Music

Dear Rock and Roll Hall of Fame …

Hello, it’s Joe G. How are you?

A group of us are starting a website called “Clevelandville.” You’re reading it right now.

The website’s going to cover all kinds of music in the future – so we’ve both got plenty of time for Kendrick Lamar and Grizzly Bear. But since the following might be a recurring request, I wanted to get this first one out of the way.

I know you’ve got your hands full with the Monkees, and you probably get Open Letters all day demanding Morrissey or Little Feat or Del the Funky Homosapien be admitted post-haste.

But I feel like you’ve continually overlooked a band that I love and cherish. And so I’m writing to ask that you consider Judas Priest for enshrinement in your Hall of Fame. And I am prepared to make my argument. It’ll be way better than the one for Little Feat.

I’m hoping we can both agree that Heavy Metal as a sub-genre is an outcast to the nonstop bash that we call rock and roll. It gets introduced to Mohamet, Jugdish, Sidney and Clayton when it walks into the party.

I’d say in Hall of Fame terms – pro football, for example – Heavy Metal is like the collective group of kickers. You can get in, but you really, REALLY have to earn it. Jan Stenerud got in in 1991. Morten Andersen gained entry in 2017.

And as both a massive NFL and Judas Priest fan – comparing the nitro-fueled, flame-throwing metal monsters who brought us seminal anthems like “Breaking the Law” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” to a goddamn placekicker fills me with the urge to defecate!

But I’m trying to make a point.

Casual fans are tempted to lump them in with the Scorpions and Iron Maiden and Def Leppard. Some might even confuse them with the fictional band, Spinal Tap – (a band with its own argument for the Hall). And some might even recall the frivolous lawsuit from 1989 trying to link one of their songs to a teenager’s suicide attempt.

But you guys are the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – and you can see through all that nincompoopery. You finally allowed Journey in – kicking and screaming – and we’re hoping you do the same for JP.

I say “we” because several of the overgrown adolescents here at Clevelandville were all Priest fans back in the day. It’s easy to say you were a fan of the Sugarhill Gang in retrospect. It’s tough to say you were a fan of Judas Priest.

We’d hate to think it’s because Rob Halford – the group’s iconic lead singer came out as gay many years ago – while it was still taboo for someone in a white male, testosterone-fueled world to do so.

He rarely gets credit for his bravery. This is your chance to reward him.

I won’t rattle off songs that kick ultimate ass – of which there are many. Everybody thinks their band or performer has all the best songs, but they don’t. Little Feat has tons of crappy songs, for example.

The numbers speak for themselves: Judas Priest has sold over 45 million records, have performed for literally millions of fans and have been functioning – in one form or another – since 1969.

For most of that, they’ve had not one but TWO of the most well-respected lead guitarists of all-times: Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing.

They’ve pumped out singles that have permeated past Heavy Metal and into popular culture and produced one of the greatest albums ever made in ANY genre – 1981’s “British Steel.”

But Judas Priest has always been about their iconic frontman.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, as progressive as we’d like to think we were, being Rob Halford wasn’t easy. Freddie Mercury could strut and fret upon the stage. Halford had to feign machismo. Anybody can be Lemmy in the world of Heavy Metal. It took courage to be Rob Halford.

I’m sure you’ve already considered Judas Priest for your hallowed Halls. But I’m asking you to consider them one more time. And, if it’s OK with you, I’m going to keep asking until you let them in or write us back and explain why not.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame let Morten Andersen in this past year. Don’t you think it’s time for you to open your doors as well?

Thank you for reading.

Rock On.

Joe Gabriele, Clevelandville