Halford en The Advocate V (y último)

What do your working-class parents think about your publicly coming out?
When I answered yes to being gay on MTV, it filtered through to the U.K. My mom was like, "Well, we saw the MTV piece, and we're really happy for you." Then Dad and I talked about everything other than that, and as we were winding up our conversation, he said, "I just want to let you know that I'm very proud of you. I think it takes a lot of courage, and I just want you to know that." That was the very first time he and I made that connection verbally. It was over the phone. I would've liked it to have been face-to-face so we could've given each other a hug and probably shed a few tears.

Were you aware of any other gay members in your family?
No. There was no uncle. [Laughs] There was none of that. So it was a pretty lonely, isolated kind of feeling

Were you always thinking, I'm a little different, both in your sexual feelings and in the kind of music you liked?
Yes. My awareness of my sexuality preceded my love of music. I recall having real strong feelings around the age of 10, 11, 12. I had girlfriends. But there was never any sexual activity. I simply wasn't sexually stimulated by women. That's just the fact of being a gay man.

When did you get interested in rock music?
I loved all music. I'd been singing in the school choir, and I had a taste of what it was like to be onstage. So there was that kind of acceptance thing going on that may have had something to do with the fact that even though I might've thought being a gay man was wrong, I could be accepted because I had a voice. I could stand onstage, and people would clap. It had a balancing effect.

For your fear of being hated for being gay?
Exactly. So I left school at 16 and went straight to work for a large theater. I went from those high-school experiences in the straight world to the theater with gay men everywhere. I started to mix with my own kind, and I started to feel as though I wasn't the only one.

You mentioned being in a long-term relationship today that is no longer sexual. Do you want one that is sexual?
Sometimes I feel like Boy George: "I just want to have a cup o' tea." I tell you, I'm so over it. And maybe I'm getting close to middle age. We all know that part of our sexuality changes.

You sound bitter. I believe you can't be bitter without having once been a dreamer. Did you once believe you could have a long-term romantic, sexual relationship?
[Laughs] I tell everyone I'm not bitter, but I think maybe I am. Yes, part of me wants that, and part of me doesn't. A good portion of my relationships were with essentially straight men who suddenly went off and got married. They were just experimenting with me.

That's a drag.
Yes, I've been through all that crap, and it drives me crazy.

But you still want love?
Yes, that evil four-letter word, love. I think love is God's trick.

But maybe being completely out of the closet will change all this for you.
Yeah, I've been thinking it might come from that wonderful moment when you walk out of the closet. Now I've done that, and I've freed myself. Maybe that special moment is yet to happen, because I do believe that we are destined to find that one person. [Starts to cry] I admit it.

Well, you've gone through a lot to got here.
Yes, and it is a great feeling for me to finally let go and make this statement--and especially to The Advocate, because this magazine has brought me so much comfort over the years. Obviously this is just a wonderful day for me.

Resumen Pegamin:

• Padres comprensivos
• Sentía que era aceptado por estar encima de un escenario
• Halford como experiencia sexual hetero

Halford en The Advocate IV

You created an aesthetic in rock that attracts straight men too.
I guess that's true, because I met this guy recently, and he said, "When I was 13, I used to watch MTV, and you would be walking around in your leather stuff, and I'd always get an erection." A lot of men who are into leather are also into metal. They mayn't know they're gay until they see something that makes them feel hot.

Let me ask you about the anger behind all the heavy-metal raging. What is it an outlet for? What was Rob so angry about?
I think I was angry at myself. I thought that I was sexually dysfunctional, that I didn't fit in because I was still the gay man in an exclusively straight rock world. And I wanted to fit in, but I didn't want to fit in. It was confusing, and it was frustrating. And so it was great for me to have an opportunity to vent that way. I really don't know what I'd have done if I wasn't able to do that.

