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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're just rocking out

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Speaker 2: worshiping Satan here and stuff you should do.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and I believe there's a CoA at the top here.

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Speaker 1: Just a trigger warning. This one features you know, content

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Speaker 1: featuring drug and alcohol use and suicide, some pretty serious stuff,

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Speaker 1: so we just wanted to give listeners a heads up.

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Speaker 3: Also a heads up.

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Speaker 1: If you want to read a really, really great long form,

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Speaker 1: in depth article about this. There's an article called The

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Speaker 1: Dreamer Deceiver from nineteen ninety from The Village Voice by

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Speaker 1: Ivan Solataroff. It's amazing, fantastic and like really gets into it.

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Speaker 1: So thanks to Dave for this and as well as Ivan.

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Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. Yeah, And like you said, this is

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Speaker 2: kind of a heavy subject, but it's also just totally

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Speaker 2: fascinating because it comes from that really bizarre chapter of

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Speaker 2: American history from essentially the eighties the beginning to the

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Speaker 2: mid eighties, where there was a segment of the American population,

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Speaker 2: specifically Christian fundamentalists, who were convinced that Satan was working

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Speaker 2: as magic through rock and roll music, but specifically they

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Speaker 2: eventually came to target heavy metal bands, and I mean

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Speaker 2: that was a pretty easy target because at the time

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Speaker 2: there are plenty of bands who were using satanic imagery

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Speaker 2: or just looked weird so they must be Satan worshipers

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Speaker 2: or something like that. There were bands that definitely encouraged it.

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Speaker 2: As soon as they figured out that. The more the

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Speaker 2: Christian right shouted about how there were Satanists out there,

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Speaker 2: that they could sell more records, so they really kind

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Speaker 2: of into it. So that's kind of where this story begins.

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Speaker 2: And then the other thing you need to understand what

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Speaker 2: we're talking about is something called back masking, and that

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Speaker 2: is putting essentially hidden messages by that appear when you

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Speaker 2: play music backwards. So those two things, the Satanic Panic

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Speaker 2: of the early eighties combined with back mask and kind

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Speaker 2: of laid the groundwork for what we're talking about today.

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Speaker 1: That's right, And if you want to really get a

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Speaker 1: background before you listen to this, you can listen to

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Speaker 1: our I think one of our best episodes are Satanic

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Speaker 1: Panic episode that we recorded and also go to a

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Speaker 1: bookstore by our book Sure stuff you should know Colon.

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Speaker 3: I don't even know what's the name of it.

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Speaker 2: An incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things.

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Speaker 3: That's hey, are you looking at edit? Or is that

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Speaker 3: for memory?

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Speaker 2: Right off the top of my dome? As the cool kids.

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Speaker 3: Say, nice work.

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Speaker 1: You can go out and get that book because we

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Speaker 1: have a really really fun chapter on back masking or

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Speaker 1: backward masking and.

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Speaker 3: There and yeah, so go read that, Listen to that.

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Speaker 3: Now read this.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody, and we can talk about the Judas

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Speaker 1: Priest trial. But first, even before we get to that,

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about California Bill AB thirty seven to forty one,

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Speaker 1: the very first bill that said, hey, we should have

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Speaker 1: warning labels on records that have backward masking.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. It was introduced by a California assemblyman named Phil Wyman,

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Speaker 2: who was an assemblymen for decades, I think two different times,

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Speaker 2: and he had been contacted by a constituent who'd seen

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Speaker 2: a show about satanic messages being subliminate, subliminally hidden in

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Speaker 2: music on the Trinity Broadcast network and she was very

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Speaker 2: upset about this, and Phil Wyman ended up introducing a

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Speaker 2: bill based on that phone call.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and part of this bill said the records

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Speaker 1: of many rock groups contain anti Christian and pro satanic

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Speaker 1: messages transcribed on them by backward masking.

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Speaker 3: And I'll paraphrase the rest, because they basically.

