Judas Priest: ‘Rocka Rolla’ Kicked Off A Half-Century Of Metal
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Judas Priest’s debut album, Rocka Rolla. Back then, the band looked and sounded quite a bit different than the “Metal Gods” that we know and love today. Today, when you think of heavy metal’s most important, most influential (and best) bands, Judas Priest is one of the first names that comes to mind.
And rightfully so: while most would agree that their fellow Brummies in Black Sabbath created heavy metal, Judas Priest was essential in heavy metal’s evolution. They pulled the genre farther from its blues influences to create something new. Rob Halford’s wailing, near-operatic vocals and Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing’s lethal dual lead guitar team have been imitated by scores of metal bands over the decades. Also important: Priest’s use of black leather and studs helped define the look of heavy metal.
But when they released Rocka Rolla, most wouldn’t guess that this band would become one of the most influential forces in one of rock and roll’s most durable subgenres. The album didn’t look very metal: that’s partially because Priest (among other bands) was in the process of defining metal as they progressed.
The album cover featured a bottle cap that read “Rocka Rolla.” “We definitely didn’t like the cover,” Halford recalled in his book, Confess. “[It was] a spoof of the Coca-Cola logo on a bottle top. It looked s—, and not at all heavy metal.” Later reissues of the album had a completely different cover, with a flying demon sporting mechanical wings, menacingly holding a missile.
Rocka Rolla was produced by Roger Bain, who had produced the first three Black Sabbath albums. But Priest was signed to a small label (Gull Records) that didn’t have a big budget. The band was also so new: Glenn Tipton had just joined before they started recording (after his former group, the Flying Hat Band, had run its course). Rob Halford was even relatively new: some of the songs on the album had been co-written by Priest’s original singer, Al Atkins (including “Winter” and the classic “Never Satisfied”).
Rob Halford’s voice is instantly recognizable (and he’s taken remarkable care of it through the decades). But if you showed the below BBC performance of the title track with the volume down, many metalheads might not know what they’re looking at. Partially because Rob Halford was sporting long hair back then (years later, he’d make it cool for metal fans to be bald). But also: they looked like a lot of other hippie bands. And if you stripped Halford’s vocals from the track, it doesn’t sound very Priest-like.
Judas Priest: After Rocka Rolla
Some bands seem to have their vision worked out from their debut: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Van Halen come to mind. With Judas Priest, it took a bit of time to refine their vision, but those of us who love metal are thankful that they were given that chance. Their second album, 1976’s Sad Wings Of Destiny, was a huge improvement over Rocka Rolla, even though they were still very much in their Sabbath/Zeppelin mode.
They started becoming the band that would change the course of music on their next albums: 1977’s Sin After Sin, 1978’s Stained Class, and especially 1978’s Hell Bent For Leather and 1980’s British Steel. Had they ended there, their place in history would be secure, but they still had a handful of classics to come: including 1982’s Screaming For Vengeance, 1984’s Defenders of the Faith and 1990’s Painkiller.
Like most bands, they’ve gone through lineup changes, especially drummers! Scott Travis has been holding it down since 1989, but he’s hardly the first drummer: John Hinch (who played on Rocka Rolla), Les Binks and Simon Phillips are among the band’s (many) former drummers.
Rob Halford left the band in 1992, returning eleven years later, and Priest’s output since then has included lots of great additions to their catalog, notably 2018’s Firepower. Here, we have to mention the contributions of guitarist Richie Faulkner, who replaced K.K. Downing in 2011. And, of course, respect must be given to the great and underrated bassist Ian Hill, who is the one guy to be in every iteration of Judas Priest.
Their story is ongoing: they were finally–finally!–inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. They released their latest album, Invincible Shield, in March of this year, and it’s a (head) banger. And they’re currently on tour. If you’ve seen them in concert in the past few years, you know how great they still are.
As for Rocka Rolla, the band has never been too enthused about how that album came out. In Confess, Halford wrote, “The biggest disappointment was how the album sounded. When we played it back, it felt weak and diluted. It didn’t sound like the record we’d thought we were making. We had gone for it in the studio, with me screaming away and Ken [K.K. Downing] and Glenn firing out riffs like bullets from dual machine guns. But Roger’s production had lost that power and left it sounding… tepid.” He noted that “The album died on its arse. It didn’t so much get released as it escaped into the rock world. It made absolutely no impression on the charts and got virtually no airplay.”
He added, “A review in Sounds said, ‘Don’t give up the day job,’ which was unfortunate, as I already had.” Well, Sounds was wrong (as critics often are when it comes to heavy metal). Although Rob probably never predicted being a heavy metal insurance salesman, he really hasn’t needed a “day job” in the past fifty years.
And Priest is getting another shot at getting the Rocka Rolla sound that they’d envisioned: Ian Hill recently told the Talkin’ Rock With Meltdown podcast that the album is going to be remixed and reissued. “It’s just coming out shortly, I believe. It’s only a few weeks away. It’s gonna be re-released, which is great news. It’s finally got the production it’s always needed.” It’s not a re-recording; they’re just remixing the original tapes. As Hill said, “It’s just been re-engineered by [longtime Judas Priest producer] Tom Allom after all of these years. The multi-tracks were in remarkably good condition, and he’s changed some of the sounds, made it more modern and obviously remixed it. And he’s done a great job.”
