{"id":496710,"date":"2026-01-06T14:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T14:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496710\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T14:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T14:54:18","slug":"judas-priest-interview-painkiller-the-album-that-saved-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496710\/","title":{"rendered":"Judas Priest interview: Painkiller, the album that saved them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author\u2019s note<\/strong>: In July 1990 I flew to the Spanish city of Marbella to interview Judas Priest. It was two months before the release of Painkiller, their long-awaited follow-up to Ram It Down, an album that had gone gold in the States but got some stick from the UK press. Some metal critics thought it too polished. They had much the same opinion of Priest\u2019s new stage outfits on the subsequent tour. So Priest decided to take some time to come back with a killer album. <\/p>\n

They spent a lot of that time in Europe – recording in France and mixing in Holland \u2013 but stayed for what seemed like for ever holed up together in Spain. They\u2019d done something similar when making 1986\u2019s Turbo, staying under one roof in Spain to avoid distractions and to focus on work. This time there was the added task of getting to know their new drummer, Scott Travis, and planning a new live show. I also remember being summoned to interview Priest in an old isolated farmhouse in the ice and snow of northern Denmark, which was chosen for its distance from any rock musician-friendly temptations, but that\u2019s another story. <\/p>\n

By the time I got to Marbella, the new album was done and dusted. But the release had been delayed due to a bizarre trial that was under way in Reno in the US. Judas Priest had been accused of hiding subliminal messages in their 1978 album Stained Class that led two suicidal young American men to shoot themselves. The trial was due to begin in August. A few weeks after the interview that follows, Rob Halford was planning to fly to the US and defend the band in court.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\n

\"Lightning\n<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sitting in the sun, headphones on, listening to the new Judas Priest<\/a> album on my Walkman. It\u2019s called Painkiller<\/a>, and it\u2019s mighty. \u201cYes, Rob Halford<\/a> agrees, in that surprisingly gentle Brummy voice of his. \u201cReally pulls the hair off your balls, this one.\u201d Off your head too, judging by his new hairdo and absence of his bleached ponytail. We\u2019re in Marbella on the so-called Costa del Crime in a swanky villa on the beach.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Their nearest neighbours, Priest tell me, are Baron Rothschild from the House of Lords on one side, and Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor on the other. Priest\u2019s villa, rented from a German princess, is all glass and chrome and shiny white furniture, with enough rooms to comfortably house Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and KK Downing<\/a>, bassist Ian Hill and Scott Travis, Priest\u2019s new drummer and the band\u2019s first American full-time band member.<\/p>\n

Outside there\u2019s a swimming pool, a spotless lawn on which KK has been practising his golf swing, palm trees being hosed down by a gardener, and a clothes line in the back garden where Priest\u2019s undies sway in the breeze.<\/p>\n

It might look like they\u2019re on holiday, but the band have been working flat-out. Much of their time in Spain was spent in a valley in a part of southern Spain that tourists, movie stars and bank robbers and the like never see. With only each other for company, they were focused solely on getting the new songs and the new stage show right.<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really disciplined ourselves,\u201d Halford says. \u201cThe whole time, we kept reflecting on what it is that people honestly think of when they think of Priest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a combination of a lot of different things, admittedly. But the basic backbone of this group has always been traditional, almost vintage, British heavy metal<\/a> music. It was on that understanding that we started to write. And the end result is what you\u2019ve got on Painkiller – really hard heavy metal, fast-paced and powerful.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

“There are no hits on there,\u201d he adds, laughing. \u201cNo singles whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re giving the fans what they\u2019ve been asking from us,\u201d Downing butts in. \u201cAnd it\u2019ll please us too, because we\u2019re not happy playing songs that are a bit of a compromise. We love this stuff. When we were putting this record together, we set out to complete what we\u2019d threatened to do with Ram It Down \u2013 which was to make the ultimate, out-and-out Priest album. And that\u2019s what we\u2019ve done. And,\u201d he laughs, \u201cit could be the most successful failure we\u2019ll ever have!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Rob\n<\/p>\n

Rob Halford in Marbella (Image credit: George Chin\/IconicPix)<\/p>\n

It took the best part of a year to write the songs, and almost the same again to fine-tune and record them. And there we all were thinking that, since we hadn\u2019t heard from them the past two years, they were sitting around in the sun or playing golf!<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019ve never played golf, Sylv,\u201d Rob bristles. \u201cIt\u2019s Ken or Glenn who are the golf fanatics, and Ian. I did try and play it once but I couldn\u2019t get it together; it just wasn\u2019t heavy metal enough for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay, then, that for the past two years he was cruising into the sunset on his Harley-Davidson. \u201cYeah, that\u2019s more what I do. Seriously, though, they think we\u2019re out there in our Rolls-Royces spending money hither and thither with our platinum American Express cards, and nothing could be further from the truth! We are, in one form or another, constantly active doing Priest stuff. It seems to have been like that since 1971 or whenever this thing began.\u201d<\/p>\n

