When Judas Priest announced in the early hours of 15 April 2025 that their former drummer Les Binks had passed away aged 73, there was more sadness felt at MetalTalk. Stained Class was the fourth Judas Priest studio album, the first to feature Binks, and would feature a Binks-written song that would be a staple of the Judas Priest live set for the next 45 years.
Released on 10 February 1978, Stained Class brought a harder edge to Judas Priest. The album would hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 1990 when the song Better By You, Better Than Me was the subject of a civil action brought against the band. As Les Binks would discuss with Mark Taylor in a MetalTalk interview published on 31 May 2018, this was almost bizarre.
“Like you, I watched it on TV,” Les Binks told Mark Taylor. “I was out of the band maybe 10 years, but I thought that whole thing was just ludicrous. If there was any logic in that accusation, why did it take 10 years for anyone to do what they did? Secondly, why would a band want their fans to commit suicide? It’s just nuts. You’re going to have nobody to buy your records and nobody to buy your concert tickets. It’s just stupid.
“Of course, I was there for all the recordings, and I knew that there was no mention of putting subliminal messages. I don’t know anybody that’s got a record deck that goes in reverse, you know? Mine only goes in one way.”
The suit alleged that subliminal messages on the song said, “Do it.” Of course, if you turn the power up, you could also hear the word peppermint. Better By You, Better Than Me was originally written by Spooky Tooth
Judas Priest – Stained Class 1978
The song in the lawsuit was originally written by Spooky Tooth. But the bizarre thing is, if you turn the album over, on the other side is a song that Les Binks co-wrote, Beyond The Realms Of Death. That sounds more like a song about suicide.
“I think that would qualify more so, yeah,” Les says. “Funny enough, I didn’t write it that way. When we were making the album, I used to visit Birmingham quite a lot for rehearsals to shape the songs up. We would demo the songs first, in a little tiny studio up in Birmingham, before we went into a proper major studio with the producer.
“We could send the demos to the producer and say these are the songs we want to record, so he could hear them and come up with suggestions of anything he wanted to add in.”
Les says his inspiration for the song was because he felt the album was missing something. “Most of the songs were very up-tempo,” Les said. “Exciter, for example. I thought midway in the set, it’s nice to drop the tempo down and create a bit of light and shade. We didn’t have a song that fitted that.
“I picked up an acoustic guitar at home. And I had a Revox, a reel-to-reel machine made by Studer, a company that made all the big 24 track recorders for studios. So it was studio quality. You could bounce tracks back and forth. So I just put a little beatbox on, and I came up with the song. I played it myself on acoustic guitar and then overdubbed an electric guitar and a bass.
“I asked Steve Mann, the guitarist from Lionheart and Michael Schenker. He lived quite near to me at the time. I asked him to come round to my place and play the solo on it, which he did.”
Les Binks Priesthood at the Legends Of Rock, Great Yarmouth
Les Binks would present the song to the band, but with no lyrics. “Rob had such a strong identity with his lyrics and his vocal style,” Les said. “I thought it’s best to leave that to him. Most of stuff that Glenn wrote, Rob would write the lyrics. Same with KK. I played it to them at a rehearsal.
“I’ve got a weird way of playing guitar. I’ve never had a guitar lesson in my life. I never really wanted to be a guitar player, but I thought it’s a useful tool for any drummer to learn a melodic instrument as well and learn about chord structures and learn how to compose. So, if you’re gonna write stuff, it’s a useful tool to have.”
If you watch the video of the interview, Les gives a visual clue to the movements. “I’m right-handed, and I picked up a guitar by the neck and just automatically swivelled it around like that. I’m now holding it [right-handed guitar] as a left-handed guitarist.
“I always felt that holding down chord shapes and all that was a lot trickier than strumming. The first time you learn a few chords on a guitar, you’re just strumming and playing different chord shapes. I thought that was the easy bit. So I did that with my left hand and I did the hard part with my right hand.
“But of course, I never played a left-handed guitar. I was playing a right-handed guitar with right-handed stringing, so the chord shapes are all different.”
K.K. and Glenn Tipton would have to examine what Les Binks was playing. “But they liked the song,” Les says. “Rob wrote some lyrics for it. He came up with the title and the concept of the song, which is quite a heavy subject.”
Les was happy with Rob Halford’s lyrics.
“The more I heard them, I thought it was quite an interesting concept,” he says. “And who knows what goes on in Rob’s head? It’s become a Judas Priest classic. I wish I was making the money from it that I should have made because that’s another sore subject. The publishing on that was stolen.
“If I had remained in the band, I would have wanted to develop and contribute to the writing as well because I think I’m probably the only drummer that they had that really contributed to the writing.
“But it was nice to have another input and somebody else coming from a different direction. I think the song worked great because it starts off acoustically. I think we had a 12-string acoustic on the intro. Then it builds up into a big heavy riff, so it fitted in nicely with the musical concept for the band.
“It also provided that bit of light and shade within the set, so it’s not just all boom boom boom boom boom. We can take it down a bit here and then build it back up again.”
RIP Les Binks – 8 August 1951 – 15 March 2025.
“I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear of the passing of drummer Les Binks,” Steve Mann wrote on Facebook. We go back a long way to around 1978 when Les was in Judas Priest. We were both living in Ealing in West London and hung out in the thriving local music scene, becoming close friends.
“I remember playing guitar on his demo of the song he wrote for Priest which became Beyond The Realms Of Death. Les joined my local band at the time, and I later brought him into the sessions which became Tytan’s classic first album Rough Justice. He also became a member of Lionheart for a while.
“Sadly, we lost contact for years, until a year or so ago when I bumped into him playing a gig in London’s Camden Town, and we renewed our friendship. I was hoping we could work together again, but it was not to be.
“Be happy and safe in your onward travels Les. It was a privilege and a pleasure to know you.”
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Les Binks On The Judas Priest Classic That Shaped Metal first appeared on
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