Judas Priest: the history of the group, members, songs and albums

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

This year the British band Judas Priest recorded their 18th album. The team worked on this disc together with producer Tom Elam. This English musician and sound engineer collaborated with the band back in the eighties. Released on March 9, Fire Power sold over 49,000 copies in the United States within one week of release.

The record climbed to 5 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums list. This was the best result in the history of the existence of Judas Priest.

The fact that the musicians, whose careers have been going on for more than 40 years, are still in great creative shape is respectful.

However, the team is not one of the lucky ones, treated with glory from the first days of their existence.

Beginning at the same time as rock monsters like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple in the late sixties, they gained worldwide fame muchlater his colleagues. Read about all this and much more in the article.

Early years

The year of Judas Priest's creation is considered to be 1969. And the place where the future rock legend was destined to be born was the city of West Bromwich. It is located 6 miles northeast of Birmingham and is known primarily as a mining settlement, as the area is rich in coal deposits.

In the late sixties, the newly formed band included vocalist Al Atkins, bassist Brian Stepenhill, guitarist John Perry and drummer John Partridge. Judas Priest fans may notice that none of the founding members are left in the band today. Perry soon died in a road accident. The guitarist left the band a few months later. Among the contenders for his place, who came to audition, was the future member of the classic composition - "KK" Downing. But then he was preferred to the seventeen-year-old multi-instrumentalist Ernst Chataway, who came from the band Earth, which was later renamed Black Sabbath.

The bassist suggested calling the band Judas Priest. He first heard this combination in a Bob Dylan song that had been released two years earlier on the John Wesley Harding album. The translation of "Judas Priest" can be: "Priest of Judas" or "Judas is a priest." Dylan's song tells how this hero tempts a certain wanderer in every possible way.

First Performance

Their first concert took place on November 25, 1969. This event was attended by the leader of Led Zeppelin - RobertPlant. Interestingly, it is he who will have a strong influence on the manner of performance of Rob Halford, who in a few years will become the voice of the team.

First failure

The record company that was signed with went out of business before the first album was completed. As a result, in 1970 the team broke up.

Al Atkins put together the next line-up in a year.

It includes classic guitarist Judas Priest "KK" Downing, among others. This time the musicians were more fortunate. They signed with Black Sabbath member Tommy Iommi's agency. This company took over the management of the group.

Founder passes away

By this time, Al Atkins was married and had a family to support. Therefore, the founder of the group, Judas Priest, decided to quit music. Nevertheless, several songs written by him were included in the band's first three albums.

How the band got its "voice"

As a result of numerous line-up changes, vocalist Rob Halford, who was the brother of the then bass player's girlfriend, was added to the band. He came from leaving his previous project called Hiroshima.

The band's management acted swiftly, and soon the band went on a tour of continental Europe.

First album

The band recorded it in the summer of 1974. The musicians worked together with producer Roger Breinn on this disc. In addition to collaborating with Judas Priest, he is known for participating in the creation of the first three albums. Black Sabbath. These discs are considered the undisputed classics of rock music. However, collaborating with Judas Priest, the producer chose a too authoritarian style of communication. He made all the important creative decisions on his own, regardless of the opinion of the group. Many of them turned out to be losers.

For example, Roger felt that clichés typical of rock albums should be avoided. In pursuit of originality, he invented a hybrid of the words "rock and roll" and "coca-cola". As a result, the first album of his wards began to be called "Rock-Roll". The cover had a disfigured bottle cap.

Technical problems during recording led to the fact that the sound quality of the record left much to be desired. The producer also made the short-sighted decision to remove several songs from the album that were already known to the public through live performances.

In addition, he cut Caviar and meths, which turned into a two-minute instrumental instead of a 10-minute art-rock piece.

The unsatisfactory quality of the recording and the commercial failure of the album became the reason for the negative attitude of the band members to this musical material. The songs from this disc have not been performed in concert by Judas Priest since 1976.

Change drummers

Most often in the history of the band there was a change of drummers. Some drummers left, and then, after a while, came back. This was the case, for example, with Alan Moore, who left the line-up before the recording of the first album, but again took his place in1975.

Second disc

After the release of the first album, the financial situation of the group was deplorable. Its participants had to eat only once a day, earning money to live on temporary earnings. In such an atmosphere, the recording of the second album took place, the budget of which was only $ 2,000. The band wanted to make a CD that combines powerful heavy sound with elements of progressive rock.