This thing began, of course, back in Birmingham, the sweaty, dirty belly button in the middle of England. But here they are, galavanting around the continent (the album was recorded in Holland and in France \u2013 a French ch\u00e2teau no less), hobnobbing with the stars in Southern Spain. Hell, how do they keep the tough industrial Birminghamness through all this that made them what they are?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in the blood,\u201d says KK. \u201cWhen you put yourself in a little room with your guitar and records and all the stuff you need, you could be anywhere in the world, really, you just get lost in your own world. And it\u2019s in the blood and it comes out of you. That\u2019s what gives you the mentality to like this style of music in the first place, is your upbringing. A kid that\u2019s grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth or whatever is more likely to like Wet Wet Wet or Bros, that sort of stuff.<\/p>\n

“The fact that we like metal is because we came a bit more aggressively through life in the first fifteen years,\u201d he laughs. \u201cYou know the old saying? Wasn\u2019t brought up, dragged up. That\u2019s the way I feel about it anyway. It\u2019s imprinted. And not easily burnt off by a bit of foreign sunshine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Glenn\n<\/p>\n

Glenn Tipton in Marbella (Image credit: George Chin\/IconicPix)<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day,\u201d says Rob, \u201cit comes down to your character growing up as a kid and all the things that mould you into the type of person you are. Nobody in this band\u2019s a poseur or a star. I\u2019m only ever a hundred per cent comfortable when I\u2019m in Walsall, my home town. I\u2019ve just been there for the last couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is why you look so pale and miserable?!<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I look miserable? I don\u2019t mean to. It\u2019s this bleeding court case looming, pissing me off. I\u2019m actually really up on this album and looking forward to doing the tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court case you probably know all about, since it\u2019s been all over the newspapers. Five years ago, two young Americans, Ray Belknap and James Vance, took their own lives with a shotgun while listening to Priest\u2019s album Stained Class.<\/p>\n

Their families hold the band and their record label responsible, claiming subliminal messages in the lyrics and codes hidden on the album sleeve (one portion of the cover picture, blown up to enormous proportions, shows a series of dots; join them together and they spell \u2018SUI\u2019, the first three letters of \u2018suicide\u2019 or so says one of the witnesses for the prosecution, a subliminal message \u2018expert\u2019 who\u2019s previously managed to find the word \u2018SEX\u2019 in the dots on a Ritz cracker) and Priest are leaving tomorrow to spend a month in Reno, Nevada, fighting the case<\/a>. Why don\u2019t they treat the thing with the contempt it deserves and just ignore it?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we hadn\u2019t gone,\u201d says Rob, \u201cthey\u2019d have said: \u2018That\u2019s an admission of guilt\u2019, they\u2019d have tried us without us being there, and the prosecution, more than likely, without us defending ourselves, would have stung CBS for five or six million dollars, and stung us personally for a few million.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"KK\n<\/p>\n

KK Downing (Image credit: PG Brunelli\/IconicPix)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just want our money, is what they want,\u201d says KK. \u201cTo be guilty of what they\u2019re accusing us of \u2013 deliberately putting things on records to cause deliberate harm to people enough to make them commit suicide \u2013 is money the right punishment anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n

Right. You should be burned alive on an upside-down cross or something.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely! I\u2019m agreeing,\u201d he laughs. \u201cBut let\u2019s not put ideas into their heads! It\u2019s just total madness. And it is upsetting, because there\u2019s family men in the group. You don\u2019t want your aunts and uncles looking in the newspaper and reading \u2018You\u2019ll pay for the death of our sons\u2019 with a picture of us underneath. Because people don\u2019t understand. It\u2019s entertainment, isn\u2019t it really?<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve said time and time again that books and movies are far more influential than our music. Unless you\u2019re into Judas Priest and you want to hear that style of music, you wouldn\u2019t buy the record anyway. Like you wouldn\u2019t see The Exorcist unless you wanted to get scared. I wouldn\u2019t go and see Love Story, you know? It\u2019s unfortunate, because now people are going to be watching our every lyric.\u201d<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t stopped Priest from writing songs on Painkiller that will upset every concerned parent, potential psychopath and Satanist-under-the-bed spotter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the good thing about this record,\u201d says Rob. \u201cWe let everybody see that we will not be intimidated and put on trial for everything we write. We maintain that censorship has no place whatsoever in any form of art. We have to get on with what we\u2019re about as artists and writers and not let this affect us. This court thing is a drag.<\/p>\n

