Rob Halford Shares Strong Memories Of Eddie Van Halen

Keavin Wiggins | 10-15-2020

Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford shared some of his favorite memories of Eddie Van Halen during an interview conducted right after the guitar icon passed away.

Halford spoke with Metal Injection to promote his new autobiography "Confess" and the topic turned to the Van Halen legend. Rob shared, "A couple of strong memories. First one, when I was introduced to Eddie's spectacular guitarmanship was in the very early days of Judas Priest.

"Our manager, Dave Cork at the time, came over to where I was living at the time and said you've got to come sit in my car and listen to this cassette that somebody sent me from America. It's this new band, they're called Van Halen. I don't know anything about them, but just listen to this music.

"So I went and sat in the car outside my house, and we played the whole first Van Halen album, and I was just mesmerized. I was mesmerized by his guitar playing. He was like something we've never ever heard before from a guitar player. So that was the first time.

"And then, some years later, Priest were special guests to Van Halen at the Santa Monica Civic Center, and we had a show together, and it was just a thrill because we were all fans of them. Turns out they too were fans of Priest, especially Eddie, with what Glenn and K.K. were doing at the time. So, we became friends and we kept that friendship going.

"I know that Eddie came to Priest shows because afterwards I'd find out, that he'd been with Glenn and they'd have been talking about guitars, like guitar players do. Man, it's just horrible. It's absolutely horrible. We lost so many people this year, on top of this pandemic. When will it stop, you know? But you have to pull through all of that, pull through all the ruble. And do what we always do when we lose these musical giants - it's put this music on. Because I was blasting Van Halen all day yesterday to get me through the loss of this incredible player." Watch the full interview below: