. “I dunno. I’m trying to forget just how long ago.”
We’ll forgive them the vagueness of memory and simply revel in the fact that these two undisputed icons of heavy metal are sitting inches from one another, directly in front of Hammer, in the annex of a converted abbey just outside Warwick.
It’s an amusingly cosy setting for two men who, between them, have notched up close to a century on the front line. even more important than that is the fact that without them and their respective bands, hammer wouldn’t be here at all. and, frankly, neither would you.
It’s no overstatement to say that Iommi was there at the birth of metal. the chords that usher in the eponymous opening track from Sabbath’s self-titled debut album – 48 years young this year – are still the wellspring from which everything that followed has flowed.
Priest are no less important in metal’s evolution. they took
Sabbath’s blueprint and reimagined it as an unstoppable juggernaut encased in steel, studs and leather, cranking the drama to nearoperatic levels. everything you love about the genre – the sound, the volume, the atmosphere, the image – can be traced back to Black Sabbath or Judas Priest. or, more likely, both.
these two visionaries have met many times over the years. they greeted each other on arrival with the kind of warm smiles and warmer hugs you’d expect from people who have known each other for close to half a century. rob addresses his counterpart as “tone”. tony nods sagely as rob recounts the ups and downs of his own career.
But this is the very first time they’ve sat down to be interviewed and photographed together, and as such it represents a truly historical moment. It’s fitting that it’s happening here in the West midlands, just a few dozen miles away from Birmingham, the very city where metal’s own Big Bang took place.
there’s much to talk about, from the highs of the 70s and 80s to the tough times of the 90s, through to the current state of the genre they forged in the white heat of the late 60s. and naturally, there’s a large degree of mutual admiration going on.
“Sabbath’s most important contribution to music is the invention of heavy metal, plain and simple,” says rob. “tony was the guy that played the first heavy metal riff. and it all started from there.”
“and Priest have made a tremendous contribution,” adds tony. “to start from where they did and they’ve gone on and gone on and gone on. and they’ve flown the flag.”
With that said, gentlemen: shall we begin?
WHERE DID YOU FIRST HEAR BLACK SABBATH, ROB? ROB HALFORD:
“It was before they were even called Black Sabbath, when they were still earth. I think I might have seen you play at [legendary Birmingham club] mother’s in erdington.”
TONY IOMMI: “Yeah, we played at mother’s back then. there were only a couple of places we could play, ’cos nobody knew what our sort of music was. It was all soul bands back then, with saxophones and whatnot.”
WHAT WAS BIRMINGHAM LIKE BACK IN THOSE DAYS?
R:
“It was bleak. By six o’clock, it was as dead as a doornail. there was only one club that I remember, which was Barberellas. If you got to play there, you were moving up a notch.”
HOW MUCH DID ALL THAT SHAPE WHAT YOU WERE DOING MUSICALLY?
T:
“oh, your surroundings and background definitely has an impression. I worked in a factory, and you would hear this machinery all the time. It feeds into your music. and where we lived was very bleak. there were all these gangs and fights and god knows what else. that aggression spills into what you’re doing. If we’d have come from somewhere leafy and green, it would have sounded very different.”
WAS ONE OF THE REASONS YOU FORMED A BAND TO ESCAPE FROM ALL THAT?
R:
“escapism, trying to see what’s over the wall, is
GETTY part of what drives you. You’d see other successful bands going to play in london, and it was such a big deal. It was only two hours away, but it was like another planet.”
T: “coming from Birmingham, trying to break into london was like pulling teeth. they absolutely hated us. We had a gig at this famous club, the Speakeasy, and we died a death, ha ha. they didn’t ask us back.”
R: “In those early days, we were both really fucking loud. We were turning up the volume. and volume used to scare people. When Sabbath and Priest first went to america, the volume we were using compared to everybody else was immense. there was always a little bit of fear and intimidation about the volume and size of heavy metal music. It was great, wasn’t it?”
T: “ha ha ha! except when you get to our age and you’re deaf.”
“SaBBath’S SucceSS iNSPired uS”
PRIEST WERE SPURRED ON BY THEIR FELLOW BRUMMIES CRACKING THE MAINSTREAM
WHAT WAS THE WORST GIG YOU PLAYED BACK THEN? R:
“We played anywhere you could put a plug in the wall. this one pub, the stage was literally three feet from the bar. there were these two guys having a pint, and we were all crammed up in this tiny corner. Glenn [tipton, Priest guitarist] turns his guitar on and goes [makes strumming motion], ‘Pling’. the barman went, ‘that’s it, you’re not playing, here’s your fiver, now hoppit.’ We got paid without even playing a note.”
