Latest news with #JudasPriest
Forbes
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Everything To Know About The Upcoming Judas Priest Documentary
Judas Priest on 7/28/80 in Rockford, IL (Photo by Paul Natkin/WireImage) Sony Music Vision recently announced that production for a Judas Priest documentary is in the works. In association with Sony Music Entertainment UK and Epic Records, this new documentary will showcase the multi-decade career of the legendary British heavy metal band, from their hard-rock beginnings in the late 70s to their rise to metal-stardom in the 1980s and beyond. While Judas Priest were a part of VH1's 'Behind The Music' documentary series in 2001, Sony's documentary will be the first major film on the band distributed by a big studio. As the news surfaced of this Sony documentary, Judas Priest announced to their fans on social media that they are in fact taking part in this production, stating "We have lived and breathed metal for over five decades, and finally in this documentary we are summoning our congregation to officially witness our lives uncensored, in a never-before-seen way…the cassock comes off, revealing Priest in all its metal glory!" Just as Priest were announcing their participation, Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello and metal documentarian Sam Dunn announced they would be co-directing the film together. 'While some may know Judas Priest for their huge hits that have shaped the heavy metal genre, there is so much more to their story,' co-directors Morello and Dunn stated. 'Tracing their incredible 50-year journey, this film will capture how Judas Priest both defined the sound and look of metal, but also made it a more inclusive place along the way. We are grateful to the band for allowing us such intimate, unfiltered access to their lives and look forward to bringing this film to the metal masses around the world.' Samm Dunn is the owner of Banger Films which will be producing the upcoming film. Dunn's previous work includes multiple documentaries covering heavy metal music and culture, including the mini-series Metal Evolution which dedicated 11 episodes covering individual sub-genres under the metal umbrella. For fans of recent metal and rock documentaries, Dunn's work stands out as some of best in the business, and there isn't another documentarian that comes to mind that'd be a better fit for this monumental production. As for Morello, he's had his foot in a few huge metal related events lately, specifically being the musical director for Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath's upcoming final performance, Back To The Beginning. Morello's been a vocal fan of the heavy metal genre for years and has appeared in a litany of documentaries on heavy metal and rock history (including some by Sam Dunn). On top of that, Morello is an avid Priest fan so his partnership with Dunn on this documentary will make for a unique production.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Judas Priest rose above darkness and death to make Turbo, their most divisive album
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Thanks to albums such as British Steel and Screaming For Vengeance, Judas Priest had ascended to metal's premier division by the mid-80s. But they hit a bump in the road with 1986's Turbo, an album that saw the veteran band trying out new technology but left many fans cold . In 2017, singer Rob Halford and bassist Ian Hill looked back on the darkness and tragedy that shaped their most divisive record. Turbo is the sore thumb in the Judas Priest catalogue. Received wisdom pitches it somewhere between a cynical sell-out with one eye on the pop market and outright career suicide. Neither is true. Turbo may have been a departure on the surface, but at heart it was a classic Priest album. On a commercial level, it was far from a flop thanks to mainstream American radio and MTV picking up on the singles Turbo Lover, Locked In and the anti-censorship broadside Parental Guidance. 'It lost us some friends,' says Priest bassist Ian Hill, a mainstay of the band since their very beginning in Birmingham at the end of the 1960s. 'But it made us as least as many as we'd lost.' Priest were coming off the back of a stellar run of success when they began work on Turbo. While their late-70s and early-80s albums had enshrined them as one of Britain's pre-eminent metal bands, the platinum-plated one-two of 1982's Screaming For Vengeance and '84's Defenders Of The Faith had turned them into bona fide rock stars in America. 'We were on top of the world,' says Rob, a man whose drily lugubrious manner is amusingly at odds with his Metal God persona. 'After slogging away for years, we'd suddenly reached that place all bands strive to get to, which is success. It was an amazing time, not only for Priest but for metal in general.' After touring Defenders Of The Faith, the band gave themselves a much-needed break. When they reconvened in Marbella in southern Spain in early 1985, they were keen to throw themselves back into the fray. But the last thing they wanted to do was merely repeat past glories. 'Some people would have been absolutely over the moon if we'd done another Defenders Of The Faith,' says Ian. 'But we felt like we'd reached the end of the line with that. Some bands get a formula and they stick to it, and people love them for it. But we've always moved forwards.' As they soaked up the sun in Marbella, they began to realise that things had changed since they had been away. Launched just a few years earlier, MTV had become a music industry powerhouse with the power to make or break bands. Many of Priest's peers had latched onto this and altered their approach to fit this revolutionary new format, chief among them ZZ Top and Billy Idol, who had begun incorporating the latest technology into their sound and serving up eye-catching videos to fit in the heavy rotation slots. 