During a recent appearance on Spain’s Mariskal Rock, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford was asked to compare the places Deep Purple and Black Sabbath occupy in his life. Halford stated that the two have different styles of music, and he thinks that Deep Purple is hard rock while Black Sabbah is metal.
Judas Priest had scheduled their 50th-anniversary tour in Europe and North American for 2020. Unfortunately, it was postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic. However, the European leg was pushed again to 2022 due to the ongoing presence of the same issue.
Although the European leg was postponed, they continued with the North American leg of the tour in recent months. However, when Richie Faulkner suffered an acute cardiac aortic dissection during a live performance on the stage, Judas Priest had to postpone the rest of the dates. Later on, they announced the rescheduled dates of the North American tour.
During his recent conversation on Mariskal Rock, Rob Halford was asked whether Deep Purple or Black Sabbath was more important to him while he was growing up. Halford stated that both are legendary bands, but he was more into Black Sabbath due to the heaviness of their sound. According to him, the two bands’ speed and intensity are totally different from each other.
He added that Deep Purple is hard rock-oriented rather than metal, although he knows that he could be severely criticized for saying that. Rob Halford said that Black Sabbath represents what pure metal means to him. Further on, Halford noted that both of them are valuable to him because they made incredible contributions to music history.
Here is how Rob Halford explained what Deep Purple and Black Sabbath mean to him:
“They’re all important to me for all of the styles and variety of music that they presented. I was naturally drawn to Sabbath because of the heaviness. If you put Purple on, and then you put Sabbath on, or Sabbath on then Purple, they’re both really strong, powerful bands, depending on which album you’re listening to.
Purple are hard rock; to me, they’re not metal. I’ll probably be killed for saying that, but that’s just the way I feel. Sabbath are exclusively metal, although Tony has always said Sabbath isn’t metal. I don’t know what’s going on, but that’s the world we live in when musicians talk about each other.
There’s a certain speed, there’s a certain intensity in Purple that is also in Sabbath, but it’s in a different texture. When you listen to what Ian Paice was doing, for example, pushing those songs, I was as excited by that as I was by ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ or ‘Iron Man’ or any of these super-heavy tracks from Sabbath.
So they were all important to me, as bands are to all musicians. All musicians are inspired and influenced by other musicians, so they all are very valuable to me. I wouldn’t put one above the rest in terms of a list. The whole representation of the work that they make is important.”
Below, you can check out the entire conversation.