T: “We had to go to europe to break it. We played in hamburg and Switzerland, doing seven 45-minute spots every day. and there would be two people in – one of them was a hooker and the other a nutcase. We lasted about a day before the owners came up and said, ‘Stop that bloody racket!’”
R: “But those are great memories. at the time it’s shit, but when you look back, it’s some of the best times of your lives. You’re a bunch of guys having a great time, playing your music.”
WAS THERE A POINT WHERE YOU THOUGHT, ‘RIGHT LADS, WE’VE DONE IT – WE’RE FAMOUS’?
T:
“For us, it was when the Paranoid single came out and we were on Top Of The Pops. Nobody would play you on the radio. and journalists didn’t like us. We were hated. [radio 1 DJ] tony Blackburn hated the sight of us and he had to announce us on
Top Of The Pops. It must have killed him.”
R: “I remember the day the postman delivered a copy of Priest’s first ever album, Rocka Rolla. the record label would only give us one album each. I was still living with my mum and dad back then, and I remember signing for the package and taking it up to my bedroom and going, ‘this is it! It’s all gonna happen!’ ha ha ha! little did I realise that there would be another 10 years’ slog before it got to a really important place.”
GETTY ROB, SABBATH HAD A FEW YEARS’ HEADSTART ON PRIEST – THEY WERE ALREADY FAMOUS BY THE TIME YOU RELEASED YOUR FIRST ALBUM IN 1974. WHAT INFLUENCE DID THEY HAVE ON YOU?
R:
“It was just the success they were having, that was the inspiration: ‘oh god, they’re playing in the States!’ When your mates are doing something like that, it’s like, ‘maybe we might get lucky and go over there too.’ can you remember the first time you went over to america, tone?”
“Yeah. We played at a club in New York called Ungano’s. We were all thinking, ‘Brilliant, it’s america, we’ve made it!’ and we turned up at this place and it was half the size of this room. then we plugged in the gear and it blew up, ’cos we didn’t realise the voltage was different. It was, like, ‘Fucking hell, is this it?’ mind you, we supported rod Stewart the next night and we went down better than he did… which he wasn’t very amused about.”
WHAT WAS PRIEST’S FIRST AMERICAN GIG LIKE, ROB?
R: “It was in columbus, ohio, and we brought the ceiling down. It was a low ceiling, and the volume was so strong that it was shaking and the ceiling tiles were coming down. People were covering their ears. What a great night out.”
PUNK STARTED TO EMERGE IN THE MID-70S. DID YOU SEE THOSE BANDS AS ‘THE ENEMY’ AT FIRST?
R:
“the metal scene was really getting established around that time, and there was this thing of, ‘We’ve all got to look after each other and support each other, because this could possibly be a threat.’ then we saw them and heard them and thought, ‘hang on, this isn’t going to last.’ I mean, Sid Vicious couldn’t even play a note.”
throughout the early 70s, Black Sabbath broke the ground for Priest and every other metal band that followed. Sabbath’s first six albums – from their self-titled debut through to 1975’s Sabotage
– remains one of metal’s all-time hot streaks.
But by the end of that decade, their star was beginning to fade. a combination of exhaustion, ego and chemical excess conspired to knock them off their lofty pedestal. By contrast, Judas Priest were just beginning to enter their own golden period. Between 1977’s Sin After Sin album and 1982’s Screaming For Vengeance, they became one of the biggest bands in rock, inspiring everything from the New Wave of British heavy metal to the nascent thrash scene. It was a classic case of the torch being handed on, even if Black Sabbath themselves were far from done.
HOW WERE THE 80S FOR YOU BOTH? R:
“[1980’s] British Steel was the first album where people outside of our own country really started noticing Priest. I’m not saying america is the only place that’s worth breaking, but if you got played on the radio there it was a big part of building success.”
T: “the 80s was a big change for us. ozzy went and we had ronnie Dio come in. But it pushed us, it made us work harder. and even then we had a lot of people against us. Don arden [Sabbath’s notorious manager and father of Sharon osbourne] said, ‘You can’t have that, a midget singing for Black Sabbath!’ We had a lot of building up to do.”