Metal Anarchy

During an interview with NME, Judas Priest’s Rob Halford discussed the unreleased songs that the band recorded with S/A/W, the songwriting and record producing group featuring Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman. The frontman says he “would just love to see ’em get leaked.”

Halford said the following when it was mentioned that Waterman said the band’s cover of The Stylistics’ “You Are Everything” would be a big hit:

“I kind of agree with him, ’cause I’ve got that on my phone somewhere, and it sounds great. I mean, look what happened to Kate Bush with ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Running Up That Hill’, one of the greatest songs ever written. That’s what I’d love to see with those Stock, Aitken and Waterman tracks. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to say this is from Judas Priest. It’s a song. Let the song do its job. What’s the other two called?”

He also commented on the recording sessions:

“That was a great day in Paris. It was wonderful to see the guys, ’cause we walked in there; there’s me and Glenn [Tipton] and Ken [K.K. Downing]. And they’ve got the studio in Paris. And we hadn’t got a clue what we were gonna do. They had the idea for the cover; we got that sorted. And then the other two, they just literally made ’em in front of our eyes. It was just… God. They just made this really cool pop tune in front of our eyes. Each of them knew their job. That was a great, great day. I think we were there for one day. We flew in and we did the thing and had some dinner and then we all went home back to the U.K. It was just remarkable.”

Halford also confirmed the collaboration was his idea:

“I said to the guys, I go, ‘What do you think about doing something with Stock, Aitken and Waterman?’ [And they thought] ‘He’s at it again. Why does he do these things?’ And I go, ‘No, just, let’s just [try it]. If it doesn’t work…’

I’ve always had this thing about, if you don’t have a go, you don’t know. You can’t talk about something unless it’s been created, until you’ve gone through the motions. You can’t sit there and go, ‘Well, that ain’t gonna work.’ Well, how do you know it’s not gonna work? You’ve gotta go through the experience. We went through the experience.

I still love those songs even now. And it would be… in my lifetime, I would just love to see ’em get leaked. Leak ’em for all I care. Let’s just see where those songs take us. ‘Cause it sounds great. You can hear the voice, you can hear the guitars. They’re really fun, fun, fun pieces of music.

So, yeah. I haven’t seen Pete in living memory. And maybe I can just say, ‘Just leak these. Send a file off to some place. Send a file off to TikTok and just see where it takes us.’

He’s a lovely guy, Pete. He’s very respectful. Maybe he’s waiting for somebody to go, ‘Do what you want with them, Pete.’ So, I’m at NME. Do what you want with them, Pete. Because Priest has become this indestructible, invincible shield. If suddenly a Stock, Aitken and Waterman track is released, I don’t think it’s gonna be the end of the band. People listen to music differently now.”

[via Blabbermouth]