Judas Priest will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame via the Musical Excellence Award this year (as opposed to the standard Performers Award) as their current lineup plus former guitarist K.K. Downing and former drummers Les Binks and Dave Holland. In an interview with Mark Frankhouse of the 107.7 RKR, Judas Priest drummer Scott Travis has revealed the band will also be able to perform at the ceremony.
"Yeah, we are. They give you a limited amount of time 'cause there's obviously lots of artists that are gonna be performing. So they gave us a set amount of time to perform. And we decided we're gonna try and work in a medley and do some of the Priest classics and put 'em all into a medley, which we've never done before. So it should be interesting."
Travis also touched on finally being inducted into the Rock Hall, saying it's an honor and that "you can't have something called the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and not have Judas Priest in it." Which is very true, but man is the hall missing some other classic heavy metal bands. Lookin' at you, Iron Maiden.
In a previous interview, Halford expressed a little frustration over being inducted via the Musical Excellence Award and not through the Performers Award. "Some days, I go, 'No, it doesn't matter. We're in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Be grateful. Shut the hell up.' And then there are other days where I'm like, 'God damn, why did they give us the Musical Excellence Award?' Because it sounds very, you know, grandiose. 'The Musical Excellence Award, reserved for blah, blah, blah.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, but I want to be with that bunch of musicians over there that have got the performance or whatever it is that they've got.'"
"Why haven't they given us the same title as all of our friends? Black Sabbath, for example. There's a different tag, isn't there? I was pissed. I was a bit pissed. At the end of the day, does it matter? I know it's silly, but it's just frustrating. And on the other side, it's like, 'Great. Everybody else got that and we got shafted with this.' [Laughs] Judas Priest are still the Rodney Dangerfield of heavy metal. They can't get no respect."