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Speaker 1: Say, like, while you can't, you can only understand it

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Speaker 1: basically if it's played backwards. But when it's played forwards,

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Speaker 1: your brain still subconsciously picks up on this stuff, which

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Speaker 1: is ludicrous and pseudoscience. We know this for a fact now.

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Speaker 1: But they in this bill, which by the way, didn't

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Speaker 1: even get put to a vote, thank goodness, this bill

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Speaker 1: literally said like, hey, this stuff, your brain is picking

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Speaker 1: up on it. Even though it's playing in the wrong direction.

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Speaker 1: Your child's brain is still hearing these messages.

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Speaker 2: Right and again these are messages about Satan, anti Christian,

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Speaker 2: pro satanic messages. And the big fear was that not

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Speaker 2: only would it make kids like drop out a heighth

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Speaker 2: school and start drinking beer prematurely, but then they would

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Speaker 2: drive them to suicide. That was, you know, and to

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Speaker 2: the Christian rights credit, they were deeply concerned about teenage

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Speaker 2: suicide and they were seeking a way to easily explain

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Speaker 2: it because usually teenage suicide is the convergence of a

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Speaker 2: lot of different factors. A lot of times it comes

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Speaker 2: from people you would not want to identify as part

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Speaker 2: of the problem. So it makes a lot more sense.

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Speaker 2: And it's a lot easier to just point at heavy

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Speaker 2: metal bands and say, you guys are putting messages in

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Speaker 2: your music that's causing kids to commit suicide. Right, And

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Speaker 2: like you said, there were experts that came and testified

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Speaker 2: about this, but the experts with scare quotes, and I

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Speaker 2: think you should actually put scare quotes around the scare

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Speaker 2: quotes when you write experts when you're talking about these people.

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Speaker 2: Because one guy, in particular, William H. Yarrel the second

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Speaker 2: was a self taught neuroscientist. That's how he got It's

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Speaker 2: it's a I can't say, yeah, okay, this is a

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Speaker 2: family podcast.

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Speaker 1: Yeah he's he's self described as a self taught neuroscientist.

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Speaker 1: He does not have academic credentials that are anything close

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Speaker 1: to what he has described himself as. And he has

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Speaker 1: a a again in quotes, probably scientific theory about these

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Speaker 1: messages that they are they can be decoded by the unconscious,

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Speaker 1: which already covered if it's hurt enough times. And here

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Speaker 1: are the two keys here as far as this is

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Speaker 1: going to play out in like a trial situation is

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Speaker 1: that he said, once you have decoded this message your

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Speaker 1: unconscious mind has, then you process it as truth and

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Speaker 1: that these truths can influence your behavior like suicide and

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Speaker 1: drug use and any other anti social behavior you can

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Speaker 1: think of.

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Speaker 2: Right, and so again this is total pseudoscience based on

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Speaker 2: nothing like facts, but because they're he was a man

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Speaker 2: who presented himself as an expert in this, who was

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Speaker 2: willing to go testify as an expert, and was saying

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Speaker 2: these things that backed up the Christian rights beliefs. This

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Speaker 2: is how like junk science starts to get a hold

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Speaker 2: in culture because in a lot of times people don't

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Speaker 2: want to be impolite and tell you how ridiculous what

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Speaker 2: you're saying is, and so it ends up like on

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Speaker 2: the record, and it just kind of grows from there.

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Speaker 2: And this is a really good example of that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 1: In the Satanic Pecket Satanic Panic episode, I know, we

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Speaker 1: talked about the PMRC, the Parents Music Resource Center, that

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Speaker 1: was the group formed in eighty five, not a supergroup

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Speaker 1: of musicians, but a supergroup of DC political spouses, notably

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Speaker 1: Tipper Gore and then wife of James Baker, who was

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Speaker 1: Treasury secretary his wife Susan Baker, when they got together

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Speaker 1: and said, hey, we need warning labels on music. Expert

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Speaker 1: profane or sexually explicit, V for violent, DA for drugs

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Speaker 1: and alcohol, O for a cult, anti Christian or satanic music.

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Speaker 1: And this is where we got those very famous hearings

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five with everyone from Frank Zappa a

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Speaker 1: very fired up John Denver testifying.

