Judas Priest – The Story Behind Breaking The Law | Louder - video Dailymotion

Judas Priest singer Rob Halford tells the story behind the band's top 20 UK hit from 1980, Breaking The Law.

Transcript

00:00That song was written at John Lennon's former house.

00:29in Tittenhurst Park just outside of London with Tom Allen on the British

00:37Steel Sessions and we had about 30 days to write and record that album.

00:51There was a time in the UK particularly around at the end of the 70s and the

00:56early 80s when this country was just, there was riots going on, there was

01:00strikes going on, there was a lot of pissed-off people in this country, rightfully so.

01:10As a lyricist I'm always picking up on what's going on around me and I just

01:16remember seeing the news that night and seeing all this stuff kicking off and it

01:21just made me feel about another area of the news which was that there was all

01:27these problems with young people leaving school or university or college.

01:33They'd been promised a job, they'd been said, you know, if you complete all this

01:39and do all this you'll, you know, there'll be an opportunity to do this and there

01:43wasn't, which is sadly a bit like today's world.

01:49The knee-jerk reaction for some people is to not exactly break the law but

01:56kick back at the system so we wrapped up that idea around this breaking the

02:02law. There I was completely wasted out of working down. Well there's your

02:07statement right away, you're acknowledging a portion of society

02:11that's really, you know, having a tough time in life.

02:19It's almost a protest song but it's just a very vibrant, uplifting moment for

02:28priests in our metal world and it's become legendary.

02:35It's in us all, not only the love of that priest song but what that song

02:51represents, breaking the law.