Judas Priest
"You don't know what it's like, you don't have a clue - if you did then you'd wind up doing the same thing too"
The Metal Gods - em, from Birmingham - pioneers of British steel, denim and leather. Ooooooh yeah.
Who-How-When: Guitarist KK Downing and bassist Ian Hill formed a band at school in West Bromwich in 1969. Five years later they'd added vocalist Rob Halford and drummer John Hinch.
Breakthrough: 1980's British Steel, with drummer Dave Holland, showed the band playing powerful metal that was accessible enough to gain radio airplay - and it did.
Highest High: Abandoning the pop and synth angles of the 80s,and with current drummer Scott Travis, Priest went back to their heavy roots for 1990's Painkiller and took Pantera, Megadeth and Sepultura on tour with them, playing to 100,000 people at Rock in Rio.
Lowest Low: Halford quit the band in 1992, and four years later Priest recruited one of their fans, Tim Ripper Owens, to front them. The dream-come-true story inspired the movie Rock Star. Then Halford wanted to come back so they binned Owens.
That Was Then... Priest recently released the concept album Nostradamus, which takes so long to explain even the band don't expect you to understand it for a year or two. Owens currently sings for Yngwie Malmsteen.
Encore: During a notorious court case in 1990, Priest were accused of encouraging the suicide of two fans by including the subliminal message "Do it". In their legal defence Halford commented, "If we wanted to put subliminal commands in our songs we'd put, 'Buy more of our records'." The case was dismissed.
