METAL GODS
There’s a cactus in the yard of Rob Halford’s home in Phoenix, Arizona that looks like it’s throwing the horns. It makes frequent appearances in the Judas Priest frontman’s Instagram feed, itself one of the most joyous and life-affirming things on the internet.
The 69-year-old does social media like few other rock stars of his vintage. Recent pictures of him posing in spiked, diamante-encrusted high-heeled boots appear alongside classic photos of a young Halford wearing a period-piece late-70s tracksuit and leaning against an old 12-speed racer outside his old house in Walsall. Inevitably there are shots of cats too. Lots of shots of cats.
Anyway, back to the cactus. It’s been in Halford’s yard since he moved to Phoenix from the West Midlands in 1986. Back then it was a common-orgarden desert shrub, proud and erect if not yet fully metalised. But over the decades it has gradually sprouted a pair of distinct digits a foot or two apart pointing directly heavenwards.
“They’re my Percy Thrower heavy metal fingers,” Halfords says, undoubtedly the only heavy metal singer who would dream of referencing a long-time deceased British TV gardener. “That cactus has grown incrementally into that shape. I guess that’s the effect I have – I turn everything into metal.”
Halford and his bandmates have been turning everything they touch to metal for 50 years now. Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath laid the foundations for the genre, but it was Priest who reshaped it in their own image – everyone from Metallica to Mötley Crüe bears their musical DNA, while anyone who has stood in front of a camera or walked on stage encased in leather, studs or a combination of both has got it straight from the Judas Priest playbook.
The band are marking their Golden Jubilee with a series of dates in the second half of this year, including a headlining appearance at the UK’s Bloodstock Festival. There’s also the small matter of recording a follow-up to 2018’s stellar Firepower album although Halford is under strict orders not to give anything away.
But there’s plenty to talk about even without that, chiefly Priest’s none-more-epic 50-year journey. “We were just so full of adventure,” says Halford, speaking over Zoom from the house he shares with his partner of 30 years, Thomas Pence. “But you never really grow up in a band, you’re just having a laugh. And you’ve got
