The Ballad of Judas Priest, which just had its Canadian premiere at Toronto\u2019s Hot Docs Festival on Sunday and screens again on the afternoon of May 1, weaves together the story of the pioneering metal band, its influence and its biggest secret.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Co-directed by Toronto\u2019s Sam Dunn, whose Banger Films has done docs on Rush, Iron Maiden, Triumph, Alice Cooper and ZZ Top, with American rock musician Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Prophets of Rage), the two crystallize Judas Priest\u2019s importance over almost sixty years, one that transcends music to that of fashion and community for self-described societal misfits.<\/p>\n
The Ballad of Judas Priest covers the band\u2019s working-class beginnings in England\u2019s West Midland\u2019s \u201cBlack Country\u201d in 1969 \u2014 before the genre \u201cheavy metal\u201d was even coined \u2014 to the 1990 lawsuit claiming subliminal messages in their music caused two young men to shoot themselves, as well as frontman Rob Halford\u2019s agreement to keep his sexuality closeted for the sake of the band, until a spontaneous revelation in 1998 and the beautiful fallout: spoiler: no one cared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew going in that there were really important archival moments that we needed to anchor the story, which was not always a place you\u2019re in at the beginning of a film like this, like the US Festival, \u201cBreaking The Law,\u2019 the trial, Rob coming out on MTV,\u201d said Dunn after the screening. \u201cThere were very key and clear archival moments, and we just had to pay the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Providing insight also plenty of interviews, archival and present, from guitarists K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill and drummer Scott Travis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In between biographical information is commentary from the late Ozzy Osbourne, mega fans Kirk Hammett of Metallica, actor comedian Jack Black and Foo Fighters\u2019 Dave Grohl, as well as a roundtable Morello assembled with Run-DMC\u2019s Darryl McDaniels, Smashing Pumpkins\u2019 Billy Corgan, Halestorm\u2019s Lzzy Hale and Scott Ian of Anthrax.<\/p>\n
In a Q&A after the screening, Dunn revealed some other tidbits Priest fans might want to know.<\/p>\n
On getting Downing \u2014 who left Judas Priest in 2011 \u2014 to be in the film:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big one for Tom was getting K.K. Downing involved. It was tricky at first attempt because obviously he\u2019s not in the band. There\u2019s still some animosity there, and, genuinely, it took some work to get K.K. on board. Frankly, I don\u2019t know if Morello, if he hadn\u2019t have been there, it might have been a much, much bigger challenge. Tom Morello\u2019s a massive fan of the band, a big fan of K.K.\u2019s playing, so he really connected with K.K. and got him over the line. So, that\u2019s a whole other story that wasn\u2019t in the film\u2026 There\u2019s still outstanding legal issues with KK and the band. This is the honest answer. And, so there\u2019s a lot of caution exercised on both sides around what got said. We had to move through it without digging into all the details because it\u2019s still fresh, still raw.\u201d<\/p>\n
On why it took so long to make the documentary after suggesting it to management:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t take 12 years to get it going. Boring answer is it\u2019s timing. Bands like Judas Priest are so well managed and there\u2019s a lot of strategy involved in thinking about \u2018When are we going to tell the big story? What\u2019s the right time?; So, that\u2019s really what it is. We\u2019d have to have Jayne [Andrews, manager] here to ask her because she\u2019s the mastermind behind the band, but I think they had reached a point in their career when they realized it was time. Rob and Ian, Glenn, they\u2019re in their mid-70s now. They\u2019re making one more record, I think, right? So, they\u2019re thinking about the legacy, entering the legacy years.\u201d<\/p>\n
On landing one the defence lawyers:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe depth to which we were able to explore the trial, especially with Bill Peterson, one of the defense lawyers, was the opportunity to peel away a couple more layers of the onion on what actually happened. I was 15, or whatever, when that trial happened. You hear about it back in those days through magazines, and there was that original documentary, but, for me, sitting down with Bill, what a remarkable memory and mind, that guy, so sharp. He just walked us through the entire case, and he gave me the judge\u2019s written ruling, which was this stack of paper. For me, it was the depth to which we got into the trial was one of the treats of making the film, for sure\u2026Suellen Fulstone, she was the lead defense lawyer for Judas Priest, and Bill was secondary. Interestingly, they ended up falling in love, and they\u2019re a couple, so there\u2019s a romance in there\u2026Suellen, she didn\u2019t want to do it, I\u2019m not exactly sure why. I really wanted to talk to her because she was leading the charge for the defense, but, anyway, Bill was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
On if they reached out to Tim \u201cRipper\u201d Owens, the singer who replaced Halford from 1996 to 2003:<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Controversial response, Judas Priest fans. Again, so much story. We wanted to obviously reference Tim, but it\u2019s tricky. Not to get in the weeds, but in a story of this scale, when you\u2019re into the second, third, or third quarter of the story, it\u2019s like what to do and what not to do become big questions. The exploding heart, Richie Faulkner\u2019s heart exploded on stage, and he almost died. We were like, \u2018Okay, that\u2019s pretty interesting, pretty dramatic, but no.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
On the Ozzy Osbourne interview (he died last summer):<\/p>\n
\u201cReally emotional. I\u2019d never met Ozzy until this interview, and we\u2019d interviewed all the other original members of Black Sabbath for other films that we\u2019ve done. So, came together. It was the year before. I can\u2019t put my finger on the specific time, but really emotional, especially what he says about Parkinson\u2019s, telling Glenn that he needs to keep fighting, and how tragic it is that Ozzy\u2019s the one that\u2019s no longer with us. That\u2019s become a very emotional part of the film to watch for me. And the fact that he\u2019s telling Glenn to keep fighting, and he\u2019s not here. But, what a treat to actually have him there. He\u2019s so funny, and he brings a lot of laughs and a lot of heart to the film. I\u2019m just grateful that he\u2019s there to tell the story.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ballad of Judas Priest, which just had its Canadian premiere at Toronto\u2019s Hot Docs Festival on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,1554,121446,238950,3302],"class_list":["post-640231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-film","tag-hot-docs","tag-hot-docs-film-festival","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}