Back in October 2007 when I first spoke with Rob Halford, Judas Priest were right in the middle of working on their album Nostradamus, which has now been released on Sony BMG. The album is a huge concept record across two discs, covering the life of the prophet Nostradamus. It was a huge undertaking, and one that many people would perhaps have expected to see Priest overwriting for. To the contrary, though, using Nostradamus’s life story, and telling the story in a chronological way, ensured the band knew exactly where it was going at every step.
This time round, I ask Halford whether they found the album a bigger job than they had anticipated. “Most of his [Nostradamus’] life is documented,” Halford replies. “On the internet, in books, magazines, films, documentaries. It was all laid out in the research, but then we had to put it into metal with Priest. There was fun that we had in covering that aspect of it, but there’s a really solid part of the release that talks about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This is as close as we get to the prophecies. We get into the more personal issues of his life and what they cost him, with lost love and so on.”
The release’s tracklisting exudes adventure and prophecy, and immediately gives you an idea of the journey of Nostradamus’s life – even before hearing the album. Halford believes they’ve managed to capture a sense of the man himself, rather than just his actions and prophecies.
“I think we did a good job with things in his life that people don’t know about,” the singer muses. “There are twenty-three titles, which are the bulk of the story. But I think that if you just get lost in the world and you listen to the messages we are putting across with the lyrics, you can feel really close to him. You know, it gets intimate in parts and places.
“It’s definitely got a metal vibe,” he adds. “But the trials and tribulations that he was going through five hundred years ago, they were the same things that we all go through. It was cool to look into that and try and get those aspects of his sense and his experience.” Halford highlights how they tried to match the music to the experiences of Nostradamus at certain points in his life. “If you’re dealing with a tragedy, like when he’s lost his family, the emotion is sombre, light, and laidback and melancholy. You just look at where he was at any given moment, and you can say, ‘I know how he must’ve been feeling at that time’. So, having said that, it is difficult to make that into music. But we’ve been doing that for over thirty years. We’re metal musicians and we have a lot of experience doing that.”
The promotional material for Nostradamus promises the album contains “new frontiers explored and defined”. Never one to take the promo material too literally, I ask Halford how exactly the album pushes boundaries for Priest. “Just some of the musical embellishments we’ve never done before on a large scale,” he explains. “If you know everything about Priest, everything you love about the band is in the music on Nostradamus. There are cool new moments with the instrumentation, and it is exciting to listen to. You know, we have emphasised that it is a Priest record: it is metal.” He pauses a moment. ‘When you hear Prophecy or any of the other tracks, you’re hearing it at its finest in terms of the metal sound. It is a heavy metal record with lots of new adventures and styles and atmospheres and things like that.”
And finally, as every Judas Priest fan already knows, the band is touring Australia this month. But apart from Australia, Priest are in the midst of a mammoth world tour, covering North and South America, Canada, Japan, Korea and many more destinations. It means that they’ve been on tour non-stop from June until about Christmas this year.
“There are millions of Priest fans all over the world,” says Halford. “After two years in the studio, we’re gonna go out there and play a set-list of classic Priest, new Priest, songs from Nostradamus, songs we haven’t played for a few years. We’re gonna play songs we’ve never played live before. And we’re bringing the full show: the bike and everything. Australia will get the same as everyone else.”
In order to pull off this enormous show, the band is bringing its full crew with them. “Oh yeah, we’re bringing a lot of crew,” Halford enthuses. “Without the crew we can’t do it. They’re fantastic people. They’ve been with us quite a long time. Once the Priest machine gets rolling, it’s rumbling around until we pull the stops out!”
For all of you Priest fans who are falling apart with excitement at the prospect of seeing the original line-up on stage, Halford has this to say. “Thank you to all our Australia metal-head fans for supporting us over the years. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone again. When fans of Priest come to see us you’ll be seeing the roots of heavy metal, and when Priest comes to Australia we’ll be covering everything from the late ‘70s until now. You’re gonna have a wonderful night with Priest!”
Judas Priest’s Nostradamus is out now on Sony BMG. Australia – don’t miss your date with these gods of metal this month.
Wednesday 10 Sep – Brisbane Entertainment Centre
Friday 12 Sep – Acer Arena, Sydney
Saturday 13 Sep – Melbourne Vodafone Arena
Sunday 14 Sep – Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Tuesday 16 Sep – Challenge Stadium, Perth
