Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal by Jon Wiederhorn Page A

acclaimed album, British Steel . And, inspired by Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Saxon, Def Leppard, and a batch of other UK groups spawned the awkwardly titled but hugely influential New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) movement.
    The NWOBHM trailblazers each had their own style, but were lumped together by music journalists. Some, like Def Leppard, were firmly rooted in melody; others, such as Iron Maiden, in galloping, classical-tinged punk. NWOBHM’s influence spread across the United Kingdom, and then the rest of Europe, inspiring bands like Germany’s Accept and Scorpions, Denmark’s Mercyful Fate, America’s Armored Saint, and a little band called Metallica.
ROB HALFORD: Metal music gained its foothold on a global level in a short space of time. There were a handful of music papers or magazines, so the way it was growing and the intensity of the focus made us think more and more about how we wanted to look. Really, Judas Priest’s biker image started to take shape around the time of [1979’s] Hell Bent For Leather . You know the way Audrey Hepburn’s little black dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s shook the world? For me it was the little biker jacket. I wore it to rehearsal and everybody went, “Fuck, that looks really tough. That looks really strong. That looks like the music sounds, almost.” We all looked at each other and nodded in agreement and said, “I wonder what else we could do?” I just need a nod of approval and then the walls come crashing down.
IAN HILL: At the time, we were a little bit surprised that other bands started dressing the same way. But the look fit the music. Just imagine us playing “Freewheel Burning” in satin and velvet. It wouldn’t fit.
ROB HALFORD: To get some of these bits and pieces of my clothing, I had to go to the local S&M sex shops in the UK. It wasn’t like we wanted the S&M part of it associated with Priest, but I could only get the little accoutrements and accessories through these kinds of establishments. I had this whip that went with the outfit. Now these days if I brought out a whip and whipped the crowd I would get litigation left, right, and center. But in those early days that’s literally what I would do, and they’d be shouting, “Whip me! Whip me!”
MARTIN POPOFF: When Judas Priest begin to adopt this rough and tough leather look, they begin to get across this idea, subtly, that it’s okay to be heavy metal, it’s okay to be proud of it, and they slowly begin to become the self-identified, self-aware heavy metal band. You get this metal army forming, and a cult of metal that begins to evolve with the look and the live show that no one had seen before.
ROB HALFORD: We used to do a song called “Genocide,” and I said to the band, “Wouldn’t it be great if at the end of the song we use a machine gun?” We got in touch with a weapons prop guy, and for that tour he came with us and I used a full automatic machine gun. It shot these blanks. It was really fucking loud, and smoke came out, and these blank brass cartridges would spray all over the stage. Eventually we hit a wall because the local fire marshals were afraid the gun was real and that we were going to cause a riot. They had a point, because there were crowds that looked confused and you could tell they were thinking, “Surely to God, that’s not a machine gun. Is it plastic? No, it’s real! What’s going on? What the fuck is this?” Then I’d look at them and point it straight at them. Nobody knew in advance what was going on, so there was this look that was a combination of sheer horror and, “Oh my God, that’s so cool.”
    While Judas Priest was searching bondage shops and cultivating their dramatic live show, Black Sabbath was looking for a new vocalist. The remaining members were afraid they’d never find a singer as charismatic and iconoclastic as Ozzy—and many fans and critics wrote Sabbath off. Then Sabbath returned with vocalist Ronnie James Dio,