Judas Priest's Headbangers Ball

That lineup made its re-debut last summer, sharing co-headline status on the Ozzfest tour with Black Sabbath, the other band from Birmingham, England, that can be held responsible for heavy metal. Getting back together was a headbanger's dream and obviously a wise move for all. Judas Priest's Halford-less albums and Halford's ventures with the bands Fight, Two and Halford were not exactly commercial triumphs, and "Angel of Retribution," the first new Judas Priest album in four years and the first with Halford in 14 years, opened at No. 13 on its March release, the band's highest chart position ever. Critically acclaimed, it sold more copies in its first week than its predecessor, 2001's "Demolition," did in four years and went Top 10 in a dozen countries around the world.

Halford, who once declared that "metal is dead" (and quickly apologized) feels late-blooming vindication.

"I think it's true to say there's been some respect afforded of late. And I think it's true to say that [heavy metal] has always been viewed as an underdog under the great umbrella of rock 'n' roll. Now certain aspects of it are being accommodated and given approval to, and Judas Priest is one band that's receiving that type of recognition."

Deservedly, of course. Black Sabbath's minimalist, doom-laden crunch may be the progenitor of heavy metal, but by speeding it up and injecting drama and dynamics, Judas Priest made it the sound of blue-collar adolescents worldwide. Of course this was after Judas Priest (the name taken from a Bob Dylan lyric) started in 1969 with a different lineup and a shifting identity -- pop-rock cover band to prog rock to blues rock before finally striking metal with what was then an innovative two-guitar attack.

Halford, a one-time theatrical lighting tech possessed of ear-splitting leather lungs, signed on in 1973, though success wouldn't be hinted at until 1976's "Sad Wings of Destiny" album. The late '70s and early '80s brought such hit albums as "Stained Class," "Hell Bent for Leather," "British Steel" (with metal standards "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight") and "Screaming for Vengeance," featuring "You've Got Another Thing Coming," the band's only charting single in the United States (at No. 67). The leather-and-studs look had arrived with "Hell Bent for Leather," its roots in the gay subculture apparently lost on Priest fans. Halford finally came out in 1998, but fans hadn't cared one way or the other about one of rock's worst-kept secrets, just as long as he could scream onstage astride a Harley-Davidson.

Momentum stalled in the mid-'80s when the parents of two teenage Judas Priest fans from Reno, Nev., who had attempted suicide, one of them successfully, brought a $6.2 million suit against the band, alleging that a subliminal message had been encrypted in the song "Better by You, Better Than Me" (ironically, a Spooky Tooth cover). If played backward, the parents claimed, a voice could be heard saying, "Do it." The two boys shot themselves after repeated listenings to the "Stained Class" album while smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. In summer 1990, band members spent six weeks in a Reno courtroom before the judge rejected the suit.

Later that year, Judas Priest returned to form on the "Painkiller" album, but there were rifts among the riffs. Halford wanted to explore new directions on a solo album, but the only way he could do so contractually was to quit the group. Which he did in 1992, famously replaced by Tim "Ripper" Owens, who'd been fronting a Judas Priest tribute band in Cleveland (later inspiration for the film "Rock Star").

"On the back of what we'd gone through in the Reno trial, and the extremely lengthy 'Painkiller' tour, which was a success but had a lot of physical and psychological things going on around it, what I should have done at the end of that tour is say, 'Guys, I'm going, you won't see me for a year,' " Halford says.

The break between Halford and Judas Priest would last more than a decade, with reconciliation coming in odd ways -- in 2002, Halford invited his old friends to his parents' 50th wedding anniversary -- and obvious ones, such as needing to work together on 2003's "Metalogy" box set celebrating the band's 30th anniversary.

"At the time all of us were so connected with whatever work we were doing we didn't really have that much of a period of reflection to ponder the what-ifs and the whys and wherefores and shoulda-coulda-wouldas," Halford says. "But in the recent months, it's gone through my mind: What could we have done, what could we have achieved, in that decade that we were not in each other's company?"

"Of course, Priest was still going," he points out. " Priest was still maintaining its point of view in metal. But the recognition of the band on this release -- on a global level -- says a lot about the need and the demand for the original lineup to get back in place and that the chemistry that happens in the writing between Glen and Ken and myself is a vital spark to this band's popularity. It's no different than the Stones or Aerosmith or AC/DC or Kiss -- any of the career rock 'n' roll bands that need to be in the shape that they need to be in."

And, yes, Halford followed Ripper Owens's exploits with his band.