Judas Priest are among the many artists who will be honored during the 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction ceremony next month, and Rob Halford has confirmed that the band has been in touch with K.K. Downing about the event.
While Priest aren’t actually one of the Rock Hall’s traditional Class of 2022 Inductees — which includes Pat Benatar, Eminem, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran and a few others — the metalheads will receive the Musical Excellence Award and recently revealed that they will have the opportunity to perform during the ceremony.
As a result, Halford confirmed to Ultimate Classic Rock that they’ve been in contact with Downing and former drummer Les Binks, as they’re also being given the award in addition to the frontman, Ian Hill, Glenn Tipton, Scott Travis and late drummer Dave Holland.
“Everybody’s been very cool and agreeing. There’s just been [an attitude of], ‘Let’s just relish this opportunity and jam and put everything on 11,'” the vocalist stated.
Halford couldn’t disclose whether Downing and Binks will be invited to play live with them, but assured that they’ll be involved in some way, and that they have some “cool things” planned for it.
“We are gonna play live because there is all this roar: How are we gonna do it? Because we want to try and make the best things happen,” he said of their performance plans. “So the best things to happen are to bring in all of the people that are included in the induction — which includes, obviously, K.K. and Les, and Dave. So, we’ve been able to work things out, so we will be playing live. We’ve got, like, eight minutes and 24 seconds and a half-second to play live.”
Earlier this year, however, Halford admitted that he’s open to the idea of Downing and Binks performing with Priest during the celebration, so we’ll see if that ends up becoming a reality. The induction ceremony is set to take place Saturday, Nov. 5 at 11PM ET.
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