Rob Halford Wants Judas Priest Songs Recorded with Rick Astley and Kylie Minogue’s Songwriting Team Leaked

In the 1980s through to the early ‘90s, the songwriting and producing trio of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman—known professionally as Stock Aitken Waterman or SAW—were responsible for some of the eras biggest pop hits. Songs they put out included a whole mess of Kylie Minogue singles, “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by Dead or Alive, that weirdly condescending charity song “Do They Know It’s Christmas” from Band Aid II, and Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” which has seen an ironic resurgence in the past 15 years or so. If you’re waiting for this story to start being about metal, please keep your proverbial pants on because we’re getting there.

In 1988, SAW apparently teamed up with Judas Priest and recorded a handful of tracks including a cover of The Stylistics’ R&B classic “You Are Everything” which is better known for the cover by Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross. The tracks were shelved, never seeing the light of day since. When SAW’s Pete Waterman was interviewed for NME last year he said that the songs were basically shelved because they would have been too popular for what Judas Priest was trying to accomplish.

In the interview from last year, Waterman says:

“When we played the song (“You Are Everything”), they said: ‘It’s a Number One record – which is the last thing we want!.’ They missed a trick because now you have the Foo Fighters covering Rick Astley and anything goes, but their manager was frightened that it was going to end up as the biggest song of their career and 16-year-old girls would start turning up to their stadium gigs.”

Well, apparently Rob Halford is never gonna give up on those songs. In a new interview with Halford that NME published yesterday, Halford said he’d like to see the SAW tracks leaked.

“I kind of agree with him, because I’ve got that on my phone somewhere and it sounds great. I mean, look what happened to Kate Bush with Stranger Things and ‘Running Up That Hill’ – one of the greatest songs ever written. That’s what I’d love to see with our Stock Aitken Waterman tracks…

“I still love those songs even now. In my lifetime I’d just like to see them get leaked. Leak ’em for all I care. Let’s just see where those songs take us, because it sounds great. You can hear the voice, you can hear the guitars, and they’re really fun pieces of music. I haven’t seen Pete in living memory, but maybe I can say [to him]: ‘Just leak these. Send a file off to TikTok and see where it takes us. ‘”

Even if the tracks come out, pretty much the only chance Judas Priest has of 16-year-old girls showing up at their stadium gigs these days is if said 16-year-olds were giving their drunk parents (or grandparents) a ride home, so I think it’s safe now.

It may not have anything written with SAW on it, but Judas Priest’s upcoming album Invincible Shield can be pre-ordered from the band’s webstore.