This disc was called "The Sad Wings of Fate". Its cover depicts a fallen angel surrounded by flames of hell. The release of the record was followed by a tour of England. During this time, Halford often joked that fans should now burn their copies of the Rocka rolla album.

Despite a modest commercial success, the CD received a positive review in Rolling Stone and also charted in the United Kingdom. Fans, critics and the musicians themselves consider the album the first step in creating the original sound and image of Judas Priest.

Classic Albums

The first truly successful album was Killing machine, released in 1978. This disc was the first in Judas Priest's discography to be certified platinum. After its release, another drummer, Les Winks, left the group. He explained his decision by saying that the band's new sound, in his opinion, was too commercial.

A new decade has arrived. His arrival brought the group another success. The British Steel album, with the razor blade featured on the cover, became the band's most popular work.

The group has made a turn towards the so-called radio format. Their songs were now no longer than three or four minutes. But, despite this, the new material was perceived by the vast majority of the band's fans as true Heavy Metal. Tracks such as United, Breaking the law and some others hit the air of popular radio stations.

In 1981 and 1982 the team released one album a year. These CDs contain songs written in the same manner as the material from British Steel. After recording each of them, the musicians went on tour. During these performances, along with already known songs, they showed the public unreleased compositions, which were then included in new albums.

In 1983, Judas Priest gave a concert at the San Bernardino Festival in California, where they also performed with Motley Crue, Scorpions, Van Halen and some others.

Thus, the group entered the number of rock stars of the first magnitude.

Sound evolution

British Steel and the next three albums featured powerful metal guitar sounds. Representatives of the music press often criticized the group for the fact that in the discography of Judas Priest there are many records similar to one another. But despite this, each album has consistently gone platinum.

In 1986, during the recording of Turbo, the musicians began to use guitar synthesizers, which brought new colors to the sound of the songs. The next album contained several compositions that were written forprevious disc, but not included in it. Work was also underway on three tracks in the style of pop music. But they didn't make the final cut of the album.

Opinion of criticism

One of the reviews for this album stated: "The band's style is constantly evolving. On Ram it down, the musicians made an attempt to get rid of synthesizers and return to good old heavy metal."

Judas Priest's album "Painkiller", which was released in the early nineties, again adopted the synthesizers characteristic of the style of the last decade.

The tour in support of this album took place with several rock bands, mainly playing thrash metal. It culminated with Judas Priest's performance at the Rio de Janeiro Festival in front of an audience of 100,000.

A clip was filmed for the title track of the album "Painkiller".

Halford left the band after the end of the tour mentioned above. The press wrote about the signs of internal conflicts tearing apart the team. Rob organized his own thrash metal band. She received the name Fight. The musician sought to explore a new style for himself. But under the contract, he had to perform at concerts with Judas Priest for one more year. A singer from the so-called tribute team, that is, the group that played Judas Priest's songs, was invited to replace the vocalist who left the group.

This line-up recorded two albums - Jugulator and Demolition. This vocalist is also known for his work withYngwie Malmsteen.

Reunion

After an 11-year absence, in 2003 Rob Halford announced his return with the upcoming release of the band's best-of four-disc compilation called "Metalogy". The band toured Europe and performed at the Ozzfest festival. Since the reunion, Rob Halford has recorded four albums with the band, including this year's Firepower.

Style

The band members themselves call their music "real heavy metal". The roots of rock from Judas Priest lie in the blues and its varieties. The bands of the late sixties and early seventies, who played hard rock, also had a great influence on the group. The band has been called the most influential "heavy" band since Black Sabbath.

Judas Priest "Nostradamus"

The album with this name was released in 2008. It differs from other works of this group in its structure - the disc is a conceptual one. All songs from it are subject to one general idea.

Two years before its release, Rob Halford told MTV that the band was working on a concept album about the life of 16th-century scientist and writer Michel de Nostradamus, better known by his Latin surname, Nostradamus. "He's the perfect fit for heavy metal," says Rob of his character. "Michel was an extraordinary person, an alchemist, a soothsayer, a man of great talent. In his life there was a lot of joy and sorrow, suffering andhappiness. He is known in all countries of the world. This is important, as we work for a huge audience," the musician continues.

This album, like the recent Firepower, was highly acclaimed by the band's fans and critics.