CONFESS, the autobiography of ROB HALFORD

This is a tell all book from the metal god about the rise of Judas Priest from the early days, right to date including the effect of the Covid 19 on the band’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations.

The book is honest and frank about a lot of sensitive subjects including dealing with one’s sexuality, STDs, awkwardness within a band and family unit and loss, including in the context of suicide. As such Rob does not hold back and I felt the book was not sanitised in any way or written from the point of view of ego.

Rob comes across as rightly proud of his achievements, but also suitably humble and grateful, to the point that he makes becoming a multi platinum selling metal artist seem easy and often a bit of an accident, other than, of course, the hard work and persistence put into the rise of the band is fully documented along the way.

The book has plenty of funny stories and anecdotes about incredibly famous people Rob met on his journey including Madonna, Jack Nicholson, Cher, Johnny Depp, Freddie Mercury, Quentin Crisp,  Andy Warhol and the real Queen to name a few. There are of course a lot of things that can go wrong in the life of a heavy metal band, and will, and the book draws the link between the Spinal Tap film and the band which in many ways rolled on like a Juggernaut no matter what befell them.

It is also Rob’s personal story about the quest for private life happiness and love and his struggle to escape a background that sent most embroiled in it to factories and a life of hard graft under very difficult conditions. Of course, fronting a metal band is also hard work and difficult in its own way. All that is made clear and difficult periods for the band such as when they were sued for the alleged backwards messages on recordings are all covered in full.

There’s a ‘real’ quality about the book. You feel it has all been written by Rob himself and yet it is an easy, interesting read which made me laugh out loud when finding out what a bunch of guys from Walsall might get up to in a straight laced society like Japan or if their van breaks down in NY City and they have to get to their gig in their full leather and studs stage gear no matter what.

Never dull, very human and illuminating, this is a bare all book that is a good read for fans of the band and for anyone dealing with similar issues to those with which Rob wrestled.

‘CONFESS The Autobiography by Rob Halford is out in hardback on 29^th September published by Headline’

Dawn Osborne