Bruce Dickinson’s opinion on Judas Priest and Rob Halford

Although Judas Priest released their debut album in 1974 and by the late 70s already had five albums out, they are still mentioned as one of the bands of the “New Wave of The British Heavy Metal”. The main reason is because in 1980 they released their most praised album “British Steel”, which was certainly one of the most important Metal albums of all time.

Around that time, many other incredible bands appeared, including Iron Maiden, which released their debut album in 1980. Two years later, they would become an even bigger phenomenon when they recorded the album “Number of the Beast” with the new singer Bruce Dickinson. Maiden and Priest even toured together in the early 80s, but what is Bruce Dickinson’s opinion on the band and their vocalist Rob Halford?

Bruce Dickinson’s opinion on Judas Priest and Rob Halford

Although Judas Priest already was one of the most influential Heavy Metal bands in the world in the early 80s, Bruce still wasn’t really into them. As he recalled in an interview with Qobuz in 2024 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). He was asked to give his comments on the album “British Steel” and he revealed that he really understood the band when he toured with them.

“What can you say? Judas Priest. That’s one of their best covers, they had very mixed (covers). I found their album covers confusing. (For example, ‘Point of Entry’, ‘I’m like, what is this?’ you know. That one (British Steel), you know what that is. That’s obviously a Metal record, it’s got an edge to it. It’s got something to it.”

He continued:

“For me, I actually really started getting into Priest when I toured with them, so I was quite late. I mean, I knew who they were, you know, ‘Sad Wings of Destiny’ and all that stuff. But I really understand what they were about, when I toured with them with Maiden.”

“It was on the ‘Screaming for Vengeance’ tour. God, what a record that was and then all that stuff before. I mean, Adrian (Smith) was very into Priest, more so than me. But then when I saw them live, I was like ‘Yeah, these guys are really cool’,” Bruce Dickinson said.

The musician fronted for a few years some BBC Radio shows and one of them was  “Masters Of Rock” and in the website of the show, Dickinson listed the 15 essential albums that everyone should listen. One of them was “British Steel”, which had great tracks like “Breaking The Law”, “Metal Gods”, “Living After Midnight” and “United”.

He once criticized Rob Halford for using a teleprompter on stage

Anything done live is pretty hard, especially when you get older. So many singers like to have a teleprompter on stage with the lyrics just in case they forget any part. According to Dickinson, Halford uses one and he criticized the Judas Priest vocalist during his spoken-word performance back in 2020 in Hamburg, Germany. He said: “I don’t use an autocue on stage. A lot of singers now, they just have the words there: ‘Breaking the law, breaking the law.’ Breaking the what? ‘Breaking the law, breaking the law.’”