Judas Priest – The Story Behind Breaking The Law | Louder
Judas Priest singer Rob Halford tells the story behind the band's top 20 UK hit from 1980, Breaking The Law.
Transcript
00:00That song was written at John Lennon's former house.
00:29in Tittenhurst Park just outside of London with Tom Allen on the British
00:37Steel Sessions and we had about 30 days to write and record that album.
00:51There was a time in the UK particularly around at the end of the 70s and the
00:56early 80s when this country was just, there was riots going on, there was
01:00strikes going on, there was a lot of pissed-off people in this country, rightfully so.
01:10As a lyricist I'm always picking up on what's going on around me and I just
01:16remember seeing the news that night and seeing all this stuff kicking off and it
01:21just made me feel about another area of the news which was that there was all
01:27these problems with young people leaving school or university or college.
01:33They'd been promised a job, they'd been said, you know, if you complete all this
01:39and do all this you'll, you know, there'll be an opportunity to do this and there
01:43wasn't, which is sadly a bit like today's world.
01:49The knee-jerk reaction for some people is to not exactly break the law but
01:56kick back at the system so we wrapped up that idea around this breaking the
02:02law. There I was completely wasted out of working down. Well there's your
02:07statement right away, you're acknowledging a portion of society
02:11that's really, you know, having a tough time in life.
02:19It's almost a protest song but it's just a very vibrant, uplifting moment for
02:28priests in our metal world and it's become legendary.
02:35It's in us all, not only the love of that priest song but what that song
02:51represents, breaking the law.