Judas Priest’s Rob Halford has been one of the biggest names in the heavy metal scene. And as an artist, he has had an epic and strange connection with The Beatles. He had a great rapport with John Lennon, and Halford is known for having such an infamous relationship.
He is very much known as the frontman of Judas Priest. Also, his notorious look with a leather jacket. Some of his very best songs are ‘Breaking the Law’ and ‘Painkiller’ which made Judas Priest a very critically acclaimed band.
Judas Priest recorded the album “British Steel” in December 1979 in Ringo Starr’s house where John Lennon had also recorded the ‘Imagine’ video. Then in 2020 in an interview on Cassius Morris Show, he revealed that he kind of ‘stole’ an object of John in that house. And if his wife Yoko Ono wants it, he would happily give it back.
To our surprise, even though that house was of Ringo Starr, Judas revealed that he has never met the former Beatles drummer or any other Beatles member. He revealed, “I’d love to, but I never met the man – I still haven’t. I’ve never met a Beatle in my life. His studio managers and record people took care of all of the bookings and payments, and so on and so forth, for the time that we were there.”
He went with it and said,“But you could walk around a house that was used in Lennon’s videos when he was on the lake. Or when he was walking around that room, Yoko is opening the window shades… And then there’s that kind of jaw-dropping moment that hits me every time when Yoko walks past the table and there are these Perspex objects on the table. I actually have one of those Perspex objects in care, looking after it. Because I found it in this room that they put me in to do the vocals.”
Rob remembered the time when he came across the object, it was something that caught his eye. He recalled, “That’s the object, the obelisk. I’m in this room that Tom Allen put me in because he wanted a very very dry type of vocal sound. So I was in this very little teeny tiny room. And I was in there one day just waiting for the take to start. I’m looking around me and I see all these gold and silver and platinum Beatles awards. ‘Oh my God, that stuff’s collecting dust!” He added,
“Because it literally was collecting dust! I mean, when you think about the awards that those guys got, hundreds, probably thousands of them. Where do you put this stuff? There’s too much to put on the walls.”
Then, the interview continued and he said that he was a great fan of John Lennon. Halford said, “There’s all this stuff around me, and then I see in the corner, there’s this Perspex obelisk, about just over a foot tall or whatever, and I know what it is right away because I’ve seen that video ‘Imagine’ a million times.”
Rob went on to say that he took the obelisk when the recording session had completed. When it was time to leave Tittenhurst, he said he felt compelled to take it. He says, when Starr sold the property he’s confident that the movers threw a lot of stuff away and the fate of the obelisk would have been the same.
He said, “So I have that on loan. And I’ve always said John would have celebrated his 80th birthday just recently [on October 9th], and in talking about working there at Lennon’s and Ringo’s place. I’ve always said, ‘Yoko, if you ever hear me speaking and you want that object back, get your people to contact my people.”
He concluded the talk about the obelisk saying he would like to restore and give it back to Ono, “I always have this kind of a fantasy dream, this kind of bittersweet. Where there’s a picture of me giving this back to Yoko, and the metal tears are flowing, and, ‘I’ve kept it for you, Yoko!’ And I’m hoping she’d say, ‘It’s OK, Rob, keep it. You’ve cherished it, it means more to you.”
