Whether roaring onstage astride a Harley decked out in studded leather finery or hunched over a microphone emitting one of his trademark falsetto shrieks, Rob Halford helped define the sound and fury of heavy metal during his almost two-decade stint as the lead singer of Judas Priest.

Though Halford parted ways with the group in 1992, he has continued to be a driving force in heavy metal. He recorded a couple of albums leading his more extreme thrash-oriented outfit, Fight, and explored industrial sounds with the group Two on his 1997 Trent Reznor collaboration, 'Voyeurs,' before returning to his metal roots with his aptly named band, Halford. We caught up with the Metal God before he kicked off a brief West Coast tour.

I think its safe to say you have one of the more unique and powerful voices in the world of metal (or rock, for that matter). While your influence on metal singers is pretty apparent, I was wondering who influenced and inspired you as a singer initially?

Well, at the time that I started over 30 years ago, metal was really in its infancy. There just weren't that many bands playing that kind of music or singers singing in that style, so it kind of forced me to be creative and come up with new and different ways to use my voice. Of course there was Planty, Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin who's a good friend of mine, and Ian Gillan from Deep Purple, but they were the only two singers who were working in the same style.

And just like guitarists tried to find new sounds and new ways to express themselves with their instruments, I did my best to push the limits of my voice to come up with something original, a sound that was my own. I'm just lucky that I was blessed with a voice that allowed me to do the things that I wanted to do and that I was able make such an impact on metal music.

Your trademark scream and operatic range are remarkably intact 30+ years down the road. How have you preserved it and what do you do to keep your voice in shape to withstand the rigors of the road?

It is remarkable. As I've said in recent interviews when I try and look over the fact that I've been a metal singer for 32 years and I've been doing all these amazing vocal gymnastics over that time -- it is remarkable that it's still able to do what it does. I don't know what the answer is! (laughs) I try not to question too much about it. I'm just grateful that it's still got the strength and power after all of these years of singing.

The fact is, because singing is an internal thing -- it's not like if you bust a guitar string you can change it -- it's very much a physical part of your abilities, you're really looking after it in the best way possible. And that means, especially when you're touring, you just try and get as much rest as you possibly can between shows; keep the use of the voice down to a minimum, because it is a muscle and muscles get worn out.

But there is no real system of looking after it apart from, like I said, getting as much rest as possible when you're working. There's no lotions or potions or satanic incantations (laughs); maybe it's something in the water from Birmingham, from the Midlands, where I'm from. There's another great singer from the Midlands, Robert Plant, and he can still belt it out.

I think it might also be due to the fact that, using me and Robert as examples, we started off as singers that kind of developed a particular style, so I suppose the virtuosity of what we do with our vocal chords is quite unique in the places that we take it to. Whereas a lot of singers today do tend to stay in one particular area, we're always trying to knock one out of the ballpark. Maybe that's given us something of an edge.

It's certainly nothing that you can put in a book; I've been asked about vocal coach things in books or cassettes and stuff and I wouldn't know where to start. I'm mean, it's something you just do by instinct as much as anything else.

I know many of your fans were thrilled when you returned to metal with the debut of Halford in 2000. Is the writing process you've developed with this band markedly different from how you worked with Judas Priest or Fight?

No, it's still the same. I'm a frustrated guitar player. I always have been, and I don't have the patience to learn how to play. But I just love to be in a room with guitar players while they're riffing away, and that's how we wrote the music for [our first album] 'Ressurection' and 'Crucible.' It was me and Pat [Lachman] and Mike [Chlasciak] together, just making noise and jamming.

I just love the sound of the guitar and what it's able to do, and I just find it a very inspiring instrument as a writer. Like I can pick up on a riff that Pat or Mike might have been jamming and make a suggestion or an idea as to where it might go next, or how it could be kind of inverted or something. That's my impetus. That's where my writing ideas come from.

And then, when the song is created musically, then it's into the next step of trying to find the right vocal melodies, and then after that it's the words that you find, the lyrics that you look for. So it's a three-step process for me. But, initially, my biggest kick is sitting down with guitar players.

Your earlier projects after leaving Judas Priest reflected the influence of more recent developments in metal and industrial music. With your current group focusing on a more traditional metal sound, do you find yourself aiming for "classic" vibe? Or do you see Halford as a vehicle to push the traditional metal sound in new directions?

Yeah, Fight had a bit more of a contemporary feel to it, but I'll admit it wasn't that much of a stretch [from Judas Priest]. But I think I've basically come back to where I started, quite honestly. That's why I took the journey that I did when I left Priest, and I think I addressed that in the "Resurrection" track: I talk about coming back to where I began.

But that whole part of my career, of looking and searching, was really important to me because I was able to step away from where I'd been for 20-odd years of my life and look at the different things that I wanted to look at and search and explore. And I ended up finding that the place that I feel the most comfortable, the place where I feel the most satisfaction is where I'm at now. And I have basically gone back to the roots of my metal world.

It's surprising but its not surprising I guess is the way I'm looking at it now. I think it's given me another opportunity to realize how lucky I've been and how important it is for me to stay in a place where I belong, rather than keeping experimenting and attempting to do other things. It brought me some kind of pleasure, but certainly nowhere near as much as what I'm getting now with the Halford band.

For the second part of BayInsider's interview with Rob Halford, click here.