The classic 1980s song Judas Priest wrote at Ringo Starr’s house
It took the unlikely residence of a former Beatle to birth a classic of the new wave of British heavy metal.
They’d been around a while. Long-term fans will know that, back in their mid-1970s infancy, Birmingham’s second-most-famous metal band, Judas Priest, were sporting hippy clobber over the S&M leather that would serve as their decades-long look. Across four-odd albums, bluesy psychedelia and proggy jams would soon give way to a tougher, high-speed rock attack charged by Glenn Tipton and KK Downing’s twin guitars and frontman Rob Halford’s banshee howl.
Five albums in, and Judas Priest were ready to cut their defining hour. 1980 was a big year for metal. Iron Maiden unleashed their debut on the headbanging world, Ozzy Osbourne kicked off his solo career in earnest with Blizzard of Ozz, ‘Ace of Spades’ bridged punk and hard rock with immortality, and AC/DC were entering the record books with Back in Black’s ungodly levels of sales. Right up there with the rest of the denim vest patches was British Steel.
By now, Judas Priest were ready to push their proto-thrash to the pop charts, dialling down the progressive elements in favour of a taut and hooky metal barrage set for the charts. They wouldn’t miss. British Steel would hit number four on the UK Albums Chart and gift the hard rock world one of the era’s most defining anthems. Soaking up the day’s industrial disputes and working-class turmoil, ‘Breaking the Law’s desperado energy was captured by the conversely rosy home of one Ringo Starr.
A 72-acre estate in Ascot, Berkshire, Tittenhurst Park was formerly owned by John Lennon and the site of the final Beatles photo shoot, as well as the bulk of the Imagine sessions and the location of its title track’s promo video.
Leaving for the States, Ringo Starr bought the property in 1973 and repurposed its recording facility as Startling Studio, which wound up overseeing some metal heavyweights’ key LPs, including Def Leppard’s debut, Whitesnake’s Come an’ Get It, and Judas Priest themselves mixing their earlier Unleashed in the East live album.
Trouble was, the Startling Studio lacked the sonic beef Judas Priest were after. Favouring the acoustics of the mansion itself, the band was permitted to cut British Steel in Ringo’s actual house, but not without being sent some ground rules that were never going to be respected.
“There was to be no riding of motorbikes on the grounds, so we did that,” Downing recalled to Metal Hammer 40 years later, “There was also to be no fishing in the lake, so we did that as well! What do you expect from a Brummie heavy metal band? He also had two papier-mâché dinosaurs hidden in the grounds; they were massive. And when you came back pissed from the pub up the road, they could really scare you!”
Through forbidden fishing and drunk dinosaur frights, the British Steel sessions would wrap up in February and ‘Breaking the Law’ would nab a top 20 three months later. Metal was never the same again, and to the surprise of Beatles fans, Ringo found himself a curious footnote in the new wave of British heavy metal story.
