[10] Despite an innovative and pioneering body of work in the latter half of the 1970s, the band had struggled with poor record production and a lack of major commercial success until 1980, when their sixth studio album British Steel brought them notable mainstream attention.

During the 1970s, the core of bassist Ian Hill, lead singer Rob Halford and guitarists Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing saw a revolving cast of drummers, before Dave Holland joined them for ten years from 1979 to 1989.

Halford's operatic vocal style and the twin guitar sound of Downing and Tipton have been a major influence on heavy metal bands.

Late in the year, Atkins found a heavy rock band called Freight rehearsing without a singer, made up of K. K. Downing on guitars, his childhood friend Ian "Skull" Hill on bass, and drummer John Ellis.

The show was recorded and part of it released in 2019 on the compilation Downer-Rock Asylum on the Audio Archives label along with one live song from the Atkins era.

Judas Priest made their first tour of continental Europe in early 1974 and they returned to England that April to sign a recording deal with the label Gull.

[42] The album had little commercial success at first[43][44][better source needed] and had difficulty getting noticed due to critical competition from the rise of punk rock,[45] though it had a positive review in Rolling Stone.

[51] The album features significant developments in heavy metal technique, in particular its use of double-kick drumming on tracks such as "Dissident Aggressor",[52] and includes a pop-metal cover of "Diamonds & Rust" by folk singer Joan Baez.

It documents the heavy metal fans waiting on 31 May 1986 for Priest's concert (with special guests Dokken) at the Capital Center (later renamed US Airways Arena) in Landover, Maryland.

A reviewer has called Ram It Down a "stylistic evolution" that resulted from the band's "attempt to rid themselves of the tech synthesiser approach ... and return to the traditional metal of their fading glory days".

In September 1990, the Painkiller album used a new drummer, Scott Travis (formerly from Racer X), who gave the band an edgier sound thanks to his heavy use of double pedals.

Part of the Judas Priest stage show often featured Halford riding onstage on a Harley-Davidson motorbike, dressed in motorcycle leathers and sunglasses.

During a Toronto show in August 1991, Halford was seriously injured as he rode on stage, when he collided with a drum riser hidden behind clouds of dry ice mist.

[65] In 1990, Judas Priest was the subject of civil action in the United States which alleged that the band was responsible for an incident in Sparks, Nevada, in 1985 in which 20-year-old James Vance and 18-year-old Raymond Belknap shot themselves.

[66] Vance's parents claimed that their son had been troubled for a long time prior to the suicide pact, but had recently "changed for the better" and had re-embraced his family's Christian faith before the "garbage music" of Judas Priest had again led him astray.

[68] The trial lasted from 16 July to 24 August 1990, when the judge dismissed the lawsuit on the basis that the so-called subliminal message "was a coincidental convergence of a guitar chord with an exhalation pattern".

After the Retribution tour in June 2006, however, Halford announced he would create his own record company, Metal God Entertainment, where he would release all his solo material under his own control.

Judas Priest then played "Breaking the Law", "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" and "You've Got Another Thing Comin'", before which Halford rode a Harley-Davidson motorcycle onstage.

Unfortunately, Whitesnake would have to leave the tour after the show in Denver, Colorado on 11 August 2009 due to Coverdale falling ill with a serious throat infection; he was advised to stop singing immediately to avoid permanently damaging his vocal cords.

The Redeemer of Souls Tour led to the sixth live album Battle Cry, which was released on 25 March 2016 after being recorded at the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany on 1 August 2015.

[116] The eighteenth album, Firepower, was released on 9 March 2018, with a world tour taking place thereafter, beginning in North America with Saxon and Black Star Riders as their support acts.

"[121] At the 20 March 2018 show in Newark, New Jersey, Tipton joined the band on stage to perform "Metal Gods", "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight", then "Victim of Changes" and "No Surrender" on later dates.

[127][128] In a March 2019 interview with Australia's May the Rock Be with You, Rob Halford stated that there would be a new studio album in the foreseeable future,[129] and that Tipton had already started composing riffs.

[153][154] When speaking about the upcoming album, Halford said that the band had "a bunch of great new ideas for tracks, lots of really strong demos", describing it as being "a very potent record".

[158] In January 2022, Judas Priest announced the departure of Andy Sneap as he would shift his focus on his production work while the band continued as a quartet;[159] however, the decision was retracted and he was reinstated.

On 1988's Ram It Down, the band retained some of the more commercial qualities of Turbo but also returned to some of the fast tempo heavy metal found on their earlier works.

[193] He developed a powerful, operatic vocal style with an impressive range from lower throaty growls to ear-piercing high screams with strong vibrato.

[203] Several metal bands have named themselves after classic era Judas Priest songs and albums, including Sinner, Exciter, Running Wild, Steeler and Tyrant.

Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was notably disdainful of the band, refusing to outright review any of their albums and relegating them to his "Meltdown" list (referring to artists he did not consider having any material worth listening to).

The American director Rob Reiner went to see Judas Priest in concert as part of his preparation for making the film This Is Spinal Tap (1984), which spoofs British heavy metal bands.