08/05/2023
The national digital rock and metal radio station, Planet Rock (available on DAB thoughout the UK) reports that in 2024, three legends of the nineteen seventies heavy metal scene, Uriah Heep, Saxon and Judas Priest, will be touring the United Kingdom. More details will be announced later in 2023. All three of these bands helped sharpen and hone the metal sound during the progress of the seventies, and inspired the later "New Wave" of British Heavy Metal through such bands as Iron Maiden and Def Leppard. Judas Priest, in particular released a highly influential album called "British Steel" in 1977, which features the track "Breaking the Law", interpreted by many to be an homage to unlawful gay sex in public. During this period, the lead singer of Priest, Rob Halford, began to take the heavy metal leather look and merge it with SM and gay bondage tropes, fusing the styles into a distinctly homoerotic brand of heavy metal. It was therefore of little surprise to many music commentators and fans when Mr Halford publicly came out in 1998, in an interview with both the MTV Network and with longstanding gay magazine The Advocate. Mr Halford is celebrated for his operatic vocal ranges and - contrary to some assumptions made about it by outsides, reports that the metal community has been relaxed and accepting of his sexuality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Priest
