Every member of every musical group in creation – if they've been around long enough – has intimated that their band is a family, but what happens if you extend the metaphor? If indeed a band is a family, it stands to reason that the songs they produce are that family's holdings; the baubles they produce and collect over time to build the household that is as much a part of the family's identity and outward reflection as the individuals involved. As time wears on, some songs might fall out of fashion or lose lustre with repeated use, but they don't get discarded for sentimental reasons so they get packed into boxes and put into storage in the attic. If one looks at the band's growth from the outside, that sort of redistribution of personal artifacts can be seen in any and every band's practice and, like any family, after a while it seems prudent to rifle through their accumulated wealth, bring some of it down from the attic and put it on display again.
Some bands' histories, as is the case with most royal families, are well-documented and so need no introduction. In the forty years since forming, Judas Priest has faced its fair share of trials, tribulations, horrendous acts of fate and still more acts of personal misgiving [perhaps the most clear and obvious of these is singer Rob Halford's departure from the band for over a decade –ed], yet has come through reasonably unscathed and proven itself to be an enduring, creatively viable entity. In 2008, the band released Nostradamus – Judas Priest's first-ever concept album – to fantastic critical praise but, perhaps because the release came twenty-four years after the band's inception or perhaps because the spectacular, wildly orchestrated sound of it was so imposing, there was something in the band's membership that clearly yearned for the feel of making music that they'd had and experienced before, but was from a decidedly different time. It had been there before but was so long ago gone that the romance of it was palpable.
In that moment, twenty-nine years after they cast the die and poured the metal for it originally, Judas Priest advanced to their attic for rediscover and polish their British Steel so they could show it to new fans that may have still been a glint in some metalhead's eye and make those devout fans that have waited so long for another course stand up and cheer. “This tour has been received so very, very well – better than we ever expected actually,” marvels Priest guitarist Glen Tipton, recounting events and the reception of Judas Priest's current tour. “We've been out playing British Steel from start to finish and it's the first time we've ever done that actually – we've never played an album in its entirety before this tour – but it's just fantastic. The reaction has been great and the crowds have been really into it and it's just been a really great way to celebrate thirty years of British Steel.
“The set at the moment is comprised of British Steel and other songs of the time in keeping with that,” continues the guitarist. “The priority on the road is to promote British Steel and then we've sort of enhanced it and supplemented it with other numbers like “The Ripper” or “Victim Of Change” and others from that era so it's all retro types of songs and it's quite nostalgic in a sense and very appropriate to perform with British Steel. The mix of fans that have come out is incredibly wide too; we've got a lot of the stalwart fans there and a surprising number of younger kids that got turned on to Priest by their parents or discovered us in their own way, in their own time which is a great thing.
“It's always great to see young faces in the audience; it means that, through the years, you've done some things right.”
As conversation turns to bring British Steel into greater focus, a creeping air of nostalgia overtakes Tipton as he recalls the sessions that brought forth his band's first genuine, landmark album three decades ago. It was a different time and that fact is evident in the significant, romantic shift in Tipton's voice. “British Steel was one of those albums that came together very quickly,” recalls the guitarist. “We recorded it at a place called Tittenhurst Park which was originally John Lennon's house – he recorded “Imagine” there while he was sitting at that piano in that white room so there was a great vibe there.
“It was one of the few albums where we wrote at least fifty per cent of it in the studio while we were recording – which was very unusual for us – so it was a very spontaneous album as such; it wasn't complicated at all and was very straight forward,” continues Tipton reminiscing. “Songs like “Breaking The Law” or “Living After Midnight” – which are immediate and straightforward songs – all just sort of clicked and fell into place. Because of that, it's very easy to perform on stage; they're very basic stuff like “The Rage” or “Steel”… it's got a lot of variation, but they're quite simple songs in a sense. It was also a very unique record in the sense that we actually wrote a lot of it while we were in the studio which we had never done before or since at that point.
