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 group back in the eighties. The Fire Power album, released March 9th, sold over 49,000 copies in the United States one week after release.
The album rose to 5th place in the list of the best 200 albums according to Billboard magazine. This was the best result in the history of Judas Priest.
The fact that the musicians, whose career has been going on for over 40 years, are still in excellent creative form, is respected.
However, the team does not belong to the lucky, caressed fame from the first days of their existence.
Starting at the same time as rock monsters such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple in the late sixties, they gained worldwide fame much later than their colleagues. Read about all this and much more in the article.
early years
The year of the creation of the Judas Priest group is considered to be 1969. And the place where the future legend of rock was destined to be born was West Bromwich. It is located 6 miles northeast of Birmingham and is known primarily as a settlement of miners, since this area is rich in coal deposits.
In the late sixties, the band that was just created included: vocalist Al Atkins, bassist Brian Stephenhill, guitarist John Perry and drummer John Partridge. Fans of Judas Priest may notice that today none of its founders remained in the group. Perry soon died in a road accident. And a few months later the guitarist left the band. Among the applicants for his place, who came to the audition, was a future member of the classical squad - Kay-Kay Downing. But then he was preferred by the seventeen-year-old multi-instrumentalist Ernst Chataway, who came from the group Earth, which was later renamed Black Sabbath.
The bassist suggested calling the team Judas Priest. This combination he first heard in the song of Bob Dylan, which was released two years earlier in the album John Wesley Harding. The translation of "Judas Priest" may be: "Priest of Judah" or "Judas is a priest." The song of Dylan tells how this hero in every possible way tempts a certain wanderer.
First performance
Their first concert was on November 25, 1969. The event was attended by the leader of Led Zeppelin - Robert Plant. It is interesting that it will be he who will have a strong influence on the manner of execution of Rob Halford, who in a few years will become the voice of the team.
First failure
The record company with which the contract was signed ceased to exist before the first album was completed. As a result, in 1970 the team broke up.
Al Atkins assembled the following roster a year later.
It included, among others, the classical guitarist Judas Priest "Kay-Kay" Downing. This time the musicians were more fortunate. They signed with Black Sabbath member agency Tommy Iommi. This company took up the management of the group.
Founder Care
By this time, Al Atkins was married and had to support a family. Therefore, the founder of the group, Judas Priest, decided to tie up with music. Nevertheless, several songs written by him were included in the first three albums of the collective.
How did the group find their "voice"
As a result of numerous changes in the lineup, vocalist Rob Halford, who was the brother of the girlfriend of the then bass player, appeared on the team. He came by leaving his previous project called Hiroshima.
The leadership of the group acted rapidly, and soon the team went on a tour of continental Europe.
First album
The group recorded it in the summer of 1974. The musicians worked on this disc with producer Roger Breinn. In addition to collaborating with Judas Priest, he is known for contributing to the creation of the first three Black Sabbath albums. These discs are considered the undisputed classic of rock music. However, working with Judas Priest, the producer chose an overly authoritarian style of communication. He made all important creative decisions on his own, disregarding the opinion of the group. Many of them were losing.
For example, Roger considered that the cliches characteristic of the design of rock music 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". On the cover was 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 a short-sighted decision to remove from the album several songs that were already known to the public through concert performances.
In addition, he cut down the song Caviar and meths, which instead of a 10-minute art-rock work turned into a two-minute instrumental composition.
The unsatisfactory quality of the recording and the commercial failure of the album caused a negative attitude of the band members to this musical material. Songs from this disc have not been performed at concerts by Judas Priest since 1976.
Change drummers
Most often in the entire history of the team there was a change of percussionists. Some drummers left, and then, after a while, came back. So it was, for example, with Alan Moore, who left the lineup before recording the first album, but again took his place in 1975.
Second record
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 subsist on temporary earnings. In such an atmosphere, the second album was recorded, the budget of which was only $ 2,000. The group wanted to make a disc that combines powerful heavy sound and elements of progressive rock.
