CONFESS

The lead singer of Judas Priest comes clean.

Confession is good for the soul, and Halford, who calls himself “a gay heavy metal Christian,” has mostly sins of the flesh and not of the soul to own up to. At the beginning of the book, the author recounts wandering through his Midlands hometown, worrying about something that absorbed him for years: Though he was the frontman for one of the world’s biggest rock acts, he couldn’t bring himself to come out to his fans. “Would it kill Judas Priest?” As it happened, Halford sent enough signals out over the years that neither his band mates nor his fans were surprised when he finally did come out—though, interestingly, he waited until embarking on a solo act to do so. He knew he was gay when he was 10, a realization that followed another one: Called on to sing before admiring schoolmates, he also discovered that he loved the stage. Much of this well-crafted narrative involves love sought and lost, including a few unsatisfying one-sided relationships with men who turned out to be straight. Halford also reveals himself to be a fan as well as a star, smitten by the likes of Bowie and Bolan, Mercury and Madonna. A discerning critic, he doesn’t spare himself for failures of judgment and performance. The band’s debut album, Rocka Rolla, “made absolutely no impression on the charts and got virtually no airplay” while “Point of Entry was Priest on autopilot.” Yet when they were on, they were peerless, with superb albums like British Steel putting their rivals to shame. Readers will admire Halford for those accomplishments while being amazed that he survived the endless coke-and-booze sessions that preceded his rehab; he proudly notes that he’s been clean and sober for decades and has no intentions of quitting the stage even in his 70s. A revelation, drawn from band history: “This Is Spinal Tap…wasn’t a satire: it was a documentary.” One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.

An entertaining, revealing portrait of the artist as a young—and old—rocker.