Living After Midnight

This song is about the nocturnal life of a rock star; he rides into town at 1 a.m. and rocks out till dawn. The title though, came out of an incident when Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford was trying to get some sleep. The band was recording their British Steel album at Tittenhurst Park, an estate once owned by John Lennon. One night around 4 a.m., guitarist Glenn Tipton set up his amp and started working out riffs in the big room where they did most of their work - the one where Lennon wrote "Imagine." Halford's bedroom was upstairs, and it woke him up. He came down, asked Tipton to turn down his amp, and told him, "You're living after midnight down here, you are!" Tipton replied, "That is a great title for a song." Halford wrote the lyric that day. (Halford told this tale in a 2007 BBC series about heavy metal).

This was the lead single from the British Steel album, the band's sixth. Judas Priest wasn't a singles band, but "Living After Midnight" still climbed to #12 in the UK, earning them their third appearance on Top Of The Pops. The episode aired March 27, 1980, but was recorded the day before, making them two hours late for a show in Birmingham. Fans were justifiably upset because the band gave priority to a mimed mass-consumption showcase over their fervent supporters. Priest agreed to never perform the show again on a day they had a gig. Meanwhile, in America, the song got some airplay on rock radio and earned them many new fans in that country. When they toured there in the summer of 1980, they played arenas in an early sign that heavy metal was finding an audience in the US. A few years later, Metallica became one of the biggest draws in that country.

Judas Priest's first music video was for "Living After Midnight." Directed by Julien Temple, it's mostly performance footage, showcasing the band's studded leather look. When the song did well, their label, Columbia Records, granted Temple a bigger budget for the video to their next single: "Breaking the Law." That one became their first concept video, showing the band robbing a bank armed only with their guitars.