Breaking the Law

For two decades, Halford acted as the very embodiment of heavy metal, strutting all its excesses and contradictory doofiness, from the handcuffs dangling on his belt loop to his receding hairline and trademark "golden scream." After touring behind Priest’s 1990 Painkiller album, Halford called it quits. "I felt I had to move on and fulfill musical ambitions that wouldn’t have materialized otherwise," he says. Retreating to his oasis in Phoenix, Arizona, Halford assembled Fight, a band of "fresh blood" whose Halford-penned Epic debut, War of Words, melded metal with such social concerns as prejudice, AIDS and the environment. It was followed by the less political A Small Deadly Space. Musically, Fight wasn’t much of a departure from Priest. "I think I was venting, confused, in turmoil," he says, although it appears he was just still into metal.

For better or worse, rock music is not what it was a decade ago. It’s not nearly as amusing, and the only radical stylistic difference is the terrific increase in the plagiarizing of pre-existing genres; here in the ’90s, anything goes, as long as it’s been done before. Punk rock snorts in the ear of electronica while submetal guitars court spaghetti-Western samples. Everyone is a mutant. Halford’s a mutant if ever there was one. He’s swept aside all traces of his former self, and he is, for the moment, a happening guy. His trademark S&M bondage wear and blond buzzcut have been replaced by Cousin Itt’s frock coat and Anton La Vey’s goatee; even his philosophy about music has altered. "I think music is generational," he says. "Each generation wants to identify with their specific style of music. Since its inception, rock has been evolving. Now we’re supposed to be on the verge of a techno/electronica revolution."

Halford doesn’t think it will become mainstream. "It’s too anonymous. There isn’t a band identity with distinctive characters." It’s true, rock fans like personalities, and they like guitars. Halford’s new band, Two, has plenty of both. In ’95, Halford began jamming with guitarist John Lowery and multi-instrumentalist/producer Bob Marlette. "It was something I had never experienced before; we were writing songs with no plans for a band, no contracts, no stress." Two is loaded with up-to-the-minute features, like the involvement of the thoroughly modern Trent Reznor. Halford met his future producer during Mardi Gras in New Orleans two years ago; back in L.A., Halford "banged on the infamous Sharon Tate door" and gave Reznor his demo tape. "I didn’t hear from him for the longest time, and then he calls and says he hears the music going to a different place." After agreeing to executive-produce the band’s album, Reznor signed Two to his own Nothing Records. "When he became involved, the music became a very exciting thing to watch develop," says Halford.

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