With the release of their first albums in the 1980s, Metallica, which at the time was formed by James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, and Cliff Burton, contributed to the birth of a new chapter of the history of Havy Metal.
By creating heavier and faster music, the band, alongside names like Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax, consolidated what would later be called Thrash Metal. During his career, James Hetfield has give his opinion on many influential heavy bands that came before Metallica, including Judas Priest and their vocalist Rob Halford.
What is James Hetfield’s opinion on Judas Priest and Rob Halford
Judas Priest was a huge influence for Metallica and they are one of James Hetfield’s favorite bands. “Judas Priest is everything we wanted to be as a band starting out. If someone asked you to define what Heavy Metal is, that’s one of the bands you’d show them,” he told Billboard in 2014. He also thinks that Rob Halford is one of the greatest singers of all time, since he put him in the third position of the list Rolling Stone asked him to do in 2008 of the greatest vocalists of the history of music. The Metallica frontman put him in front of names like Johnny Cash, Freddie Mercury, Steven Tyler, Robert Plant, Chris Cornell and Bon Scott. Halford was only behind Layne Staley and Ronnie James Dio.
In 2023, he was filmed enjoying Judas Priest‘s show at the Power Trip Festivalin front of the stage. He later recalled the moment saying: “I just kind of realized we’re down in the very front. (We were) looking up — Rob Halford riding out on a motorcycle and there’s fans behind us, looking at us.”
James Hetfield continued:
“They’re watching us enjoy that. How cool. I guess that’s pretty cool. We’re fans at the end of the day. We wanted to be in the mix and see it. So, it’s been a fantastic weekend,” James Hetfield said. James especially loves Judas Priest’s early albums, which were the ones that influenced him and Metallica the most. One of his favorite songs by them is “Victim of Changes”, from their second album “Sad Wings of Destiny” (1976). When Priest released a compilation album called “The Chosen Few” in 2011, they invited several rock stars to pick songs to be part of it and James chose that one. His bandmate Lars Ulrich chose “Beyond the Realms of Death”, from the 1978 album “Stained Class.”
Metallica played “Rapid Fire” several times with Rob Halford
James is also a fan of many other Judas Priest songs, including “Rapid Fire”. Metallica had the chance to perform with the Metal God himself, Rob Halford, several times over the past decades. In 1994 in Miami, Florida, while Halford was no longer a member of Judas Priest, he joined them on stage to perform that opening track from “British Steel” (1980). Then in 2011, at Metallica’s 30th anniversary show, he once again played that track with them, doing the same two years later at the Revolver Golden Gods award.
During the ceremony in 2013, Halford gave a speech about the band and praised them. He noted that they always paid respect to Judas Priest. “When Metallica were celebrating their 30th anniversary they invited me to play our Judas Priest song ‘Rapid Fire’. Metallica always paid respect to us and their forebears. So now it’s time for me to return the favor. They took what bands like Priest, Sabbath, Maiden, AC/DC and a ton of others were doing and turned into a phenomenon more massive than anyone could have imagined. So many bands have been influenced by them,” Rob Halford said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
Rob Halford said James Hetfield and Metallica reached all the levels of success
In an interview with Revolver magazine in 2020, Halford said it was still a blast to see them play live. He also noted that they were one of the few bands that had gone through every level a successful group can reach in music. “As a fan, I went to see Metallica play in Arizona, that was a blast. I’ve known the guys forever… It was great to see the band because, you know, if you, by the grace of God and good luck and fortune and hard work and slugging at it, you get to all these different levels.”
“Metallica went about as far as you can, and still are at it,” Rob Halford said. K.K. Downing, the former Judas Priest guitarist who inspired Hetfield to use the Flying V model, is also a fan of Metallica. When talking about the “Black Album”, he said it is an undeniable record that stands the test of time. Judas Priest was one of the bands that James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich bonded over when they became friends.
The song Metallica wrote trying to replicate Judas Priest’s hit
The first Metallica albums were really heavy so it wasn’t easy for them to get played on the radio. On their second and acclaimed album “Ride the Lightning” (1984), the band tried to write a “hit single”. They wrote “Escape” with songs like “Living After Midnight” in mind, as Lars Ulrich told Metal Hammer in 2022.
“It’s become this folklore that I hate ‘Escape’. It’s not true! It was the last song that was written for the ‘Ride The Lightning’ sessions. It was purposely kept a little shorter than the other songs. We thought of it in the spirit of Iron Maiden’s ‘Run To the Hills’ or Judas Priest’s ‘Living After Midnight’. Dare I use the words ‘radio songs’?”
“So instead of turning it into an eight minute ‘Seek And Destroy’ type of thing, we kept it on the short side. Then it got a bad rap, and I don’t know why. I don’t have a particular problem with it, but it never became a live staple like the other songs on the record. It just goes to show that you’re better off not trying to do things on purpose,” Lars Ulrich said.