This disc is called "Sad Wings of Fate." Its cover depicts a fallen angel surrounded by the languages of hellfire. The release of the record was followed by a tour of England. At this time, Halford often joked that fans should now burn their copies of the Rocka rolla album.
Despite modest commercial success, this disc received positive reviews in the magazine Rolling Stone, and also hit the charts of 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 the discography of Judas Priest, which received the status of platinum. After her release, the band left another drummer, Winx Forest. He explained his decision by saying that the new sound of the team, in his opinion, was too commercial.
A new decade has come. His arrival brought the group another success. The album British Steel with a razor blade depicted on the cover has become the band's most popular work.
The group made a turn towards the so-called radio format. Their songs were now no longer than three to four minutes. But, despite this, the new material was perceived by the overwhelming number of fans of the group as true Heavy Metal. Tracks such as United, Breaking the law and some others have been broadcast by popular radio stations.
In 1981 and 1982, the team released one album a year. These discs contain songs written in the same manner as material from British Steel. After recording each of them, the musicians went on a tour. During these performances, they, along with already well-known songs, showed the public songs that were not yet published, which were then included in new albums.
In 1983, a concert of Judas Priest was held as part of the San Bernardino festival in California, where Motley Crue, Scorpions, Van Halen and several others performed in addition to them.
Thus, the group became one of the rock stars of the first magnitude.
Sound evolution
British Steel and the next three albums featured a powerful metal guitar sound. 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 each other. But, despite this, each album invariably went 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 songs that were written for the previous disc, but were not included in it. Work was also underway on three tracks in the style of pop music. But they did not get into the final version of the album.
Opinion of criticism
In one of the reviews for this album it was written: "The style of the group is constantly evolving. In the Ram it down album, the musicians attempted to get rid of the synthesizers and return to the good old heavy metal."
In the Judas Priest album “Painkiller”, which was released in the early nineties, synthesizers characteristic of the style of the last decade were taken into service again.
The tour in support of this album was held in conjunction with several rock bands, mainly playing thrash metal. His culmination was the performance of Judas Priest at the festival in Rio de Janeiro in front of a hundred thousandth audience.
A music video was shot for the main song of the Painkiller album.
After the completion of the tour mentioned above, Halford left the group. The press wrote about signs of internal conflict tearing the collective. Rob organized his own thrash metal band. She got the name Fight. The musician sought to explore a new style for himself. But under the contract, he was supposed to perform at concerts with Judas Priest for another year. A singer from the so-called tribute team, that is, the group that played the songs of Judas Priest, was invited to the place of the vocalist who left the group.
This composition recorded two albums - Jugulator and Demolition. This vocalist is also known for his work with Yngwie Malmsteen.
Reunion
After 11 years of absence in 2003, Rob Halford announced his return during the upcoming release of a collection of the best songs of the group on four discs called "Metalogy". The team toured Europe and performed at the Ozzfest festival. After the reunion, Rob Halford recorded four albums with the group, including Firepower, which was released this year.
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. Also, the bands of the late sixties and early seventies who played hard rock had a great influence on the group. The group is called the most influential "heavy" team after Black Sabbath.
Judas Priest "Nostradamus"
An album with that name was released in 2008. It differs from other works of this collective in its structure - the record is conceptual. All songs from it are subject to one common idea.
Two years before its release, Rob Halford, in an interview with MTV, said that the group is working on a concept album about the life of a scientist and writer of the sixteenth century Michel de Nostradam, better known by the Latin version of his surname - Nostradamus. “He's more than anyone else for heavy metal,” Rob says of his character. "Michel was an extraordinary personality, an alchemist, a fortuneteller, a man of great talent. In his life there was a lot of joy and sorrow, suffering and happiness. He is known in all countries of the world. This is important, since we work for a huge audience," the musician continues .
This album, like the fresh Firepower, was highly praised by fans and critics.