Judas Priest’s Rob Halford recently spoke about his band’s new album and stated that he is concerned in some aspects. Surprisingly, these concerns are mainly related to him and his motivation to write lyrics for the songs.
Judas Priest released 18 albums throughout their career as a band, and Rob Halford’s contribution as a lyricist and vocalist is undeniable. With his contributions to Judas Priest, the vocalist has been known to be one of the most talented singers of all time and has been awarded the Award for Musical Excellence as a member of Judas Priest.
The band released their most recent album ‘Firepower’ in 2018, which was the first album to be released by the band in 30 years. Judas Pries gained their fire back with this album and are currently working on a new one to be released next year or 2024. Recently, Halford talked about the process and confessed some of his concerns related to himself as a contributor to the album.
He stated that the creation process takes time because he is the last person to touch the songs. He stated that after every instrumental is done, he listens and begins creating. However, he puts pressure on himself by feeling late to the process and beats down himself for it. After ‘wallowing in self-pity,’ he starts writing like a ‘maniac’ and gives it his all.
Here is what he stated about the creation process:
“Yes. You throw things out and see if they stick in 2023 or 2024. I don’t know. We’ve started tracking and been talking openly about that. This is all the slog; this is, because once the song is written, once all the instrumentation, once all that is done, it’s just a slog trying to put it together, but you’ve got to get the performance in every performance. That’s why you do multiple takes.
The only person who is always late to the party is me [chuckles] because I’ve got my ideas. I’ve got my ideas for the lyrics, the titles, and all of that. I really have to wait until everybody’s done the bulk of their work instrumentally before I can sit down and listen and start going, ‘I haven’t got a fucking thing; my brain won’t work. I can’t think of what– I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t think of the words. How am I going to sing this?’ I go through all the neurosis; I go through all the self-doubts and wallowing in self-pity.
Like, ‘I’m washed up, I’m useless. I haven’t got anything left. I’ve given it all.’ I have to go through that. I have to go through all of that then I start writing like a maniac. I just write too much stuff, so I know that that’s waiting to happen, and I dread it. I also get a thrill about it because I know that once we get to that stage, once we lay down the vocals, then the songs and the album are really starting to sound complete. It’s coming together, man. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be great.”
Especially after releasing an album 30 years after the last one, the songwriter and vocalist seem to be having concerns about his adaptation to the following creative process. However, as he mentioned, he has a technique that he hopes will work this time as well.
