Tales from the other side of town: Breaking the Law?

Και όσο περιμένουμε την απόφαση του Πρωτοδικείου της Ρόδου, για τον γάμο ομοφύλων, ένα μουσικό διάλειμμα...

Οι Judas Priest ήταν ένα γκρουπ, που παρ' ότι τα γούστα μου δεν ήταν τόσο κοντά στην metal σκηνή ποτέ, πάντα μου άρεσε. Από το 1983-84 αν θυμάμαι καλά που τους πρωτοάκουσα. Το British Steel πρέπει νά 'ταν η η πρώτη τους δουλειά που άκουσα. Ξέφευγαν λιγάκι απ' αυτό το γνωστό "τινάζουμε-ρυθμικά-το-πλούσιο-μαλλί" κτλ κτλ.

Ήταν κι ο Rob Haldord, που παρ' ότι τότε δεν ήταν γνωστό τίποτε, το ραντάρ κάτι έπιανε στον αέρα. Και πράγματι, ο ίδιος σε συνέντευξή του πριν από μια δεκαετία περίπου μίλησε χωρίς φόβο και με πολύ πάθος.

Θα αντιγράψω από το μπλογκ Gay for Today (πολύ καλό μπλογκ, δείτε το!), το ακόλουθο απόσπασμα:

In 1998, Halford revealed he was homosexual in an interview on MTV. His sexual orientation had always been known to the rest of Judas Priest and came as little surprise to fans as his sexual orientation was somewhat of an open secret among fans and among the Heavy Metal press. The response from the heavy metal community has been widely accepting.

Και από συνέντευξή του εδώ:

UGO: It’s been a little over ten years since you told the public you were gay. Looking back now, what prompted you to make it publicly known at that point, and not earlier?
Rob Halford: When you’re a public figure, I think there’s an expectation of knowing everything about a person. That’s just the world that we live in. It was just becoming increasingly uncomfortable for myself to need - if the need was there - to hide that part of my person. So I did it primarily for myself – to set myself free of this wall that you put around. When you break that wall down, you’re a different person to a great degree in the public’s eye – you just remove all the innuendo and all of the comments, and remarks become futile. It’s like spent ammunition. So you expose yourself even more to everything that you are as a person. For me, it was just a very important mental thing, more than anything else. Beyond that, it was just really incredible to see and feel the response back from the metal community, who basically said, “I don’t give a f*ck - as long as you keep singing metal, I don’t really care.” I think that was a great testimony to the openness and the human aspect of the metal community – being able to take that as it was. That’s great. It was a good thing, and there was a lot of peripheral feedback that you never even consider. People saying, “Because of what you did, it gave me that extra push to do it myself.” Wonderful, wonderful emails and so forth – even now when I meet people at meet-and-greets, that thank me for whatever it was that helped them through that moment themselves. You don’t think about that – it just happens. So a lot of good came out of it.
UGO: Have any other metal musicians subsequently thanked you or said you inspired them to come to terms with their sexuality, as well?
Rob Halford: No – it would be ridiculous to think that the people that you know of, that there isn’t at least one other gay metalhead out there. But then again, it’s a personal choice – whether you want to step forward or not. I’d like to think that what I did, and that it didn’t affect my career, is an encouragement. But then again, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. It’s very much a private/personal choice to make.

Breaking the Law