Heavy Duty: Days and Nights in Judas Priest
-K. K. Downing - (DaCapo Press)
As I worked my way through Heavy Duty: Days and Nights
in Judas Priest the bio from guitarist/founder K. K. Downing, I couldn’t help
but be struck by the dichotomy of this leather and spikes clad, sneering,
blonde rocker, with his guitar slung low. On one hand he is all that larger than
life rock God and on the other a seemingly mild-mannered, humble guy who can’t
hide the broad grin, spurred by his good fortune of being a rock star.
Naturally Downing ticks all of the boxes you’d expect;
touching on his childhood, the genesis of his music aspiration, the start of
the band, the slog of the early days, onto bigger and better things and of
course the women. Downing also serves up something interesting insights into
his creative process of not only writing the songs, building out the
production, but also his often internal struggle with trying to build a
coherent overall vision for the band’s look and feel, including everything from
what they did onstage, on video, album covers and look. As the story
progresses, you can see he never quite reached his level of comfort.
My coming of age in rock radio, paralleled Downing’s rise
to rock stardom, so many of the episodes he writes about served as a great
reminder of milestone moments for Judas Priest. He details the tale of the band
being dragged into court, their music blamed as the cause of the suicide death
of one fan and the failed attempt of another. He describes the pain he felt at
the conflict of having to defend the band contrasted by the tragedy of the
actions of what were clearly hardcore fans of the band’s music. I couldn’t help
but remember the image of lead vocalist, Rob Halford uncharacteristically
dressed in a suit, testifying in court.
When it comes to Halford coming out of the closet as gay,
Downing is strikingly frank; claiming that he and fellow bandmates had always
suspected Halford’ predilections and didn’t really care. It was almost as if
Halford’s standard stage gear of leathers and a bullwhip was a caricature of
his reality; an inside joke that everyone was in on.
Diehard Priest fans may quibble over some of the internal
disagreements that Downing details, flying in the face of the united rock front
the band presented to the public. Let’s face it, when you put a bunch of guys
in close proximity and nearly non-stop recording and touring for decades and
conflict is only natural and the details only make this more realistic. In the
end it is Downing’s firm grip on reality that makes Heavy Duty an
entertaining read.
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