In a new interview with U.K.’s Planet Rock, Rob Halford spoke about JUDAS PRIEST‘s upcoming appearance at the 2026 edition of the Bloodstock Open Air festival, which will return to Catton Park, Walton-on-Trent, United Kingdom in August 2026 to celebrate its 25th anniversary. PRIEST‘s performance at the event will coincide with the 40th anniversary of the group’s controversial “Turbo” album and the 50th anniversary of PRIEST‘s second LP, “Sad Wings Of Destiny”. Asked how he and his PRIEST bandmates will choose which songs to play at Bloodstock Open Air, Rob said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “So difficult, mate. It’s so difficult. This thing [my voice] that I’m using to talk to you with, I can belt it out for about an hour and 30, if I’m lucky. And it’s a joy to be able to do this kind of singing with this beautiful band. But, yeah, you look at the songs, the hundreds of songs and the albums, and your head starts swiveling around like Linda Blair in ‘The Exorcist’. And you just [think], ‘Where are we gonna start? Where are we gonna start?'”
Referencing the fact that “Turbo” saw PRIEST using synthesizers for the first time, Halford continued: “You’ve got 30,000 metal maniacs singing ‘I’m your turbo lover’ [at PRIEST shows now], but when that album came out, everybody wanted to throw it in the bin,” he said. “‘What is this? This ain’t metal.’
“You know how a lot of bands — we go through different moods, different textures, different feelings as you progress. And what I love about PRIEST is we can be a ‘Painkiller’, be a ‘Turbo Lover’, be your ‘Invincible Shield’. So, the fact that PRIEST is able to kind of create all this kind of music, but still put the heavy metal label on to it is important.
“But I am happy that ‘Turbo’ is embraced,” Halford added. “I listened to it for the first time in years just a few days ago, and I look at the videos that we made, and we all had hair. My hair went south; it went into the Gandalf region. But it’s a good album. It was really well made. Yours truly was going through some difficult moments in life, but here I am by the grace of God and so on and so forth. But it’s a good album. So we’re gonna see what’s on that record that we can bring to Bloodstock, besides ‘Turbo Lover’. We’ll see if maybe [we can add] a couple of other tracks. And then you’ve got all of the others to look at. So it is gonna be special, this particular Bloodstock, in more ways than one.”
Back in 2017, Halford told “The Rock Brigade” podcast about “Turbo”‘s more experimental sound at the time of its release: “Much like everything that we’ve done, we’ve kind of reflected on where we’ve been and what we are trying to aim for next. The big thing about this record is that for the first time in a long time, we were able to take our time.
“There was a period in the early ’80s when PRIEST was literally banging out a record every year and a world tour every year. How did we do that, I don’t know. It was just that we were running on fire, we were having the times of our lives, we had deadlines to meet, we had an incredible thing going with the label.”
He continued: “So here’s the deal. ‘Turbo’, the middle of the 1980s, right? We had a little bit of time to kind of pull back and take our time to make this record. So we were in a different place. I mean, I was in a different place, because I had so much coke up my nose, I don’t know how I got through every day of the week, because I was raging at that point, personally. What I’m trying to say is, America in 1986 and the mid-’80s was… wherever you went, there was incredible things happening in rock and metal. I always kind of reflect as the ’80s, particularly in America, as being one of the greatest decades for our kind of music. So we were wrapped up in all that, we were wrapped up in all that excitement and good times and party-party-party. And I think that we were just… we were making the record. The bulk of the record was made in America. Going down to Whisky, hanging out on the [Sunset] Strip, in Miami… Man, it was an absolute blast. And I think we were just… We were loving that moment, you know. The band was having a great time, and there was a lot of that in the music on ‘Turbo’.”
In 2017, PRIEST reissued “Turbo”. The album was remastered and was made available via Sony Music on three CDs (the original album and two bonus discs) as well as one-LP 150-gram vinyl. Included on disc 2 and 3 of the CD reissue was, previously unreleased, “Live in Kansas City”, a live recording from the band’s 1986 “Fuel For Life” tour in support of “Turbo”.
