Rob Halford described the next Judas Priest album as “adventurous” and said it was due to arrive by 2024 at the latest.

Tracking has already begun on the follow-up to 2018’s Firepower, and by the time it’s released, the band will have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“It’s so difficult to talk about music, isn’t it?” Halford reflected in a recent interview with Metal Crypt. “All of us musicians, we go, ‘Oh, it’s the greatest thing we’ve ever done, man. The album just rips colossally, and the drumming is like peeling the skin off your face, and the singing is just so screaming.’ What is that?”

He noted that "it’s not Firepower Number Two, that’s all I can say. If you look at Judas Priest from Rocka Rolla to Firepower, everything in between has got its character and its identity. That’s what we’re working on with this one. I think adventurous is a word we've never used before in trying to explain the content. It’s adventurous. “And now people are going, ‘What does he mean by that? Is it going to sound like Dolly Parton?’ You’ll have to wait and see. It’s great, man. It’s good. It’s solid. It’s a very, very good strong follow-up, as they call it, to the last one.”

Halford made another reference to country legend Parton, saying he was determined to meet her when both acts receive their Rock Hall induction – even if she has no idea who he is. “I’m going to see what table she is sitting at. I’m just going to run to the table and do the devil’s horns thing,” he said. “It’s the only way to do it. I can’t smile sweetly. I’ve got to stick my tongue out and my horns up.”

More seriously, he added: “When you're in the company of your fellow musicians, we have so much in common because writing a metal song is no different to writing a country song. What I mean about that, is you start the day with nothing, and at the end of the day if your creativity's working you could have something very special. ... We all live the same kind of life: the studio, on the road and the dressing room. It’s all the same, man. It’s all the same. The music’s different, but the life is the same.

"I’m looking forward to meeting as many people as I possibly can because I love meeting people and I love talking about music, no matter what kind of music it is."

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