'We were definitely aware of what was going on with MTV,' says Rob. 'It was a gamechanger. It totally changed the face of music, which probably had some influence on the general outcome of Turbo.' Understandably, when electronic instrument company Roland approached Priest to see if they would be interested in being the people to try out a brand new guitarsynthesizer they had developed, the band jumped at the chance. 'It basically took the straightforward sound that you normally get if you plug a guitar into a Marshall amp, but let you alter the sound completely,' says Rob. 'It could give you a non-guitar sound. That was at the heart of Turbo. And that, I think, was part of the pushback from the purists in metal: 'Why are you messing with the sound? That's not the Priest we want to hear.'' The band weren't oblivious to the ramifications of what they were planning when they flew to the Bahamas to begin work on the album at Nassau's Compass Point Studios with longtime producer 'Colonel' Tom Allom, but they were still determined to push forward. It wasn't the only radical decision they had made. The original plan was that the new album would be a double, titled Twin Turbos. 'We wanted a double album for the price of a single one,' says Ian. 'The label weren't happy about that. They couldn't manufacture the album and flog it for what we wanted them to sell it for. So about halfway through the writing process, we decided to go with it as a single album.' Some of the tracks written for Twin Turbos would appear on their next album, 1988's Ram It Down, while others would feature as bonus tracks on subsequent reissues. But clashes with their record label were the least of Rob's worries. The singer had his own battles to deal with. Ask him today what someone might have seen if they'd have walked in halfway through the sessions, and he laughs drily. 'I'd probably have been in the corner with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and a mound of coke,' he says. 'I was out of my fucking tree. That's where I was at personally. It was a point where I needed help. I don't know how the guys coped with me.' 'We all went over the top in the 80s,' says Ian. 'If you weren't going over the top, there was something wrong. But we didn't realise quite how far gone Rob was.' Rob's state of mind wasn't helped by the exotic location. 'There were tremendous distractions,' he says. 'We'd start work at six o'clock at night, then Tom Allom would have his gin and tonic and that was the end of the session. We'd all go down the pub and get loaded. We had to get the hell out of the Bahamas. Somebody said, 'Why don't we go to Miami instead?' Oh yeah, great idea. 'Cos there were no distractions there either. Ha ha ha, oh my god.' Instead, the band moved their base of operations to Los Angeles. It was there that Rob checked into rehab. 'I came out after 30 days and my life had changed in a million ways,' he says. 'The important part was my ability to understand that music is the most important thing in my life and that I don't need any other chemical influence to do what I need to do.' He may have been clean and sober, but life had one more tragic twist to throw at him. In 1986, Rob's boyfriend at the time killed himself in front of the singer. He's reluctant to talk about specifics, but his voice takes on an understandably solemn note when he recalls the impact it had on his life. 'I was with someone who was also dealing with their own self-destructive challenges,' he says. 'That was my pledge, in the memory of that person, to stay clean and sober. In fact, I just passed my 31st birthday last week. But drug addiction and alcoholism is like a curse, man. Bands ask me about the drink and the drugs, and I say, 'Fucking do it, it's a rite of passage – I hope you have a good time with it and I hope it doesn't kill you.' Because it can, and it does.' Ironically, given Rob's own personal turmoil, Turbo is resolutely uplifting, defiant and even sex-obsessed. It's there in the titles: Turbo Lover; Hot For Love; Reckless; Wild Nights, Hot And Crazy Days. Even the album's cover illustration of a woman's hand clutching a gear stick is a barely disguised visual innuendo. It also features Parental Guidance, a winking dig at the PMRC, the censorship group who had included Priest's song Eat Me Alive on their so-called 'Filthy Fifteen' – a list of songs that they claimed threatened the moral fabric of America. The PMRC successfully campaigned to put 'Parental Guidance' stickers on albums containing explicit material. 'We couldn't believe our ears when we heard about it,' says Rob. 'It's one of those things that only happens in America. I remember the day we said, 'We should write a song called Parental Guidance. Take a walk in my shoes and see what you're afraid of – it's not real. As it turns out, Turbo was a commercial success, one of the biggest ones Priest had. So the PMRC thing didn't have any knock-on effect.' That commercial success must have seemed a long way off when the album was released in April 1986. Initial reactions in the press were at best baffled and at worst outright hostile. More importantly, its synthesized sounds alienated a chunk of their fanbase who wanted Priest's traditional steel-plated twin guitar attack. 