Judas Priest | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Rock band Judas Priest, originally British, gained national recognition in the United States in the 1980s. They were one of the first such groups to be associated exclusively with the term "Heavy Metal" and their onstage theatrics included motorcycle rides, pyrotechnics, and the wearing of leather outfits with chain and spike accessories. Their music evoked a dark fantasy world where rugged heroes wandered in ruined landscapes and defeated evil forces. A decade of hard rock was shaped by the image and message of Judas Priest, and their influence permeated to new forms of rock in the 1990s.

The band was officially formed in 1969 when the original British Invasion of groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Yardbirds slowed down and made way for American rockers. The original members of Judas Priest hailed from Birmingham in the industrial midlands of England, where Black Sabbath and many otherBritish hard rock groups got their start. Judas Priest's first American record release, 1977's "Sin after Sin," gained them only a cult following in the United States, and it was not until their album British Steel, released in 1980, that the band received significant air play with the singles "Living After Midnight" and "Breaking the Law"—loud and simple party anthems that showcased vocalist Rob Halford's alternately growling and screaming voice. 1982's "Screamin' for Vengeance" featured Judas Priest's typical mix of machismo and futuristic doom and was their largest success to date, while their throaty tribute to pride and revenge, "You Got Another Thing Comin,"' entered the pop charts and was the band's first successful video.

In 1985, Judas Priest was cited in a suit filed by Tipper Gore's Parental Music Resource Center as being influential in several highly publicized suicide pacts. The secret messages found in their songs "Let's Be Dead" and "Do It" were presented as evidence, and although no direct link was ever established, the case attests to Judas Priest's stature as a figurehead for the genre of Heavy Metal. The band survived this legal onslaught and several lineup shifts during the 1990s, continuing to release new work 30 years after their inception. Younger Heavy Metal groups expanded, diversified, and absorbed enough mainstream norms to sell records, but Judas Priest remained loud and angry, true to their roots.

Priest's formula for success—aggressive presentation, operatic screams, extended guitar solos, allusions to mythology and apocalypse—would be adopted and adapted by many other acts over the next decade. Their guitarists K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton had long bleached hair; Halford had impressive biceps to match his clenched teeth, and rode his Harley-Davidson on stage as the last encore for each elaborate concert. They tapped into a mysterious suburban longing—young record-buying white males seemed particularly attuned to Judas Priest's territorial posing and violent fantasies. Judas Priest was one of the first Heavy Metal bands to expand successfully beyond the comfortable realm of mammoth concerts and album sales; they cracked the MTV market in an age where pop and new wave dominated the channel, and managed somehow to maintain a reputation as purists and outsiders even at the height of their commercial success. Grunge musicians of the next generation often mentioned Judas Priest as a primary influence, and "Breakin' the Law" found new cult life when MTV's Beavis and Butthead air-guitared regularly to the song in the 1990s. Rarely has a musical act so consistently and unabashedly typified a late twentieth-century style of musical expression.

Gett, Steve. Judas Priest, Heavy Duty: The Official Biography. Port Chester, New York, Cherry Lane Books, 1984.

"The Judas Priest Homepage." http:\www.judaspriest.com. April 1999.

Weinstein, Deena. Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology. Lexington, Lexington Books, 1991.

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