Pete Waterman is “still sad” over scrapped Judas Priest collaboration

Pete Waterman has revealed that he is “still sad” about his collaboration with Judas Priest being scrapped.

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The 77-year-old record producer and one-third of production trio Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) opened up about teaming up with the heavy metal veterans, telling the Daily Star newspaper’s Wired column (via Music News) that the collaboration was “the biggest hit we never had.”

“Management were getting very worried that we would dominate the artist. It would be Number One all over the world… but it kills Judas Priest,” he told the outlet (via Music News). “It’s still sad because the whole of the Judas Priest session was amazing.”

Waterman previously spoke to NME about his collaboration with Judas Priest, which included a cover of Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye’s ‘You Are Everything’ along with three other unreleased songs. “It would have been our biggest-ever record. We had great respect for each other. Matt ended up playing more rock guitar than they did! We went for it,” he said.

He continued: “We were more rock ‘n’ roll than Judas Priest! They kept saying: ‘No, we want more SAW’, while we’re going, ‘Fuck SAW, we want to do more rock ‘n’ roll! It was my birthday and we went out to this huge place in Paris and Cristal champagne was flowing. Mike Stock got off the plane the next day, with no memory of coming home.

“When we played the song, they said: ‘It’s a Number One record – which is the last thing we want!’. They missed a trick because now you have the Foo Fighters covering Rick Astley and anything goes, but their manager was frightened that it was going to end up as the biggest song of their career and 16-year-old girls would start turning up to their stadium gigs.”

Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford also discussed the collaboration with NME while appearing as part of the In Conversation series. The legendary metal vocalist went on to agree with Waterman’s claim that the track would have been their “biggest ever record”.

“I kind of agree with him, because I’ve got that on my phone somewhere and it sounds great,” he said. “I mean, look what happened to Kate Bush with Stranger Things and ‘Running Up That Hill’ – one of the greatest songs ever written. That’s what I’d love to see with our Stock Aitken Waterman tracks…”

He continued: “I still love those songs even now. In my lifetime I’d just like to see them get leaked. Leak ’em for all I care. Let’s just see where those songs take us, because it sounds great. You can hear the voice, you can hear the guitars, and they’re really fun pieces of music. I haven’t seen Pete in living memory, but maybe I can say [to him]: ‘Just leak these. Send a file off to TikTok and see where it takes us.‘”

In other news, Waterman and his SAW collaborators, Mike Stock and Matt Aitken are set to unveil a blue plaque from the Southwark Heritage Association at Vine Yard Studios, where they worked on a plethora of pop hits such as Dead or Alive’s ‘You Spin Me Round (Like A Record Player)’ and Rick Astley‘s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’.

As for Judas Priest, the band recently announced two new UK headline shows as part of their 2025 European tour, including a co-headline show with Alice Cooper.

The first show takes place on July 23, and see the metal legends play Scarborough Open Air Theatre alongside Phil Campbell And The Bastard Sons, while the second is at The O2 in London two days later (July 25) and will see them join forces with Cooper. You can buy tickets for both shows here.