“It was a very different time, then. We'd do up to a dozen takes of songs in the old days, pick the best one – the one that had the best tempo and the one that captured the right feel – and work with that; mistakes weren't that important because we could always go in and repair those, and then overdub on that and finish it off. Unlike now where you really break things down to the most minute percentage and hammer it flat so it's flawless and pristine, back then we'd just go into a studio, set mikes up and just almost record everything in a live sense; doing takes and picking the best take as opposed to doing each song piece by piece. That's what we used to do in those days; run through the whole song several times and then picked the version of the song that we all liked best.”
Even now – listening to the album with so much time gone – it's easy to understand why long-time fans fell into fits of ecstasy at the announcement that Judas Priest would be touring British Steel again; the album is a classic document that catches singer Rob Halford, guitarists Tipton and K.K. Downing, bassist Ian Hill and drummer Dave Holland at a (one of several) peak in their creative powers as, without attempting to indulge the flare for the dramatic that so many other heavy rock bands were toying with at the time (including Queen, Black Sabbath, Marc Bolan) and would later become a staple of Judas Priest's identity too, the band just drops a set of nine slabs of rock in front of listeners to take or leave as they wish.
From the opening sixteenth note charge of “Rapid Fire,” there aren't many people exposed to British Steel that won't take up the call. With classic, cascading guitars, classic damn-the-torpedoes sneers and Halford's voice – which veers between operatic howl and snarling spit – British Steel stands as one of the pre-eminent records of its day because, simply said, there isn't a micro-tone in its run-time that didn't end up influencing something that would come after it; from the posturing and punch of hair metal in the Eighties, to the solid, muscular workouts of Randy Rhoads and Zakk Wylde alongside Ozzy Osbourne in the Eighties and Nineties to Jesse Hughes' staggering, volume-tastic swells with Eagles Of Death Metal, there are precious few bands playing heavy rock that don't owe a note or two to British Steel. The singles still hold all the water they did when they were first released too – “Living After Midnight,” “Breaking The Law,” “United” and “You Don't Have To Be Old To Be Wise” all stand up here and brim with an energy that's almost electric in its vibration and are dominated by the most infectious, cocksure and arrogant spirit ever committed to tape; anyone that hears them it guaranteed to start swaggering and strutting a little more securely as they play out and, in the band's case, it's one of the only times in their career that they'd really enjoy any true hedonism.
That freer spirit expressed and sustained through British Steel's forty-four-minute run-time may not have regularly surfaced again in Judas Priest's studio dealings but, according to Tipton, has begun to sink back into his band's mindset as they dig deeper into the songs and once again feel a greater connection with them, perhaps signaling that another change may yet be in the air for Priest – although nothing is set in stone. “I don't know where we get the energy and enthusiasm from, but it's still there in abundance,” muses the guitarist as he attempts to articulate the restored vigor in the band. “We really do feed off the audience; I mean, you could have had a bad day but, when you get on that stage and the audience roars, we're back there and we've got full energy. The audience does help a lot; we are, first and foremost, a live band and that crowd is the key. It just feels great! After we finish up in North America, we're doing some festivals in Japan.
“I'm not sure what the next step is going to be after that though, but we never do,” continues Tipton. “We always make that decision when the time comes so we'll take a break at the end of Japan, probably through Christmas, and then next year we'll sit down and talk about where we're going to go, whether we're going to do another studio album, whether we're going to perform Nostradamus… We've got various options open to us and, up until now, we haven't made those decisions, as always, but we will when the time comes.
“We've had such great fun on this tour, I almost wonder if a sort of retro-sounding album of new material might be in the cards – that could be the case you know? We're enjoying playing this album so much and it's going down so well and the crowd's loving it, that maybe that will be the formula for the next album; running along those lines. The beauty of Priest is that we don't even know what the future holds and we never do. When we start to write our next album, we don't know which direction it's going to take, it formulates itself so, maybe subconsciously, that will creep into the next writing sessions and maybe the next album will be a sort of a retro album – who knows? I guess we'll see what comes, when it comes.”
Artist:
www.judaspriest.com
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Judas Priest – [Live]
Album:
The twentieth anniversary edition of British Steel is available now on Amazon. Buy it here .
