Rob Halford of Judas Priest contributed his input to Rolling Stone’s new “500 Greatest Songs Of All Time” list. Halford’s number one song was Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” He described it as a game changer and said that it, “took off like a heavy metal rocket.” He went on to name Slayer’s “Angel of Death” as his number two heavy metal song of all time saying, “Out of all the great Slayer songs that I personally love to smash my head in to and with, “Angel of Death,” oh yeah baby!” Another one of the songs on Halford’s list was Metallica’s “Ride The Lightning.” Halford said,

“Old ‘TALLICA. New ‘TALLICA. I’m old school, man. I bet you guys are the same about PRIEST. It’s crazy, isn’t it? It’s usually the first two or three albums that you make in any given band that are the reference points to who you are and what you’re about. And so, for me, those first batches of METALLICA, the extraordinary way that they interpreted their style of metal and branded it with such a unique force just generates as much now as it did then. So, ‘TALLICA, ride the lightning on the heavy metal Harley.”

Ronnie James Dio’s “Holy Diver” and Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” came right after. Ozzy Osbourne and Pantera followed soon after.

Watch Halford’s breakdown of his top metal songs below:

Priest began the postponed, “50 Heavy Metal Years,” North American tour on September 8 at Santander Arena in Reading, Pennsylvania, and Metal Insider was there. Check out our review at this location.