“And it only happens in America, which is really very, very sad, because we love that country dearly. I mean I\u2019ve got a home over there and I continue to go there when I get the chance. America is still one of the very important places for Priest. And to have this hanging over our heads has to some extent changed my views and opinions on the America I believed in. It\u2019s a real shame.”<\/p>\n

\n

\"Ian\n<\/p>\n

Ian Hill in Marbella (Image credit: George Chin\/IconicPix)<\/p>\n

As the first step in their plan to take all the people they like out of America and leave the place to the evangelists, the lawyers and the subliminal message gurus, Priest gave the job once held by Dave Holland to American drummer Scott Travis. So what\u2019s up? Is British metal in such a sorry state they couldn\u2019t find a British drummer? And will the first-ever American in the band dilute the band\u2019s Britishness at all?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell for so many years Britain was looked upon, and for those of us who have survived it is still looked upon, as producing the best heavy metal bands in the world,\u201d Rob says with a shrug. \u201cIt is a pity, isn\u2019t it? I mean, we really looked everywhere in Britain. But if you listen to the work on this record, there really was only one man for the job, and that was Scott Travis.<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s absolute dynamite. I don\u2019t really feel his being one of those American-type people [laughs] has any bearing or influence on the way things turned out. The proof of the fact is the drums coming out of those speakers don\u2019t sound \u2018American\u2019, they just sound really lethal heavy metal drums, and that\u2019s all that really matters. Coupled with the fact that he\u2019s a really nice guy with a British sense of humour, which is useful, and that he\u2019s been a Priest fan all his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott Travis used to be in club bands in Norfolk, Virginia, doing Judas Priest covers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was \u201981, \u201982, Judas Priest played in Virginia,\u201d Scott says later, \u201cthe Screaming For Vengeance tour, and I was such a fan. After the band played, I went to the hotel where I thought they were staying. I was trying to meet somebody in the band, basically, to try and get a job with the band!<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, I was just so determined that I didn\u2019t think how ridiculous it was that a group that\u2019s touring is going to take on this guy they don\u2019t know, in the middle of nowhere. They don\u2019t know me from Adam; I could be a psychopath! [Laughs.] I met Glenn Tipton and asked for his autograph and showed him some pictures of my drum set.<\/p>\n

“When I saw the band, I saw four guys up front that were really rocking and powerful, and I just thought that if the drums were a little bit more powerful, it would kick the band up another level. Because to me, the drummer is the backbone, especially in heavy metal. Anyway, I enquired how he liked his drummer, and needless to say nothing happened other than him giving me his autograph and talking for a few minutes. But it\u2019s ironic how it\u2019s turned out, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Scott\n<\/p>\n

Scott Travis in Marbella (Image credit: George Chin\/IconicPix)<\/p>\n

Dave Holland told them he was going to leave halfway through the Ram It Down tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came to us,\u201d says Rob, \u201cand said: \u2018Look, I\u2019ve got to tell you, this is getting too much for me physically and mentally. I really can\u2019t give the commitment and dedication that being in Priest is all about. So I think at the end of the tour I\u2019ll do the gentlemanly thing and leave the band.\u2019 Which was a bit of a bombshell. But Dave has some fond memories of great years in Priest and we\u2019re still good friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a family thing, really,\u201d says KK. \u201cHis father died and he went through a long illness, and I think Dave felt his place after all these years was to be at home and taking care of his mum, which I understand. He just basically reevaluated the most important things in his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did it make the rest of you reevaluate? I mean, here you are, on your fourteenth record, about to go on a year-long tour?<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought about it\u201d, says KK. \u201cIt does make you think, certainly. But like I said before, it\u2019s in your blood, and whatever\u2019s going to happen\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it hard coming up with new songs and ideas 14 albums on?<\/p>\n

Ritchie Blackmore, for one, has a theory that you\u2019re born with only so many songs, and every time you write one, another one\u2019s gone for good and the pile gets lower. Kind of like women being born with just so many ova, without getting too gynaecological.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually,\u201d Rob laughs, \u201cI\u2019ve always felt that when you make an album it\u2019s a bit like giving birth. Because first of all there\u2019s the creation business when you\u2019re literally pulling things out of thin air, and then you go through the incubation period of making demos and so forth, and then the final stages are in the studio and it\u2019s your baby and it\u2019s getting bigger and bigger and bigger and it\u2019s going to come out into the world any day now.<\/p>\n

