'Ballad of Judas Priest' documentary highly resonant today, says lead singer Rob Halford

By Miranda Murray

BERLIN, Feb 17 (Reuters) - "The Ballad of Judas Priest", a new documentary about the heavy metal pioneers, arrives at a moment when renewed debate over free speech has made the British band's history particularly resonant, lead vocalist Rob Halford and co-director Tom Morello told Reuters.

Speaking at the Berlin Film Festival, Halford recalled a highly politicised U.S. lawsuit in 1990 in which lawyers tried to link the band's music, which they said contained subliminal messages, to a double suicide pact. A judge dismissed the case.

Halford said the group only later understood that the case could have set a sweeping precedent for policing art and praised how it was "so eloquently placed in the movie, to show the worldwide importance of the way that art was being attacked and could have flipped over."

Judas Priest showed how to weather that storm, said Morello, who is the guitarist for rock band Rage Against the Machine and co-directed with longtime music documentary filmmaker Sam Dunn.

But "there's got to be future victories if we're going to continue to have freedom of expression," added Morello, who recently headed a concert protesting the actions of ICE immigration agents in Minneapolis.

Rights groups have condemned what they say is the Trump administration's intensified pressure on universities and the media in the U.S. through tactics including immigration enforcement and regulatory pressure, saying they are diluting rights like free speech. The administration rejects the claims and says it champions free speech.

THE PATH TO FAME

The film spans the band's beginnings in a Birmingham working-class neighbourhood in the 1970s to the MTV years with hits like "Breaking the Law" and "Turbo Lover" and eventual induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.

"There's a lot of information in this movie," said Dunn.

"But what I hope fans get out of it is an emotional layer to the storytelling by Rob and others in the film that they would never have gotten through Wikipedia or any other source."

The chronology is interspersed with appearances by famous fans including actor Jack Black, Metallica's Kirk Hammett and Run-DMC's Darryl McDaniels.

TEXTURE OF METAL

One of the film's most striking sequences shows bandmates K.K. Downing and Ian Hill reflecting on Halford's sexuality in the 1970s, said Morello.

"These were Birmingham working-class dudes about to create heavy metal, and it was no big deal," he said.

Halford came out publicly as gay in 1998.

The singer said he enjoyed making people confront their phobias, whatever they may be.

"Every element of metal has a texture of really going in there with your fists," said the 74-year-old.

This film will take fans and non-fans alike to the heart of what makes heavy metal an important part of music, he added.