Hell bent for leather

Former Judas Priest front man Rob Halford on heavy-metal homoeroticism, coming out, and Tony Bennett

by Christopher Muther

With a sneer that launched hits like "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" and "Turbo Lover," former Judas Priest front man Rob Halford not only sold millions of albums in the 1970s and 1980s but helped define the look of heavy metal. Halford emerged on stage at Judas Priest concerts riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and brandished whips while wearing studded dog collars and leather pants. It was an image that spawned a host of imitators.

Six years after his departure from Judas Priest, the singer is rattling chains again with his new band, Two, and a new album, Voyeurs, released on Trent Reznor's Nothing label. (Reznor also acted as executive producer of the album, which leans more toward industrial music than metal.) But it was Halford's announcement to MTV News in February that he is gay that set the heavy-metal world abuzz. The reaction from fans has been supportive, but Halford will really test the waters this spring when he embarks on his first tour since coming out publicly. On the phone from his home in Phoenix, the 46-year-old metal man spoke about his decision to come out, Tony Bennett, and his future as an openly gay headbanger.

Q: What prompted you to come out?

A: In all honesty, if the question hadn't been presented to me by the MTV people, we might not have even gone into the description of sexuality. But something took me there, and I just very casually blurted out, "Speaking as a gay man, yadda, yadda, yadda." It came out in a very pure, free manner. I've always been pretty honest and open in everything I've done in my life. I think this is the last vestige of something that was in the closet that desperately needed to be out there.

Q: Why come out now and not back when you were in Judas Priest?

A: Why now? I don't know. It's been suggested that if I had tried it back when I was in Priest, it would have been musical suicide on a personal level. I really don't know the sure answer to "Why now?" However we look at it, I'm very happy to have had the opportunity to make the statement while I'm still active in music, because it carries a lot of benefits for me and hopefully for other people, too. The feedback I've been receiving from people has been tremendous -- people who have decided by their own choice, after witnessing my coming out, to come out to family and friends. Those are things you never even consider [will happen], but that's been the case.

Q: Did you find heavy metal to be a homophobic genre of music?

A: I think it would be unfair to pin it down exclusively to the world of heavy metal. I think that [because] metal is still perceived by most people as being a very macho, straight, male, drinking-and-chicks kind of environment, people make assumptions about it. All I'll say is that maybe because of who I am and maybe because of what I've shared with people, a majority of people have been able to handle it in the metal community, because we've had so many good times together. I think that's the major reference point.

Q: When you were in Judas Priest, you were known as the leather guy and you had album titles like Ram It Down and Point of Entry. I'm guessing you were having a lot of fun and coming at it all from a gay, leather-man sensibility.

A: [Laughs.] I don't think it was that. It's so Spinal Tap. Just imagine Ram It Down as a straight, sexy kind of comment. It's got all the trappings, like Point of Entry [and] Hell Bent for Leather-all of these attributes are wrapped up in sexist rock-and-roll language. It's no different from some of the song titles by AC/DC or Aerosmith.

But by the same token I suppose you could see it in a homoerotic kind of a way. All those titles came from me, anyway. [Laughs.] I think it must have been a subconscious thing. It's all Freudian, isn't it? Someone would call out, "What should we call this album, Rob?" I'd say, "How about Ram It Down?" and they'd say, "Yeah, that sounds really heavy metal." It wasn't Ram Your Dick Down Some Guy's Throat. It is kind of humorous. I love to laugh about things like that. I refuse to take life that drastically seriously. I've always wanted to experience great things and positive things in life.

Q: And the leather image?

A: The irony was there from day one, as soon as I put on the leather and the whips and the chains. It was a total leather, S&M-guy persona, at least for people in the gay community, who recognized it instantly. But for the rest of the world, including myself, it was a look, an image that totally suited the power and the authority and the volume and all the other attributes of the music itself. People constantly refer to Priest as being a band that defined the image of the music, and as you know, it's all about image.

