Judas Priest's Rob Halford says this will not be the last tour

Rob Halford

As soon as they announced their 2011 farewell tour, Judas Priest announced they were not ending yet. What they meant is that this would be their first major world tour in a while.

During an interview with WVOX, Rob Halford cleared the air about this little incident. “Well, it’s turned out not to be the final world tour,” he admitted. “What we tried to do as we suddenly got into gear again and especially since [new guitarist Richie Faulkner] came on board — we suddenly realized that now there were more opportunities opening up.”

He continued  “What was a final global world tour in the way that we’ve been doing them for the past 30-odd years is just going to change slightly. For example, we’re going to do a European tour for about a month or two months, and then instead of jumping on a plane and going straight to New York to start an American tour, we’re just going to pull back and put a bit of space to recharge our batteries and to be able to keep that special feeling that Priest always wants to generate when we go onstage. We have a big responsibility — not only to ourselves, but to our fans — that we don’t drop the ball. And, so again, it’s no different than sports athletes; Michael Jordon wasn’t going out on the court as much when he was getting older. But when he went out he could get it in the hoop. But it’s not the end of touring. We are still going to be going out there.”

In fact, he has said that as long as his voice holds up, he'll keep singing "Hell Bent for Leather" and "Turbo Lover".  “One of my all-time heroes is Willie Nelson, who, as you know, is celebrating his 80th year,” he said. “God bless the man. Even somebody like Tony Bennett, the great crooner. These guys inspire me as a musician. Seventy is the new 50. Like heavy metal will never die — the Metal God will never die.”