Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford recently spoke to Rolling Stone about some of his favorite metal classics. On the topic of Metallica, Halford said he had to go with "Ride The Lightning".
"Old 'Tallica. New 'Tallica. I'm old school, man. I bet you guys are the same about Priest. It's crazy, isn't it? It's usually the first two or three albums that you make in any given band that are the reference points to who you are and what you're about.
"And so, for me, those first batches of Metallica, the extraordinary way that they interpreted their style of metal and branded it with such a unique force just generates as much now as it did then. So, 'Tallica, ride the lightning on the heavy metal Harley."
Halford also chose "Angel Of Death" as his favorite Slayer song.
"I've always been a Slayer fan. I love this kind of extreme metal music with a band like Slayer and 'Angel Of Death'. They were a bunch of guys out of the Bay Area that spread this new kind of gospel of metal in this extreme form.
"The sheer terror of Slayer which hit us all like a ton of heavy metal bricks really did the same to me. And out of all of the great Slayer songs that I personally love to smash my head in to and with, 'Angel Of Death' — oh, yeah, baby!"
His favorite Black Sabbath song? It's "Paranoid." “For me, it was one of these game changing moments that we have in music because it brought out and brought forth a genre and a style of music that lit up the world… particularly for me, as a young musician at the time, ‘Paranoid’ just took off like a rocket.”
Halford also has some great words for Lemmy. “There are so many legends in rock and metal, and one of the guys that is at the top of the mountain is Lemmy. Much like Ronnie, so many of our beautiful friends have departed. But as I’ve said so many times, music lives forever, and in this case, the personality with the music goes hand-inland. Lemmy was an extraordinary man with so much to say in his music. And when he would talk in his interviews he was just mesmerizing a person to listen to speak, the way his brain worked so uniquely.”
Check out all Halford's picks here, and catch Judas Priest with Sabaton at one of the dates below.
Sep. 22 – Milwaukee WI – Miller High Life Theatre [Tickets]
Sep. 23 – Minneapolis Mn – The Armory [Tickets]
Sep. 25 – Maryland Heights MO – Saint Louis Music Park [Tickets]
Sep. 26 – Louisville KY – Louder Than Life Festival [Tickets]
Sep. 29 – Denver CO – The Mission Ballroom [Tickets]
Sep. 30 – West Valley City UT – Maverik Center [Tickets]
Oct. 02 – Everett WA – Angel Of The Winds Arena [Tickets]
Oct. 03 – Portland OR – Moda Center [Tickets]
Oct. 05 – Oakland CA – Fox Theater [Tickets]
Oct. 06 – Los Angeles CA – Microsoft Theater [Tickets]
Oct. 08 – Las Vegas NV – Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood [Tickets]
Oct. 09 – Phoenix AZ – Arizona Federal Theatre [Tickets]
Oct. 12 – San Antonio TX – Freeman Coliseum [Tickets]
Oct. 13 – Cedar Park TX – HEB Center Cedar Park [Tickets]
Oct. 15 – Irving TX – The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory [Tickets]
Oct. 16 – Oklahoma City OK – The Zoo Amphitheatre [Tickets]
Oct. 19 – Independence MO – Cable Dahmer Arena [Tickets]
Oct. 21 – Nashville TN – Nashville Municipal Auditorium [Tickets]
Oct. 22 – Alpharetta GA – Ameris Bank Amphitheatre [Tickets]
Oct. 24 – Charleston WV – Charleston Civic Center Coliseum [Tickets]
Oct. 25 – Philadelphia PA – The Met [Tickets]
Oct. 27 – Newark NJ – Prudential Center [Tickets]
Oct. 28 – Oxon Hill MD – The Theater at MGM National Harbor [Tickets]
Oct. 30 – Mashantucket CT – Foxwoods Resort Casino – Grand Theater [Tickets]
Oct. 31 – Lowell MA – Tsongas Center At UMass Lowell [Tickets]
Nov. 02 – Halifax NS – Scotiabank Centre [Tickets]
Nov. 04 – Laval , QC – Place Bell [Tickets]
Nov. 05 – Hamilton ONT – First Ontario Centre [Tickets]
