Rob Halford

State of the Art

by Carly Carioli

Rob Halford, the former singer of Judas Priest, is a Metal God. You can look it up -- he copyrighted the phrase and others like it years ago. It appears, however, that Hollywood did not take this fact into account when it green-lighted Metal God, the working title of a film due later this year starring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston in the thinly veiled story of Ripper Owens, the singer in a Judas Priest cover band who became the singer in the actual Judas Priest after Halford left. "They've just changed the title," reports Halford from Indiana, where he's warming up his new band, called Halford, in advance of a tour with fellow deities Iron Maiden that hits the Tweeter Center this Saturday. "It's not called Metal God anymore. It's called Rock God. That's so typical of people, not doing their homework. `Metal God,' `Metal Gods,' I firmly stamped my name all over that years ago. I think they're backpedaling away from the connection [with Priest]; it's probably got something to do with the legal side of things."

Even if he hadn't trademarked the term, Halford's patented castrato screech and leather-boy motorcycle duds might still be the most easily identifiable hallmark of heavy metal. It's a style he left behind for the better part of the '90s, when he took a post-Priest detour into thrash (with the band Fight) and industrial (his Trent Reznor-abetted project called Two). But he's just released his heavy-metal comeback album, Resurrection (Metal-Is Records), which opens with one of his signature operatic howls and does indeed find him returning to his roots -- which, as he details on a song called "Made in Hell," are the roots of metal itself.

"Absolutely, I'm coming back to the screaming world of heavy-metal music, where I belong," says Halford, noting that 2001 will mark his third decade in that world. "I think a lot of the qualities have remained the same. I don't think that much has changed, quite honestly. I'm certainly more invigorated and recharged and energized than I have been in a long time, because it's me coming back to the place where I do my best work. So that urgency and the vitality is captured in the attitude, hopefully."

The soft-spoken Halford is a practical believer in heavy metal's utility, an appreciator of both form and formula. In his lighter moments, that's made for no small degree of silliness. But as one of the chief architects of metal's formula, he knows its contours better than almost anyone else, and beyond all expectation, Resurrection's stripped-down economy and delirious cheap thrills find him at the top of his game. It may also be, he says, his most personal album. "I'm talking from the heart on this record and making a bunch of personal statements, which I've never really done before -- most of metal music is wrapped up in its escapism and its fantasy and its imagery. But it was something that I enjoyed, the challenge of trying to talk about myself without it being too overblown. The last thing you want to do is give people a depressing headache. I don't feel I'm doing that, I'm just keeping it upbeat and keeping it positive and letting people know what's been going on."

Of course, one of the more personal events of Halford's sabbatical from metal was his revelation that he's gay. "It came across in one of two respects: either `Duh, we knew' or `Oh really? That's kind of interesting, but who cares?' Fortunately I got tremendous support and encouragement and great feedback, so I got through the process relatively unscathed. Some people have a much tougher time of it than I do." But he says there was no conscious effort to address his sexuality on the new disc. "I've always separated those two issues, but I'm sure it took a lot of subconscious clutter out of my mind. I could be more free of that kind of baggage."

In fact, if there's a stigma Halford's interested in disarming, it's not the one attached to being gay but the one attached to being heavy metal. "It's bizarre that people can't say those two words without falling all over their lips. I don't know what's wrong with that."

Halford play the Tweeter Center in Mansfield this Saturday, August 5; call 931-2000 for tickets.