Singer Rob Halford is celebrating his birthday today.
(Photo: Jim Louvau)
Here are 16 interesting facts about the "Metal God" with the infinite range of vocal:
1. He shares the same birthday as Gene Simmons from "Kiss" and guitarist Vivian Campbell from "Def Leppard" and former "Dio".
2. Before starting his musical career he worked in a cinema that screened pornographic films.
3. He returned to "Origins" when he played a familiar role in a porn tape store, in the 2002 film "Spun" which also starred the actor Mickey Rourke. See here:
4. He is a die-hard cat lover. In an interview he gave in 2020, he testified that he has about 100 cat shirts in his possession.
5. In 2010 he participated in an advertisement for the communications company "Virgin Mobile". He played a priest. See here:
6. Rob also served as a lighting technician in the theater before joining "Judas Priest", this contributed to his theatricality in performances and among other things to the idea of entering the stage on a motorcycle.
7. Speaking of a motorcycle, in the last song that ended the last show that sealed the tour to promote the album "Painkiller" he fell off his motorcycle and broke his nose. This prevented him from continuing his last encore with the band. He left immediately afterwards, until the reunion in 2003.
8. It was his sister Sue who made the connection between him and "Judas Priest". At the time, she dated Bassist Ian Hill through whom Rob was accepted into the band. Hill later married Rob's sister which made them brothers-in-law who play in the same band.
9. He used a real machine gun and fired futile bullets at the stunned audience during a tour of the "British Steel" album. This happened at the end of the song "Genocide".
(Photo: ultimate-guitar.com)
10. In 1986 he was completely cleansed of drug and alcohol addictions. This did not stop him from singing background vocals in the song "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" by the band "Queens of the Stone Age" also known as "Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, Marijuana, Ecstasy and Alcohol".
11. He has appeared as "Black Sabbath" lead singer on three different occasions. He first replaced Ronnie James Dio in two performances in 1992, after Ronnie James Dio refused to be Ozzy Osborne's opening act. The second time he replaced Ozzy Osbourne during one of the band's performances as part of the 2004 "Ozzfest".
12. Although Halford is a car collector he only got his driver's license at the age of 38.
13. Halford played the harmonica in songs, "Rocka Rolla" and "Cheater" from "Judas Priest"'s first album.
14. He wrote all the guitar roles for the album "War of Words" by the band "Fight" which he formed after retiring from the band Judas Priest, so technically he also knows how to play the guitar. But he stated in an interview that he is probably the worst guitar player in the world.
15. He "came out" only in 1998 during an interview with MTV and was pleasantly surprised by the reactions and support he received from metal fans.
16. The movie "Rock Star" starring Mark Wahlberg was originally supposed to be called "Metal God". Halford's lawyers claimed it was already Halford's trademark and threatened to take legal action if the movie producers did not choose a different name for the film. The film's producers were convinced and changed the name.
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