You and me both, Priest, you and me both.
Rob Halford has said that this song is about “freedom.” Once you are on the highway, you can go anywhere you want. With it being Memorial Day weekend, a lot of people are going to be taking advantage of that freedom today.
This video was one of the man to be directed by Julien Temple. Temple will probably always be best known for his work with the Sex Pistols.
Enjoy!
In 1988, Judas Priest became one of the many bands that have covered this classic tune from Chuck Berry. Their version reached number 64 on the UK Singles chart.
This video was directed by Wayne Isham, who worked with everyone who was anyone in the 80s and 90s.
Enjoy!
Though Rob Halford has said that the lyrics are actually a metaphorical look at a love/hate relationship, both this song and the accompanying video are usually said to be about demonic possession.
This video was directed by Wayne Isham, who is another one of those directors who seems to have done at least one video for every single successful band out there.
Enjoy!
This song is the title track of the album of the same name. The song is about a cyborg super hero who saved the world from destruction. The video is about the band playing the Hell out of the song.
Enjoy!
Is it Mad Max or is it Judas Priest?
This video was directed by Wayne Isham, who was another one of directors who did videos for almost everyone. You weren’t a real rock star unless both Wayne Isham and Nigel Dick directed a video for you.
This song appeared on Judas Priest’s 1986 album, Turbo. The album was full of songs designed to annoy Tipper Gore.
Enjoy!
The most interesting thing about this performance clip music video is that it was directed by Julien Temple. Temple was and still is best known for documenting the brief but memorable career of The Sex Pistols. He went on to direct two Sex Pistol films, The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle and The Filth and the Fury.
Temple has directed music videos for just everyone who was anybody on the British rock scene: Sex Pistols (naturally), Depeche Mode, David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Duran Duran, Sade, and many others. He also directed the music video for Planet Texas, in which Kenny Rogers is abducted by aliens. The music industry brings together even the most unlikely of collaborators.
Enjoy!
Since we’re all locked in for the time being, it makes sense that today’s music video of the day should be for Judas Priest’s Locked In.
This video makes about as much sense as any heavy metal band from the 80s did. Rob Halford is being held prisoner in a medieval castle where he is apparently being tortured by a bunch of living skeletons. The other members of Judas Priest decide to ride their motorcycles over to the castle and then break in so that they can save him. Heavy metal videos of the 80s often feel like what you would get if the members of Monty Python had decided to follow up The Meaning of Life with Monty Python’s Mad Max. That certainly seems to be the case here and the members of the band spend so much time mugging to the camera that there is little doubt that they were in on the joke. David Coverdale would have taken this seriously but not the members of Judas Priest.
This video was one of the many to be directed by Wayne Isham. According to his entry at IMDb, Wayne’s motto is “No Wayne, no pain!”
Enjoy!
Everyone remembers the Zebraman.
In 1986, two aspiring filmmakers, Jeff Krulik and John Heyn drove down to the Capital Center in Landover, Maryland and interviewed several Judas Priest fans (and, to be fair, a few lost souls who were there for Dokken) who were tailgating in the parking lot, before a concert. Some of them were drunk. Some of them were stoned. Some of them were posers and some of them were genuine metalheads. The end result was a 17-minute documentary called Heavy Metal Parking Lot. In the days before YouTube, bootlegged VHS copies of this film made Heavy Metal Parking Lot into an underground classic.
In 17 minutes, Krulik and Heyn introduced viewers to several different fans.
There was this guy, who said his name was Graham, “as in gram of dope!,” and who had strong feelings about the legalization of drugs:
There was Michelle, who said she came from Mayberry, USA:
There were these people, who looked like the cast of every 80s teen comedy ever made:
There’s the Fuck Off Guy who says he plans to “get fucked up, drink a few beers, you know.”
