Judas Priest will never share any backstage secrets in a tell-all book, frontman Rob Halford has vowed.
He says the members have too much trust and respect for each other to air their laundry in public – and he also believes it would distract fans from their music.
The band are riding high after 17th album Redeemer Of Souls reached the top 20 this week, giving them the third-highest chart position in their career.
Halford tells Esquire: “We really treasure the music. Once you get beyond that, digging in the dirt, it can really dilute what you’re about, and what you’re trying to be with your music. We’re very protective of that.
“You get these books from agents and managers who don’t real know the truth. We’ve been lucky – we’re surrounded by people who are very protective of us as well.
“We’re constantly asked if we’re doing to do a book. Well, it seems that the only way you can get a book to be successful is to dig up the dirt, and I don’t want to do that.”
The singer believes their refusal to dig too deep gives them a certain edge in the modern world. “Everybody knows what everybody’s doing,” he reflects. “It’s all in one ear, out the other, and doesn’t have any value. For us it’s about keeping the privacy and the mystique.”
Halford recently admitted he’d love to follow Metallica by headlining the Glastonbury festival – so it’s no surprise he remains happy about two of their more unlikely public appearances, at Live Aid in 1985 and on American Idol in 2011.
He says of LIve Aid: “You’ve got to be on your game and you’ve got to kill. You’re on the same bill with Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. You haven’t got time to warm the crowd up. It was a good cause; it pisses me off that we still haven’t got that sorted out.”
And of their US TV gameshow appearance he adds: “A lot of our fans went ‘boo!’ but a lot went, ‘yeah!’ You’re in the homes of 30 million Americans and the vast majority haven’t got a clue about Judas Priest. To be able to go on was amazing. All the boo-boo people can leave.”
