Rob Halford remembers. The Judas Priest singer shared how it was the Demon himself, Gene Simmons of KISS, who opened his eyes with some wise advice when he was just another aspiring rocker shooting for the stars.
"We have a great friendship with Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanley] from KISS. And Priest were out on this big tour — we were invited to open up for KISS — and I was just talking to Gene about the music business, and he goes, 'Let me just say this: It doesn't matter what they say about you, as long as they've got your picture and they spell your name right,'" Halford told Twisted Sister drummer Jay Jay French on his "French Connection" podcast recently.
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"Especially in music, there are so many opinions, and there are so many different points of view, it's out of your control, and you really have to figure things out, because the way that some of the negativity can intrude into your own personal life — 'You suck'; 'I hope you die of cancer'; all this horrible stuff — you've gotta learn how to deal with that. You see it particularly in popular music with younger people," Halford observed.
Simmons' words of wisdom to a young Halford ring truer than ever in 2020, as Halford explained to French. "When young people get famous quickly, how can they handle it? You need experience. You need wisdom. And so that simply message from Gene, I still remember it: 'It doesn't matter what they say about you, as long as you get your picture in and they spell your name right.' And that has some validity.”
Listen to the full podcast below.
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