The loss of the legendary Eddie Van Halen Judas Priest 's vocalist , Rob Halford .
In an interview on the SiriusXM radio program Volume , the Metal God recalls great moments with the artist, “When Van Halen’s first album came out, Judas Priest’s manager at the time, Dave Corke , came to my house, knocked on the door, and said, ‘You have to come listen to this band. I just got this cassette. It’s by a band called Van Halen . You have to listen to this cassette.’ And I didn’t have a tape player at home – I had a record player, but not a tape player. So I went and sat in his car, and we put on the cassette, Van Halen’s first album, and I was blown away.”
“I was impressed, at first, by Eddie’s guitar virtuosity, but just the whole expression of that Van Halen band. And we sat there in the dark in his car and listened to the whole album. So that was my introduction to the great Eddie Van Halen. After many years, Judas Priest opened for Van Halen in Santa Monica. And, again, beautiful, gracious guys. I was going out with David Lee Roth for the first time. So that’s a second great memory,” Halford shares, adding that Eddie used to come to Priest shows and maintained a very strong friendship with Glenn Tipton , the band’s guitarist.
“It’s absolutely terrible that we’ve lost another incredibly talented artist,” Rob says. “I’m still trying to process this, because I’ve been a Van Halen fan since day one. And again, all we can do is pray for the family and the band members and the fans and everyone, while we process the grief. And as we always do, as I did when I lost Ronnie [James Dio] and when I lost Lemmy , put their music on at full volume, because that’s the best way to celebrate these incredible artists, and in this case, the legendary Eddie Van Halen.”
Check out the excerpt from the interview below:
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