There’s even this loser:
But the one that everyone remembers is Zebraman, a young man wearing a zebra-print jumpsuit who, fueled by alcohol, shares some thoughts on punk rock:
He followed up with some thoughts on Madonna:
13 years later, in 1999, Krulik and Heyn tracked down the famous Zebraman for a “Where Are They Now” update. When they found him, living in a nice house in the suburbs, they discovered that not only did he not know that he had become an underground cult star but that he also no longer listened to heavy metal. Zebraman described himself as being a country music fan:
Zebraman, grown up.
Both Heavy Metal Parking Lot and Heavy Metal Parking Lot Alumni: Where Are They Now? can be viewed on YouTube.
There’s so little to say about this music video that I’m surprised they even bothered. The only noteworthy thing I can see is the beginning where we have somebody–possibly Dave Holland–drumming sans drums. Other than that, I believe that with Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen, it is the only one I have done so far that is partially made up of a live performance rather than being lip-synced (according to mvdbase). It feels like they needed a promotional video for the song, so they took a filmed live version they had, and spliced it together with some footage they shot at another time. So, exactly how we got Dancing in the Dark, except I have a feeling it wasn’t planned in this case. But I could be wrong. According to Wikipedia, it was filmed at Sheffield City Hall.
It is the second music video directed by Julien Temple that I have spotlighted. He has worked in both music videos and other types of films. His music video output was quite large from the beginning of the 1980s till the mid-1990s. Then he seemed to drop off the face of the Earth in music videos except for one here and there. He did a bunch of music videos with the group ABC, so it’s no surprise that they brought him back this year for the music video of their comeback song Viva Love. Unfortunately, it has been blocked on YouTube in certain countries (including the United States).
Enjoy this quite unremarkable video for a fun Judas Priest party song.
I have a live performance of Judas Priest performing Grinder. At the start, Rob Halford begins by stating that there are “13,000 Heavy Metal Maniacs” in the audience. You would have never in the past and never will in the future find me in such an audience. In fact, I didn’t even get into heavy metal till around the mid-2000s. That being said, it’s a little difficult to be 32 years-old, and to have not heard Breaking The Law as a kid.
You know the deal with Judas Priest by now. They were second wave British Heavy Metal as noticeable by their speed and the absence of the blues in their sound. You all know that Rob Halford is gay, and probably could write a better review of The Submission of Emma Marx (2013) than the one I did. Finally, the date on this implies it was shown for the first time in 1980. Both IMVDb and mvdbase agree on that date. In fact, mvdbase says that it aired in June of 1980. That makes it the first pre-MTV music video I have spotlighted so far.
The music video is so simple that if you go to it on Wikipedia it’s simply a description of the plot as if there is no other content. Well…um…to be fair, there isn’t much other content. Everyone probably knows the story of the origin of Black Sabbath, but I’ll recap. They weren’t necessarily anti-hippie, but where they lived was in stark contrast to the images they saw of them on TV. The group co-opted the title of an Italian anthology horror film and decided to play dark music to scare the hippies.
This Judas Priest music video plays to harsh beginnings as they break into the bank, not to steal money, but to take their gold record for British Steel. That is the album, which includes not only Breaking The Law, but other great songs like Living After Midnight and The Rage. Then Halford holds it to the security camera and screams “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE!” before an explosion is set off, and they are back in the car where they began their one bank crime spree. Like most heavy metal, once you think about it, you realize it isn’t what your knee jerk reaction told you it is about. The music video is about coming from a difficult place. It expresses the difficultly of reaching a place where you have a gold record, but then it is locked away from you in the hands of someone else such as a record company. I’ve always loved that record companies would do such things, and still let the group make such songs as Breaking The Law.
Notice that the group had two guitarists. Having two meant they could do things groups with a single guitar couldn’t do. You can hear this prominently at the beginning of the song The Rage. I’ve included the song below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTWlVL9aS6c
If you haven’t seen this music video, then watch it. It’s not really for people that already know and love the music video that I write for, but for those who have never heard it.
Enjoy it, and check out the British Steel album. It’s a helluva a heavy metal album.
Through the Shattered Lens 