James Wilson deciphers the subliminal message within Vance v Judas Priest
Much of my youth was mis-spent listening to heavy metal bands from the 1970s and 80s. Since then I have found it amusing to watch the genre go from being called a prime factor behind the decline of western civilisation to its saviour.
The redemption has come from a realisation that the bands, or the better ones at least, were actually proper musicians who played according to traditional methods, as opposed to manufactured pop or the sort of unmusical noise which finds favour among my teenage neighbours. And yet it was once a common contention that all the imagery around swords, sorcery, devils and the undead one finds throughout the metal canon constituted unmitigated evil, or at the very least was not suitable for children.
In 1990 that argument reached its zenith—or nadir—when the veteran British band Judas Priest were sued in the US by the parents of one James Vance. The action followed an attempted double suicide by Vance and his friend Raymond Belknap. Belknap died but Vance survived with serious injuries (though
