To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint ofĭoes not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. Story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Other lawsuits at that time sought damages because of violent lyrics in music, but the JUDAS PRIEST case was one of the first to claim that subliminal messages hidden behind those lyrics caused the deaths of young men. I played them to the judge, who was a very conservative Mormon, and when he listened, he physically moved - he was surprised. One was, 'I gave her a peppermint.' It was ludicrous. I said to the guys, 'Let's prove them wrong.' We got some Frank Sinatra albums, played them backwards in the hotel, and these unusual messages started appearing. We went to court in America and dealt with it."Īsked how he and his bandmates debunked the existence of hidden messages in their songs, Rob said: "The prosecution said if you played heavy metal albums backwards you'd get devil-worshipping messages. Ozzy Osbourne went through it with his song 'Suicide Solution' and then it was our turn.
Two boys had committed suicide in Reno and a group of people, backed by people who were against heavy metal music, said we were writing songs that if listened to in a certain way made you kill yourself.
#SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES IN SONGS BACKWARDS TRIAL#
Halford looked back on the Reno trial while promoting his recently released autobiography, "Confess", in an interview with U.K.'s Metro.Īsked why JUDAS PRIEST was accused of brainwashing its fans to kill themselves, Rob replied: "I still don't know to this day. So our argument is you have a duty to be more cautious when you're dealing with a population susceptible to this stuff." It's the dropouts, the drug and alcohol abusers. "The members of the chess club, the math and science majors don't listen to this stuff. " JUDAS PRIEST and CBS pander this stuff to alienated teenagers," the Belknaps' attorney argued. Vance told attorneys that he and Belknap were listening to JUDAS PRIEST when "all of a sudden we got a suicide message, and we got tired of life." In a letter to Belknap's mother, he later wrote, "I believe that alcohol and heavy-metal music such as JUDAS PRIEST led us to be mesmerized." Vance later claimed his actions had been influenced by the heavy metal music of JUDAS PRIEST, prompting his family to sue the band.Īt the heart of the lawsuit was the claim that JUDAS PRIEST's "Stained Class" album's songs contained messages that, when played backwards, said "try suicide" and "let's be dead." Lawyers said it was the song "Better By You, Better Than Me" with its subliminal command of "do it, do it, do it" that pushed the two men over the line to end their troubled lives. Then Vance pulled the trigger on himself. 12 gauge shotgun in a churchyard outside Reno, Nevada. Just before Christmas, 1985, 19-year-old James Vance watched his best friend Ray Belknap shoot himself to death with a.
In August 1990, a judge ruled that JUDAS PRIEST was not liable for the deaths of two young men who cited the band's music as the reason they killed themselves.
JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford says that he still doesn't know why he and his bandmates were subjected to a subliminal-message trial in Reno, Nevada more than three decades ago.
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