Q: Did the guys in the band know you were gay?

A: They did, and that's what's so cool about the whole thing. The issue of sexuality was never an important one for them. I think they handled it with a really cool, liberal, intelligent mindset. There was never any "don't do this, don't do that." None of that. I think that was basically because there was an element of trust. I wasn't going out on-stage in Madison Square Garden yelling, "Hey everybody, I'm a gay man." I respected them, I respected the fans. I never made it an issue. It never really felt like it was an issue. Maybe now it's more of an issue for me, but then, at least, I was happy and satisfied to be in a wonderful situation, to be performing to thousands of people and traveling the world and selling a lot of records and making money. So everything felt good.

Q: When well-known artists come out, the gay community sort of expects them to act as role models. Are those demands starting to close in on you, and if so, are you ready for that?

A: Yeah, I think it's part of becoming a public figure in the entertainment business or the sports world. People are drawn to you for a lot of reasons. People become attached to you for sometimes more than the value of the work that you're making. So now I'm getting calls from people to participate in different things, which would never have happened [otherwise]. I'm going to be the grand marshal of this year's Phoenix Gay Pride parade on April 16. That's pretty amazing. A year ago I was in the crowd as the parade went through downtown, and now I'm going to be leading it.

Q: The new album seems like a real departure from the kind of music you were making with Judas Priest.

A: That really is the reason why I took the walk away from Priest. I wanted to explore all of the other musical opportunities. All of my years that I was in Priest I was a bit of a chameleon, musically. That band had so many different forms of expression within the boundaries of metal music. If you listen and compare records by Priest, you know it's a band that went from pop metal, with songs like "Turbo Lover," with synthesized guitar, to the almost trash metal of songs like "Free Will Burning" and "Screaming for Vengeance." So really I think I'm just furthering those areas of possibility. Of course, now that I'm with a different set of musicians I'm really able to go out there and go to places that I haven't been before with my music.

Q: How did you end up in industrial music?

A: Well, I get a pinched-nerve feeling when people say "industrial," because I don't really think it's that at all. It's a very difficult style to pin down. The definition of industrial for me is people like Gravity Kills, but I think that the music we've created is more fractured, a little more diverse than pure industrial. I think because of Trent Reznor's involvement, people's perception is weighted toward one label. When we started to write this music way back in the middle of 1995, we had no real plan or idea as most bands do. Myself and John Lowrey and Bob Marlette started to write songs at that time with a very free-form spirit. We were just three guys hanging out together writing music that made us feel good.

Q: Any coming-out songs on the new album?

A: "Deep in the Ground" talks about my sexuality, about living in a hole in the ground. It's telling my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters that it's not so bad. Sometimes it's better to be the underdog because of the collective support, and also it has that rebellion attached to it, which I think is really important to keep alive in rock and roll. I insist that whatever I do still pisses people off. Even in this very freeing experience of coming out, I know I made a lot of people angry, and I feel cool about that.

Q: You mentioned you want to explore more musical opportunities. What kind of directions are you headed in?

A: I'm very lucky, as far as what I can do with my voice. It's all about the personality of the singers. Some singers want to be one kind of animal, either by choice or by limitation. With the human voice, you've got to deal with what you've got. It's my wish to experiment and try to do as many things as I can with music. I'm still staying with one major area, which is that I like to work with a lot of emotion. I like to work with some heavy tone. Whether or not I go off in the future and do a Tony Bennett tribute is another thing altogether. I adore Tony Bennett and people like that.

Q: I'd like to see that.

A: Anything can happen. I have a long scope of vision for the future. I think as long as my voice is working, it's possible. I get thrilled when I see people like B.B. King or Willie Nelson get on stage and still perform with so much energy and vitality and passion. I think it's easy to get drawn into the media's perception or the public's perception of your life span in rock and roll. It's all about where you want to take yourself.

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Christopher Muther interviewed Thalia Zedek for the February issue of One in Ten. He can be reached at cmuther@aol.com.

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