'It was a bit of a kick in the balls. It's not nice to make a record and somebody goes, 'This is shit.' But this is the balancing act – you have to write from the heart, for yourself. You need the opportunity to express yourself and bang into things when you do.' Age has been kind to Turbo. Its unconventional approach may have scared the horses at the time, but today it sounds shockingly modern. And its opening four tracks – Turbo Lover, Locked In, Private Property and Parental Guidance – are stone cold pop-metal classics, guitar-synths or not. 'It was a grand experiment,' says Ian. 'We weren't sure what the reaction would be, but we believed we were doing the right thing. And that's why it's honest.' 'The original kickback has mellowed over the years,' adds Rob. 'People appreciate it now for the songs. They've embraced it. We could bang out any of those tracks live now and they'd do the business. Judas Priest are this band that has many metal heads attached to its shoulders, and Turbo has become part of the legend.' Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 281, February 2017
Perth Now
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
'Witness our lives uncensored, in a never-before-seen way':Judas Priest documentary co-directed by Tom Morello in the works
A Judas Priest documentary helmed by Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello is on the way. 'The Ballad Of Judas Priest' - from Sony Music Vision - will be co-directed by Morello and Sam Dunn ('Metal: A Headbanger's Journey'). A release date is not known at this time. Rob Halford and co told Variety: 'We have lived and breathed metal for over five decades, and finally in this documentary we are summoning our congregation to officially witness our lives uncensored, in a never-before-seen way…the cassock comes off, revealing Priest in all its metal glory!' Morello and Dunn added: 'Tracing their incredible 50-year journey, this film will capture how Judas Priest both defined the sound and look of metal, but also made it a more inclusive place along the way. We are grateful to the band for allowing us such intimate, unfiltered access to their lives and look forward to bringing this film to the metal masses around the world.' Meanwhile, frontman Halford previously admitted he felt an "enormous feeling of freedom" when he came out as gay on MTV in 1998. The heavy metal legend never planned to announce to the world that he was homosexual when he casually referred to himself as a "gay man" during the Q A and he is still unsure whether he would have publicly come out if he had decided to make a more grandiose statement. In an interview with Apple Music's Hattie Collins in 2021, he said: "It was one of those things where I'm at MTV in New York, I'm talking about a project that I was working on called 'Two', with myself and John 5, the amazing guitar player. I was doing the rounds in New York City and ended up at MTV talking about this project. And in the casual course of the conversation, we were talking about the overall music, and the direction, and the feelings. And I said something to the effect of, 'Well, speaking as a gay man, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.' And then I heard the producer's clipboard bounce on the floor. It was one of those gay sharp intakes, 'Oh my God, he's come out.' 'And so that was it. So it was very simple. I think if I'd … I still say today, if I'd have really thought this through, like today's the day I'm going to come out, maybe I even wouldn't … maybe I may not have come out per se, because it's still a big moment for so many of us, with a close friend, with someone at school, with mum and dad, with whomever, to actually say, 'Hey, I'm a gay guy or I'm a gay girl.' It's just a big, big deal. It's just a glorious, glorious moment. 'So there I was, and I did the interview, and then I walked back to the hotel, and went back to my room, and go well, that's it, now everybody knows. And then, of course, it hit the news wires and that was that. 'So wow, it was just this enormous feeling of freedom, and the pressure was gone, and there's no more talking behind your back because you have all this ammunition of power as a gay person now, as an out gay person. Nothing can hurt you because this is it. You can't throw insults, you can't throw rumours, you can't say anything negative about me because I am who I am. So that's my wonderful memory of my great coming out day.' The 'Breaking The Law' rocker also opened up on the effect hiding his sexuality had on his mental health as the band achieved success in the 1970s and 1980s. Halford, 70, recalled how he would lock himself away in his hotel room after the band had played live because he was worried about being outed before he came out to his parents and bandmates. He said: "As a youngish guy in a thriving heavy metal band, it was difficult because I was in that place where a lot of us protected everybody else. '[I thought] 'Oh, I better not come out because it will upset my mum and dad. I hadn't better come out because it will upset my friends, I hadn't better come out because it'll upset my band and my fans and record company. 'I had all that riding on my shoulders through those moments of Priest when we were gaining headway, particularly in America. It was difficult y'know, I went back to my room and turned on the TV and that was it. 'I couldn't go to clubs, I couldn't go to bars because it was suggested, 'Don't do that, because paparazzi might get you and we'll have to do the cover story' and all this innuendo. 'Mentally, on top of being the gay man in the closet, I had all these extra pieces piled onto my life at that time.'