Now that you're out, will you miss screaming your pain away?
It's a relevant question, because I really get a lot of pleasure out of rip-roaring and screaming my head off. I recommend it to anybody. If you can't put it in words, then just let it come out that way. That's what people do at rock shows. They go crazy, you know, with mosh pits and screaming and knocking each other about--not in a destructive, violent way but in a cathartic way.
But now that I'm out about my homosexuality, I'm gonna be shouting my mouth off about having the same rights and being treated the same way as every other person on this planet. All of us are human beings, and we should not be denied the same kinds of things that the greater portion of straight society receives. That's got to be the next step on this journey for me. I'll stand up for it and make my voice heard for equal rights.

Do you want the right to marry?
Of course. There should not be a rule that says I don't have this right. It's so wrapped up in religion.

How were you raised with religion?
It wasn't really an important part of my life. You receive religious instruction in the U.K. schools--that's part of the curriculum.

What sent you on your spiritual journey?
Going through my sobriety stage, because I'm a recovering alcoholic. I've been through 12 years now. I know what makes me tick, whereas before I was clueless.

What made you stop drinking?
It was a cataclysmic event. Most of the men I'm attracted to [even now] are straight men. The boy I was dating back then had a cocaine problem. We had one of those bombastic physical attractions, and there was a tremendous amount of violence. We used to beat the crap out of each other in the drunken and cocaine rages that we had. And one day we were fighting, and I left for my own safety and called a cab. As I was getting in the cab, he came up to me and said, "Look, I just want to let you know I love you very much." And when he turned away, I saw that he had a gun. Moments later he put the gun to his head and killed himself.

What's your biggest devil?
Jealousy. And yet I'm the classic dysfunctional jealous person because it's OK for me to mess around but don't you mess around.

Resumen Pegamin:

• El grito como catarsis
• Me siento más atraído por heteros que por gays
• Deje de beber cuando mi chico se suicidó momentos después de decirme que me quería
  

Halford en The Advocate III

Tell me about feeling isolated with all those straight-arrow rockers.
It's horrible. The show ends, everybody goes to the titty bar or the nudie bar, and they all pick up a bunch of chicks and go up to their rooms. That's not me. I'm a gay man. So it was a very isolated, lonely kind of experience. You do this great show in front of thousands and thousands of adoring fans...

And so many of them are men!
Yes. Isn't it crazy? All those guys, and I'd go back to my room alone. It's 11:30; you close the door and watch The Tonight Show and fall asleep while everybody else is banging away down the hallway, doing orgiastic rock-and-roll things.

You never picked up any men?
Yes. You know, I had a few of the rock-and-roll groupie experiences with other gay men who were hanging out backstage. My gaydar would go off. But that was very isolated.

Were you aware of other closeted gay rock stars? Did you know Freddie Mercury [Queen's lead singer, who died of complications from AIDS in 1991]?
Well, Freddie... I just sometimes have these real emotional experiences and feelings about him, especially when I listen to his music. I worshiped him as a performer and as a musician. I just wished that we could've become friends. We came so close. I remember going to Mykonos [Greece] one time, and the plane stopped over in Athens. I was with a bunch of my gay friends, and we went to this gay bar in Greece. Freddie was there too. He was in one corner, and I was in one corner, and we kinda smiled to each other and waved, "Hey, hi, how are you?" He was in Mykonos for two weeks on his huge yacht, which he'd festooned with bright pink balloons. It just kept going around and around the island. I wished there would've been an opportunity for us to get together. I was devastated like everybody else when he passed away.

When you first joined Priest, what was the climate like in the early '70s in England you were gay?
The gay culture was established, but it was very underground; it was still being badly spoken of by all forms of politicians. You went to only certain bars, and it was all secret, and nobody knew where the bars were, nobody was in the streets. There was no trying to assimilate into society.

What made you create the leather look for Priest?
The imagery I created was simply out of a feeling that what I was doing before the leather and studs and whips and chains and motorcycles didn't fit me. Priest was going onstage in very flamboyant saggy pants. It was very extroverted and fluffy in its visual tone, but I didn't feel right. I've got great videos of me wearing outfits that I stole out of my sister's closet. I couldn't figure out what to wear. How do I dress with the music that sounds this way?
So I said, "OK, I'm a gay man, and I'm into leather and that sexual side of the leather world--and I'm gonna bring that onto the stage." So I came onstage, wearing the leather stuff and the motorcycle, and for the first time I felt like, God this feels so good. This feels so right. How can I make this even more extravagant, because this music is so loud. It is so larger than life. So the first place I went to was a leather shop in London called Mr. S.

