Judas Priest - RAM IT DOWN

[aMetalhead1966]

Full In Bloom Music has an interview with Paul Shortino, and talks about

Rob's extracurricular activities that were occurring during the Hear N Aid

recording sessions while Paul was doing an interview in the hotel room next to Rob's

room...pretty funny..

 

Haha, I believe it... years back when my bro was still in high school he was working at Sears part time and worked with a guy there who'd been in a band (the name completely escapes me now) that put out an album on Columbia/Epic (Priest's label) during the early 80's... he told my brother he'd met Rob and his "boyfriend" at some sort of record label function. At the time my bro's reaction was "Yea, riiiiight, yer fulla sh*t," but fast forward ten years and my bro was like "Wow, maybe that guy wasn't BS'ing me after all"

When I was 19 ( 1984)I moved into an apartment with a few friends who are

brothers and their Aunt owned this building we lived in ..well their cousins

moved in across the hall and they were New Wavers big time (my friends and I were/are all DIE HARD Priest Fans). One night we are blasting "Sad Wings" and one of the cousins comes over and starts telling us we are listening to Fag Metal...I'm like What?? He told us that Rob was a flaming sausage jockey so we must be too...needless to say a HUGE fight broke out and lots of "feelings" got hurt along with other people's faces etc....so fast forward some years ahead and we find out Rob is Gay..I guess it's pretty obvious by what he was wearing, still I was shocked..even funnier is the fact that this

guy who started the whole, was himself Gay...go figure..

[eaglesfan3000]

I listened to RAM IT DOWN just yesterday and nothing really stands out for me on this one it seems really bland and to me most of the songs all sound the same on this one, it does have some good songs on it but nothing to right home about. To tell you the truth the only reason I bought this album was because of the Johnny Be Goode cover.

[RichieZ]

It's just OK for me.

[metalhead4life]

I like Ram It Down a lot! Title track is good and has killer guitar solo (though I have to admit, hearing the chorus is a bit weird now hehehe -

 

There are a LOT of Priest songs that sound "a bit weird now" after Halford's coming-out party... "Jawbreaker," and "Eat Me Alive" are two that come immediately to mind...

 

How'bout the song "Love You To Death" on RAM IT DOWN? The bullwhip sounds @ the end and Halford squealing "WHIP ME BABY! DO IT LIKE THAT! OOOOH! YEAAAAAAH!" creep me out more than just a little bit nowadays...

 

I remember watching the "You've Got Another Thing Coming" video with my friend not too long after he came out of the closet (it was the live footage video with studio song); we saw Halford in his black leather suspenders with no shirt and were saying "yep, he was definitely gay back then". I was surprised when I first heard the news though. Looking back at it now though, there were definitely hints - Turbo lover? ( ) Though, you could just of thought he was a bit eccentric or something like that. Priest is definitely one of my all time faves - top 5 and maybe even top 3. Helloween, Priest, Yngwie are my top 3 Metal bands I'd say and probably in that order .

[Rafo Phoenix]

"Johnny B. Goode" RULES!!!

[METAL102]

I like this album a lot myself and Turbo.I like anything theyve done from late 70s-90 mostly.

[fireforce]

I also like this album a lot!. I would define this album as a "Pre-Painkiller", a transition record between the commercial "Turbo" (which I also like) and the legendary "Painkiller". Some songs still have the "Turbo" feel, but some of them start to show the killer riffs and vocals that would become Painkiller's trademark. The best songs IMO are "Ram It Down", "Heavy Metal", "Hard As Iron" and "Blood Red Skies".

[Ali Rock]

I think Ramit down is a great album. Turbo is also good IMO. By the way I love all their albums from Screaming for vengeance to Painkiller.