In an interview with Terrorizer, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford was asked about Cynic members Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert, who recently publicly came out. First, channeling Daffyd Thomas from the sitcom Little Britain, he stated “I am the only gay in the village! I ain’t having this!” Then Halford, who’s been one of the few out and proud members of the metal community since 1998, continued on:

“But what a fucking great thing to do,” he continues with admiration. “It’s all chipping away. There’s homophobia in metal, there’s homophobia in all kinds of music, but for the most part metalheads accept each other because we know we’re given a lot of stick, people don’t like us, they don’t like our music, they don’t like the way we look. So for those two guys to make that statement, it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s shit that you have to worry about this in 2014, isn’t it? It’s rubbish. But that just shows you the stupidity that goes on in the world. So God bless them. I know what it’s like to come out of the closet. It’s the best feeling in the world. Be true to yourself, live your life, don’t hide. Nothing’s going to hurt you, you can only hurt yourself. The real people that love you will love you regardless.”

Halford continued on, saying that he can’t wait to meet Masvidal and Reinert. “In some countries, they’d kill us for being gay,” he said. “Just to keep chipping away at that is a wonderful thing, and the more people that have that power to step up and say it, it just helps the overall cause.”