Rob Halford Contemplating Tony Bennett Covers Project

He’s screamed for vengeance and broken the law. Now the Metal God may be doing a little crooning, if Rob Halford has his way.

“There’s so many musical things I want to do,” the Judas Priest singer tells UCR, and among those is taking on the Great American Songbook and, in particular, Tony Bennett, ala Mark Tremonti of Creed and Alter Bridge’s Frank Sinatra side project.

“I was singing Tony Bennett in the shower the other day and I listened to my voice and I’m going, ‘Do I dare to consider something like this?'” Halford says. “And then I go, ‘I’m an old man; I can do what I fucking want!’ And I love Tony Bennett; I was sad, like a lot of us where, when he passed. He as an icon and a beacon. I love all kinds of singers. My love for what the voice can do is always so attractive to me — the ideas, the imagination, like (Lady) Gaga doing her thing in Vegas when she does the jazz side of stuff.

“So, yeah, I’d love to do that. I don’t know how I would go about it, but I better get a move on if I’m going to do something like that.” Halford is also confident that the world is more open to that kind of digression from him than it would have been in the past.

“I wouldn’t have dared to have done this back in the day,” he acknowledges. “Your label said, ‘No, this is who you are. Don’t deviate!’ Management said, “No, this is who you are. Don’t deviate!’ Now you can do whatever you want, regardless of where you’re at. I think we’re in a beautiful time where there’s acceptance of music and understanding the joy of music, without barriers, It’s wonderful.”

Read More: The Best Song From Every Judas Priest Album

As noted, Halford has no firm plans for a Bennett excursion yet. In the meantime there’s also the next Priest album to consider — albeit with six years between last year’s Invincible Shield and the preceding Firepower, it may be too early to start that discussion.

Rob Halford Hopes Judas Priest Makes Another Studio Album

Nevertheless, Halford says there are reasons to begin thinking about that as well.
“If we did another one it would be number 20, wouldn’t it?” he notes. “I’m one of those people, when I’m watching TV and I turn the volume up, it can’t be an (odd number), like 11; I have to go up to 12 or down to 10. I cannot stand uneven numbers. I’m all about harmony and balance, and you can’t get harmony and balance at seven or nine or 11. So I think if we did another (album) it would be such an incredible moment for this band.”

And Halford adds he’d be happy to put a few more years on Priest’s history. “When we did the 60th anniversary for Scorpions in Hanover (on July 5), while I was on stage singing I’m like, ‘I’m gonna do this with Priest! I am doing a 60th anniversary show with Priest!’ So if we could get to that place, please God, with a new album, that would be just beautiful. I’m just trying to ponder the opportunity to have another great, big celebration for heavy metal.”

Priest, of course, had to miss another big celebration — the Ozzy Osbourne/Black Sabbath Back to the Beginning bash in Birmingham, England — because of that Scorpions commitment, and Halford is “still grieving” Osbourne’s death two weeks later.

But, he adds, “you have to celebrate. You grieve because grieving cleanses the soul and lets you move on and let go…and I still can’t believe it, quite frankly, because we were all still so high and full of adrenaline from watching that (Back to the Beginning) show. It’s God’s work he was able to get through that moment…just so profound and beautiful and sad and full of love and joy and them memories. It couldn’t have been better for him, really.”

Halford was invited to Osbourne’s funeral on July 31, but having just returned home to Arizona from Priest’s European tour, and not a fan of funerals in the first place, he chose to commemorate the occasion in his own way.

“It’s important to let people grieve the way that is right for them,” he explains, “and for me on the day of his funeral I did the same thing as the day (Osbourne died) — I listened to a lot of his music, I watched his videos, and that was my way of showing respect to him as a friend, as the funeral was happening.”

Halford and Priest return to the road on Sept. 16 in Biloxi, Miss. for a 22-date co-headlining tour with Alice Cooper, with Corrosion of Conformity opening. Halford says Priest will, as in Europe, be celebrating the 35th anniversary of the band’s landmark Painkiller, with a half-dozen tracks from the album.

“Yeah, we’re still celebrating that,” Halford says. “You know what Painkiller did, not only for this band but for metal. It’s revered for what it does and what it represents, so it would’ve been ridiculous not to reflect on it. It’s just great to start with ‘All Guns Blazing,’ and we selected the (other) tracks we felt would work within our other material. I know all of our metal maniacs on this side of the pond are eager to take in this experience.”