Tagged: Rob Halford
ROB HALFORD – My memories (the final part 3)
[Continued from previous post]
February 2, 1991 – Sheraton Hotel, Stockholm
It was a very cold day and I felt sorry for the poor rocker guys who were standing outside the hotel freezing their butts off, waiting for a chance to get their Judas Priest-albums signed.
I knew what it was like to stand out in the cold like that. I had done it myself on a few occasions. But this time, I actually had an appointment with The Metal God.
My friend Janet was with me as moral support, cause I was pretty much crapping my pants, if you pardon the expression. I was only 21 and I had never met Judas Priest before – and this band had changed my life 8 years earlier. It’s a big deal. And now, I was about to meet Rob Halford, it was mindblowing. I couldn’t have been happier if anyone had offered me a million bucks.
We walked into the hotel-bar/restaurant and I immediately spotted the people from CBS (now Sony Music) and Jayne Andrews, who I had met in Copenhagen two days before, who had arranged this interview for me.
Just as we were about to walk over to the CBS-table, I noticed two familiar faces in the bar. Anders Tengner, a well known Swedish journalist who wrote for musc magazine OKEJ, and…Rob Halford. I was struggling with myself, cause I had to remind myself of one very important fact:
I was there as a journalist, not a fan, I had to fake that typical “journalist-look”.
The “I’m not-impressed“-professional-expression. But believe me, that was the LAST thing I felt like. I felt like I was 13 years old all over again.
Janet and I took a seat at the table with the CBS people and Jayne, for a casual conversation while we were waiting for Rob to finish his interview. I was dead nervous and probably said my “yes” and “no’s” in the totally wrong places but I wasn’t really listening to the conversation. I couldn’t, my heart was racing.
Then, I saw Anders packing his things. He shook hands with Rob and left. I was next…
I wasn’t doing the interview alone – and thank god for that! I felt a lot more confident with the other dude being there, for a change. Normally I would want an exclusive, but in this case, I probably needed Valium more than anything…! :-D
I’m surprised I even managed to say anything at all. And another short piece of info that I still remember very clearly before moving on to the actual interview:
We originally only had about 15-20 minutes to our disposal, and when we were running out of time, I saw Jayne walking towards our table. But for some reason she stopped half-way and went back to the CBS-table.
Later, I asked my friend Janet, who had been sitting there with them, if she knew what that had been all about. She said that Jayne’s intention had been to tell us to finish off the interview, but when she saw the expression on my face, she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt me. So she gave me another 10 minutes. I must have looked like I was talking to god or something. Heck – I WAS! :-)
So, not only did we talk for almost 40 minutes (5 minutes were edited out though, off the record stuff) then there was photos taken, albums signed – and Rob didn’t care that Janye was stressed to get him to the sound check.
He calmly walked out to the fans who had probably turned to ice outside, signed their stuff and talked to them. Then he came back, totally cool, and said he was ready to leave.Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep for DAYS.
I’ve met Rob many times since, and we are now on a first-name basis, which is totally weird to me. I still look up to this man a lot. This was my first meeting with him but hopefully not the last.
From one of my more recent conversations with Rob – 17 years later, many Priest-interviews later :)
ROB HALFORD – my memories (part 1)
As I was digging through my boxes of old cassettes, I found another, rather precious tape last night: My very first ROB HALFORD (Judas Priest)-interview!
I was so nervous, I could barely breathe that day. I was only 21 when that interview was made, and to this day, I still think of Rob as a “Metal God”. My love and respect for the man cannot be described in words.
But the truth is that the 1991 interview wasn’t really the first one I did with Rob. Indirectly, I “spoke” to him already 27 years ago, in 1984.
I was a 14-year-old fan and I used to listen to the only hard rock show there was on Swedish national radio back in those days – Rockdepartementet. I got in touch with one of the hosts, Marianne Christensson, and we became penpals. I’ve still got most of her postcards with the Rockdepartementet-logo on, and the letters.
I knew that Priest were coming, so I sent her a letter and asked her if she could maybe ask Rob some of my questions.
One evening, the phone rang. I still remember that grey plastic phone we had in the kitchen, it looked exactly like this:
It was Marianne. She said that she was meeting Rob in Gothenburg and figured why don’t I just come along and ask Rob whatever I wanted, myself?!
Seriously, I almost dropped dead! There I was, 13 years old, a HUGE MEGA SUPER-FAN of Judas Priest…A school-girl with no connections to the rock world whatsoever, other than sitting alone in my room listening to records in all my spare time.
And she tells me that there is a chance to actually MEET this guy? That was unbelievable. Her offer was like winning a million bucks in the lottery, but better!
My legs were shaking when I asked her to hang on for a second, as I went into the living room where my mother was watching TV.
– Marianne….Rockdepartementet….Rob Halford… Judas Priest… interview…. Gothenburg. Can I go?
– No you can’t. Are you out of your mind?? she said.
I begged and pleaded, promising that I would do ANYTHING if she just let me go. The answer was a coldhearted NO, she thought I was way too young, I could not just travel alone and that was the end of that discussion.
To this day, I still haven’t forgiven my mother for that. If I had had my own money, I probably would have eloped and met Rob anyway. But I was totally helpless, had no money and I realized I would not be able to go.
I went back to the phone and told Marianne that I was very grateful for her offer but I was not allowed to go.
God, I still remember how heartbroken I was. It was terrible. So close, yet so far away.
Well, Marianne was super-cool. She asked Rob every single question I sent her. The ones that hadn’t been on the air, she wrote down as a transcript and sent them to me. I was happy anyway.
It was quite a feeling to hear my name mentioned on the radio for the first time ever, in the same sentence as Rob Halford! I couldn’t sleep for days!
Here it is… Rob Halford, 1984. Note how he states that he’s 32 years old! And now, in 2011, it’s time for the Epitath-tour and for Judas Priest to retire. It’s been a long journey. Not just for Priest but also for many of their fans, myself included.
So far, I’ll be seeing 6 Priest-shows this summer. I just hope they will be back in the fall to do an arena tour as well.
I can’t believe that I’ve loved this band for 27 years. And their music still moves me, goes straight to my heart. Seeing Rob at Madison Square Garden back in December was fantastic. I was so glad to see him on stage again, I was crying throughout his whole set! I don’t do that with any other band or artist. But there’s something that triggers it when I see Rob live, I just love that music so much and it has meant the world to me.
Part two coming up soon – my very first in-person interview with Rob, done during the Painkiller-tour 1991. It was amazing finding that original tape – because I had a Judas Priest special on my own radio show that year, where the interview was included.
I’ve only been listening to the edited radio version of it ever since, cause I didn’t want to wear out the original tape. This is the FIRST TIME I listened to the original since then, and I realized that there was still a lot more that I hadn’t been able to include in the show because of the time limit. I don’t even remember most of this, and nobody else has ever heard it either!
So – 20 years later it sees the light!
Bookmark the page, subscribe to it, or add me on Twitter, MySpace, or Facebook and get the updates as they happen. :)
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 