Judas Priest frontman and self-professed cat lover Rob Halford has named a litter of kittens for Kitten Rescue.
Kitten Rescue is a Los Angeles-based non-profit, volunteer-run organisation dedicated to finding loving homes for unwanted, homeless cats and kittens, and Halford was invited by the rescue centre to come up with names for their newest litter.
Unsurprisingly, the Metal God came up with a selection of monikers inspired by his love for heavy music, comprised of Taylor, Turbo, Angel, Starbreaker, Rocker and Mama Rose.
Taylor, an orange-and-white male, is named in tribute of Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins, who passed away in March.
Turbo, a calico female, is named after the 1986 Judas Priest song Turbo Lover. Angel, a white/cream female is also named after a Priest song, lifted from the 2005 album Angel Of Retribution.
Starbreaker, or Star for short, is a black-and-white male, and named after the song on Priest's 1977 Sin After Sin album, and Rocker, an orange male, was named for the song I'm A Rocker from the 1988 album Ram It Down. Lastly, Mama Rose was named after Last Rose Of Summer, another song from Sin After Sin.
The Halford-christened furballs are currently residing at Kitten Rescue's Los Angeles sanctuary and will be available for adoption at a later date.
The rescue centre will additionally be auctioning Halford's personal collection of autographed cat t-shirts, with proceeds benefiting Kitten Rescue.
"Hello kitten maniacs — join your metal god in the great Kitten Rescue fundraiser where my personal signed cat shirts and other signed goodies are up for grabs!" says the frontman.
"Check out this bunch of hellions I have christened in metal! Please continue to support Kitten Rescue any way you can. Kitten horns up! The Metal God"
Speaking of his love for cats – and cat t-shirts – in a 2020 interview on the Cobras & Fire podcast, the frontman explained, "I think I have about a hundred cat t-shirts now. I used to have a beautiful kitty cat called Ben, who lived a long life and then suddenly passed, like they all do. It's like losing a family member. But it was kind of difficult, because I'm on the road all the time and there's nobody here at the house.
"As much as it's great sometimes for the cats to go into kitty jail [laughs], kitty vacation, my cat never liked that very much," he continued. "So I'm kind of making up for that with my cat t-shirts every Saturday on my Instagram, which is a lot of fun. I don't know how long that's gonna go on for. I think I'll run out of cat shirts [at some point]."
Halford adds, "They're beautiful creatures. I think the reason why we like 'em in our metal community is because they're fiercely independent. You think you know your cat, [but] the cat knows you better than you do. And they're so full of character and knocking things off the shelf and looking at you as if to say, 'Look what I can do.' But I love 'em for that. They're beautiful creatures".
The cats can now be watched via the organisation’s live kitten cam room.