Who were they selling to?
To the gay crowd that's into the leather scene. But I remember going in there and seeing these harnesses and wristbands and cock-ring-type things. I just introduced myself to the owners and explained what I was looking for, and they started to make things for me.

You never thought, Oh, my God, I'm doing this gay-man leather fantasy in the middle of a hetero heavy metal rock show?
Oh, yes, I did! I thought to myself, Do you realize what you're doing here? I mean, you've got the whole thing going--the body harness, the handcuffs. You've got the whip, you've got the chains. This is like some total S/M fetish thing going on! But nobody seemed to have a problem with it, and everybody was crazy for it, so we kept doing it.

Resumen Pegamin:

• Soledad
• Conocí a Mercury en Mykonos
  
• Llevé la estética S/M del underground gay al gran público
  

Halford en The Advocate II

Why are you coming out now?
I really dwelled on it so long. What am I gonna gain? What am I gonna lose? I think it's true, when you become successful in the music world, you probably go more in the closet. You get under the rug in the closet because of the phobia that still exists in rock music. You could lose a record deal, a fan base. It's really difficult for any musician to come out.

And particularly in this genre of music, which you helped to create.
Yeah. Had I considered coming out five years ago, it would've been very difficult. But right now I'm experiencing the same emotions that my friends have told me they felt when they came out: this great clarity and this great peace. There have been no repercussions, no hate mail. I think people have had so many good times with my music that my coming-out is easier for them to accept. It's like, "Well, look at the great music, look at the great shows--does it really matter?"

How did you hide your homosexuality from Judas Priest all those years?
Everybody in Priest always had an awareness that I was gay.

What? Priest knew you were gay.?
Yeah, they knew because the way I started with Priest was through my sister, who was dating the bass player, Ian Hill. She told Ian of my singing abilities and, I guess, about me.

How amazing that they weren't afraid to have a gay man lead their band.
I never experienced homophobia from anybody in Priest. I think that if I'd sensed that they had a problem with it, I would not have joined the band--even though obviously it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I used to contact your press people about doing an interview with you for The Advocate. Did you know about it?
Oh, there could've been things going on that I wasn't aware of: calls to management, calls to the label, people saying we want to talk about Rob's sexuality. But Priest never got involved in social-political discussions.

Did you ever pretend to have girlfriends?
No, I never did that. I never went to a record-release party with a blond on my arm or that kind of stuff. I never felt that I was walking around creating a smoke screen.

From my own experiences traveling with metal bands on tour buses as a journalist, I remember that often a band member would fall in love with a girl and bring her on the road.
That's exactly what I did.

With a boy?
Yes. Absolutely. That's exactly what I did. The guy I've had a relationship with now for the last three years will be going out on the road with me on this current tour--although we've gone beyond the sexual thing now; we're just platonic friends. But we live together, and we don't want to really let each other go. I've had only a handful of serious relationships. Fortunately, I could to take these individuals on the road.

When rock magazines interviewed you on the road, did you hide your male companions?

You mean, "You better stay in the room and don't show your face until the interviewer is gone"? Naw, but it wasn't a brash act of "Hey, check this out about my boyfriend on the road with me." It was the typical Elton John thing. You know, Elton's lover is with him now on the road taking care of him. You're not so lonely with all those straight rock people around you, not knowing you're gay.

Resumen Pegamin:

• Es jodido arriesgar tu éxito por decir que eres gay.
• La gente se lo tomo bien.
• Los Judas siempre supieron que era homosexual y nunca tuvieron ningún problema con ello.
• Me llevaba a mi chico de gira.
  