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Judas Priest Documentary Co-Directed by Tom Morello in the Works
Heavy metal legends Judas Priest will be the focus of a career-spanning documentary co-directed by Tom Morello. The Rage Against the Machine guitarist will make his directorial debut with The Ballad of Judas Priest, which will arrive later this year via Sony Music Vision, Variety reports. Sam Dunn will serve as the other co-director on the film, which — like the band — borrows its name from Bob Dylan's 'The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest.' More from Rolling Stone Rob Halford Explains Why Judas Priest Are Missing Black Sabbath's Farewell Megaconcert Bruce Springsteen Jams With John Fogerty, Tom Morello, Smokey Robinson at American Music Honors Judas Priest and Alice Cooper Plot Heavy Co-Headlining Tour 'We have lived and breathed metal for over five decades, and finally in this documentary we are summoning our congregation to officially witness our lives uncensored, in a never-before-seen way…the cassock comes off, revealing Priest in all its metal glory,' the band said in a joint statement. The Ballad of Judas Priest will trace the heavy metal band's half-century legacy, from their roots in Birmingham, England, to their climb to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. With the arrival of 2024's Invincible Shield, Judas Priest became the first metal act to release albums 50 years apart, as their debut LP, Rocka Rolla, was unleashed in 1974. The band has put out 19 studio albums in that span. 'While some may know Judas Priest for their huge hits that have shaped the heavy metal genre, there is so much more to their story,' Morello and Dunn added. 'Tracing their incredible 50-year journey, this film will capture how Judas Priest both defined the sound and look of metal, but also made it a more inclusive place along the way. We are grateful to the band for allowing us such intimate, unfiltered access to their lives and look forward to bringing this film to the metal masses around the world.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Former Drummer of Legendary English Metal Band Dies at 73
Rest in peace. Les Binks, the ex drummer of English heavy metal band Judas Priest, has died. The percussionist, who played with Judas Priest from March 1977 to July 1979, died on March 15, 2025. The band took to Instagram a month later to share a formal statement on Binks' passing. 'We are deeply saddened about the passing of Les and send our love to his family, friends and fans. The acclaimed drumming he provided was first class – demonstrating his unique techniques, flair, style and precision – Thank you Les – your acclaim will live on,' the post read. 'Very sad news. [He was] an excellent drummer who was an integral part of the Priest sound,' one fan shared in the comments section. 'Stained Class turned me on to Priest as a 14-year-old with Les Binks on drums! Great drummer, he was!' added another, referring to the band's 1978 album. Binks also played on Killing Machine (Hell Bent for Leather in the U.S.) and a 1979 live album titled Unleashed in the East. In an 2021 interview with The Metal Voice, Binks explained why he departed from Judas Priest. "Money, or lack of it. I was in a different situation than the other guys in the band,' he recalled, claiming that he wasn't seeing the same payment as other members Rob Halford on lead vocals, K.K. Downing on guitar, Glenn Tipton on guitar, and Ian Hill on bass. "I wasn't signed to the record company, and when it came to the live album, Unleashed in the East, the management company thought I should do it for free,' Binks added. "That album went platinum, outsold all the previous albums, and the management didn't want to pay me for it, crazy." Despite leaving the band, however, Binks reunited with Judas Priest after 43 years to perform at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