“And suddenly it\u2019s out. It\u2019s in the shops and it\u2019s gone. It\u2019s no longer yours any more. It belongs to the world. And I always feel a bit deflated afterwards, after we come out of the studio. It\u2019s so intense when you\u2019re in there, and when it\u2019s all over it\u2019s like, that\u2019s that. It\u2019s like post-natal depression. This is really silly, but you started this!<\/p>\n

“I think, fortunately for Priest, we\u2019ve still got some songs left and we\u2019re still able to do it. This was a really fun album to do. We were working within a field that we\u2019re comfortable with and we\u2019re good at, and you\u2019ve had all that experience accumulating over the years. Priest has become a bit of a finely tuned thing. It looks like a Rolls-Royce, but it\u2019s got a Ferrari engine!\u201d he laughs. \u201cIt really was enjoyable this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band co-produced Painkiller with Chris Tsangarides. Those of you who read the fine print on the album sleeve credits album will recognise him as assistant engineer-come-tape-op-come-tea boy on Sad Wings Of Destiny back in 1976.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the years,\u201d says Rob, \u201cChris has become a very respected producer in his own right, and he always manages to capture this really traditional British heavy metal sound which it was important for us to get on this record. We wanted it to be a no-frills album, in the sense that we all played live together in the studio with a very limited amount of overdubbing and only two what you could call production pieces, Nightcrawler and A Touch Of Evil. The rest are very straightforward. So Chris came down to Spain and we had a meeting.<\/p>\n

“Last time we saw him was years and years ago in Tokyo, and the great thing about metal is that when you make true friends, years can go by without seeing each other and when you come back together it\u2019s like you\u2019ve never been away. That personal relationship is very important in a studio, because making a record is a very emotional, volatile experience. I\u2019m glad we did go with him, because it sounds killer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there any relevance to the title?<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, because we think that\u2019s what this stuff does \u2013 it kills your pain, it makes you feel good. We\u2019ve said from day one, and continue to, that what we do and what hundreds of other bands like ourselves do is give people a great deal of pleasure and release and good therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just good, honest, straightforward stuff,\u201d says KK. \u201cIt\u2019s not commercial; we think it\u2019s what our fans want and what British heavy metal is all about. We\u2019re proud of our heritage and where we come from, and just because we wore the odd garment that was a different colour leather to black\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The sentence breaks off as I splutter on my beer at the memory of their Turbo-period designer togs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was good for its time,\u201d says Rob, defensively. \u201cThat\u2019s the great thing about Priest, we\u2019re always on the lookout for something a bit unusual or different musically and visually.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Judas\n<\/p>\n

Judas Priest in August 1990, just before the release of Painkiller: (l-r) Scott Travis, Ian Hill, Rob Halford, KK Downing, Glenn Tipton (Image credit: Ray Palmer Archive\/IconicPix)<\/p>\n

Well they certainly were different and unusual outfits. Didn\u2019t Rob, the wearer of black studded leather as far as I\u2019m concerned, feel a bit of a prat in all that pretty coloured stuff though?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo I didn\u2019t, Sylv,\u201d he answers. \u201cIf I had felt like a prat, I wouldn\u2019t have gone out there and stood in front of twenty thousand people in arenas in America! That\u2019s just what we did then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019ll have to say,\u201d adds KK, \u201cthat the Turbo tour in the States was probably a highlight of the band\u2019s career. It was very successful, it really was, and we actually achieved pulling in extra people, more people than just the heavy metal fans, but still playing the same songs and stuff. It was great at the time, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I must admit,\u201d says Rob, \u201cat the end of the day I feel much more comfortable with a whip in my hand than I do with anything else. The new stuff that\u2019s being made for us now is what people probably identify with Priest. I think it\u2019s going to look good, this tour. We\u2019ve got a great stage set being made, and some fantastic songs to play on stage. It\u2019s the first time Priest has been on the road for two years. We start in America in October and hopefully we\u2019ll be touring Europe at the beginning of next year and we\u2019re really pumped up for it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still get excited about it. Sometimes it\u2019s a bit daunting. You think: \u2018I\u2019ve got to get through eight hours on the bus. Another Holiday Inn! But that soon disappears. I know exactly how good I feel when I\u2019m on that stage screaming my head off to all those metal maniacs, and it\u2019s the best feeling in the world,\u201d Halford laughs. \u201cI think I\u2019m a big kid in a leather diaper, really!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Author\u2019s note: In July 1990 I flew to the Spanish city of Marbella to interview Judas Priest. It…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":496711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-496710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115848732348784699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}