Halford en The Advocate I: Introducción

Como es una entrevista muy larga y está en inglés la voy a separar en fragmentos, siendo el primero la típica introducción que hace el entrevistador.
Al final de cada fragmento haré un pequeño resumen a lo Halford for dummies.

Las fotos son "mías", no he conseguido encontrar el texto por internet y no sé que fotos llevaba. Lo típico, pinchar para verlas más grande.

Halford en The Advocate (1998), poco después de dar a conocer su homosexualidad en la MTV

Sexual ambiguity is fair game in glam, disco, and even alternative rock. But never heavy metal. Until now...

The significance of a heavy metal star coming out of the most Neanderthal-posing rock genre in music is incalculable. In the world of heavy metal (a term coined by William Burroughs in Naked Lunch)--with its devil-worshiping, electric guitar-dominated image, "get me some chicks" songs; and raunchy heterosexual blue-collar fan base--homophobia is rampant. What gay man would dare take this on and risk losing his career? Even Queen's Freddie Mercury went to his grave never making a public statement. But now, after nearly three decades of living his rock-star sex life in cautious silence, Rob Halford, one-time lead singer of Judas Priest, considered by many the archetypal metal band, bangs his head on rock's meanest closed door and breaks all the way out.

Long before sweaty mosh pits with rock fans slamMing their half-naked bodies together, long before the angry wail of heavy metal bands like Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, or Van Halen, there was Judas Priest.

Storming out of the harsh industrial regions of northern England, Judas Priest was a gang of five furious blokes with a very loud grudge. Typical of so many bands that change the face of rock forever (the Beatles from Liverpool, Led Zeppelin from Birmingham), Judas Priest came from an English landscape as brutal and oppressive as the band's own distorted guitar sounds. Connecting fiercely with the rage of working-class fans around the world who felt they had no bright future, Priest began its defiant push for success in 1969.

After two years of false starts and small record labels, the band replaced its lead singer with a theatrical lighting technician from Birmingham named Rob Halford. With his keen writing sense and ear-splitting leather lungs, Halford was the magic that launched both the band and an entire genre of rock called heavy metal--a bombastically amplified, guitar-driven wall of sound featuring a lead singer powerful enough to cut through it all. Like the shrill, grinding noises of the metal steel mills inhabiting Britain's cold north country, Judas Priest was a brazen force to be reckoned with.

Capitalizing on Halford's sonic howling and bondage-gear dress (complete with the Harley he drove onstage every night), Judas Priest sold millions of albums and filled nearly as many arenas with nasty beer-drinking, head-banging hetero boys. The band played so loud that they were said to cause involuntary bowel movements--so who would've ever guessed that the centerpiece in this macho commotion was a gay man?

"Yeah, but look at the homoeroticism in metal music," says Jon Ginoli, front man for the all-gay rock band Pansy Division. Ginoli and his band mates were instrumental in bringing Halford out of the closet after meeting him in a San Francisco bar in 1997. The bond they formed was so strong, Halford actually risked performing live with them at three gay pride events last year--although he still hadn't made up his mind to come out.
Part of the reason for Halford's indecision was his brand-new band and record deal. After a chance meeting with Nine Inch Nails lead singer Trent Reznor in New Orleans, Halford's newly formed band, Two, signed with Reznor's label. This March, Two released its first album, Voyeurs, and in April commenced its first U.S. tour. To help launch the band, porn master Chi Chi LaRue was enlisted to direct Two's first video, for "I Am a Pig."

"When I first saw him," says LaRue, "I saw a big, tattooed, scary superstar--and the sweetest man I've ever met."
LaRue's observation is just one more dichotomy about Halford. Despite making deafening noises for nearly three decades, there was always one silence the rocker left unbroken. Now with this exclusive Advocate interview, that silence has been forever broken.

Resumen Pegamín:

• Los heavys son unos retrógrados.
• Los Judas surgen de un lugar muy jodido de Inglaterra y luego tienen mucho éxito.
  
• Quién podía imaginar que en la banda más heavy cantaba un homosexual.
• Tras un tiempo de dudas, Halford decide salir del armario.