Rob Halford says that his upcoming autobiography will be "very deep" and "very personal."

Earlier this year, the JUDAS PRIEST singer confirmed that he was finally working on a book, after having previously insisted he would never do so because of privacy concerns.

Speaking to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Kaedy Kiely of 97.1 The River, Halford stated about his autobiography: "I kind of said half-jokingly in Australia a couple of weeks ago that it'll probably be like 'The Lord Of The Rings' — it'll need three volumes — because my life has been all over the place. I think when it is done, it'll be very deep, it'll be very personal. I'll be sharing some stories that have happened to me that the world has never known about. And that's only because I'm only now comfortable in my own skin to share some of these intimate details. I think that's important."

"I've lived an open life when it comes to my music," he continued. "I think if you're gonna do something like this, it's best just to get it all out of your system and make sure that it's done properly and not one of these pseudo-autobiography type of things. I want it to be the real deal. So it's slowly but surely being pieced together."

In 2011, PRIEST embarked on its world run of "Epitaph" shows, at the time billed as a farewell tour. It wasn't long, however, before the members of PRIEST changed their minds, with Halford crediting the addition of guitarist Richie Faulkner, who replaced original member K.K. Downing just prior to the "Epitaph" tour, with rejuvenating the band and causing everyone to reconsider.

Rob told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that PRIEST will probably never officially call it quits. "We kind of almost went into that [retirement] phase with the 'Epitaph' tour when Richie came onboard," he said. "I don't think we'll ever do that; I don't think we'll ever kind of say, 'This is definitely the end.' We learned a lot from that 'Epitaph' experience. And I think that if and when it happens, which it inevitably does for anybody in life, it could be a grateful exit. And I don't know how that'll manifest itself.

"When you start thinking about that as well internally, you kind of start to decompress creatively," he added. "And that's the last thing that we wanna do right now. I know for a fact that Glenn's [Tipton, guitar] back in England putting riffs together for some new PRIEST songs for the next PRIEST album. So things are always looking forward to the future with PRIEST."

Back in 2015, Halford was less enthusiastic about sharing personal details about his life in book form, telling Australia's Brisbane Times: "I know that my own life, my own experiences have something in them that people could learn from, that could really help somebody. And that it could be written in a way that needn't be exploitative or titillating. But I'm a private person, and I can say right now, it won't happen."

Halford said the same was true of JUDAS PRIEST, whose wild 1980s were chronicled in a "Behind The Music" episode but which has yet to released an official band autobiography. "We've talked about it and we're not interested," Rob said. "It seems the only way you can get these things to stick is to make it a tell-all, to dig up all the dirty laundry. We've never been to drawn to the tabloidy, gossipy side of things; we've never been desperate for attention, or gone around shooting our mouths off like other bands. We're more than happy — right now as much as ever — to be like Oz behind the curtain, to not pull that veil away, and to keep our fans directed to our albums and our shows."

Downing released his autobiography, "Heavy Duty: Days And Nights In Judas Priest", last September via Da Capo Press.

JUDAS PRIEST will return to the United States this spring for a run with fellow classic heavy rockers URIAH HEEP. The 32-date trek will kick off on May 3 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida and wrap on June 29 at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Photo credit: Mark Weiss