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Speaker 2: I watched some of John Denver's testimony today and it's great.

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Speaker 2: I mean, he is fired up in what he's saying,

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Speaker 2: but he's also mellow John Denver, Yeah, but he's He

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Speaker 2: talks about how his song Rocky Mountain High was banned

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Speaker 2: in some places or not played in some places because

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Speaker 2: it was taken as like a pro drug song, and

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Speaker 2: he said it was banned by people who'd obviously never

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Speaker 2: been to or seen the Rocky Mountains.

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Speaker 3: Or some good weed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but he he really kind of went to bat

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Speaker 2: for against censorship. He said, I'm opposed to censorship in

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Speaker 2: any form, and especially that's dictated by a self appointed

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Speaker 2: group of watchdogs who were telling everybody else what morality is.

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Speaker 2: He had some really great messages, but in the end,

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Speaker 2: the PMRC prevailed because the warning sticker that parenal advisory

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Speaker 2: explicit lyrics that essentially helped sell way more records than

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Speaker 2: would have sold had that label never been created.

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Speaker 3: Ye.

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Speaker 2: That came out of that push by the pmr C.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know what, I didn't mind it back

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Speaker 3: then so much.

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Speaker 1: I think when the pm R PMRC was doing their thing,

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Speaker 1: I was really young and I didn't understand it. Later,

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Speaker 1: when the parental Advisory label came out, I was kind

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Speaker 1: of like, well, who cares. It's fine, Like it's just

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Speaker 1: a rating and parents need ratings as guidelines. But I

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Speaker 1: don't know now that I see how it all went down,

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Speaker 1: It's really I don't know how you draw those guidelines

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Speaker 1: and what is right and what is wrong? Is is

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Speaker 1: really kind of the big question for me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, sure, I mean, as you're essentially providing

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Speaker 2: a service for parents who don't want to go to

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Speaker 2: the trouble of finding out what lives are doing, you know,

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Speaker 2: at the expense of free speech. Although to me I

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Speaker 2: kind of agree with past you where it's like this

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Speaker 2: is this barely qualifies as censorship. No one's saying you

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Speaker 2: can't say it. Yeah, there's just a warning on there

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Speaker 2: that some things might be offensive to some people. I

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Speaker 2: don't know how I feel about it, but it's not.

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Speaker 2: I'm not as virulently against it as I once was too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.

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Speaker 1: But point being, during those hearings, you had you know,

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Speaker 1: Frank Zapp and the gang out there, but you also

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Speaker 1: had a group of again you know, quote expert unquote

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Speaker 1: people testifying that like, hey, this music will I mean,

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Speaker 1: there was one guy, Joe Stucy, that said there are

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Speaker 1: scientifics studies that prove that rock music warps young people's

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Speaker 1: minds and that these subaudible messages can you know, infiltrate

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Speaker 1: the unconscious and lead to suicide. They'd talked about all

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Speaker 1: these and these are you know, to be sure, sad,

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Speaker 1: sad cases of teenage suicide, but you know, trotting these

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Speaker 1: cases out there saying and you know what they were

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Speaker 1: listening to Twisted Sister before it all happened and that

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Speaker 1: kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So And also if you say that there

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Speaker 2: are scientific studies and no one asks you to explain

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Speaker 2: what scientific studies you're talking about, that's again how junk

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Speaker 2: science gets a foothold in the world.

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Speaker 3: Totally.

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Speaker 2: So I say we take a break and come back

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Speaker 2: and talk about how this kind of went from Congress

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Speaker 2: into the courtroom. Once this this idea took hold, that

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Speaker 2: that musicians were putting dangerous, harmful, hidden messages in their music.

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Speaker 3: That's a real pro transition.

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Speaker 1: All right, So we're back. We promised to get into

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Speaker 1: the courtroom, and we are not going to start.

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Speaker 3: With the.

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Speaker 1: Well, I guess they were both pretty popular trials in

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Speaker 1: the media, or at least captured everyone's attention, but one

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Speaker 1: trial went decidedly longer than the first. In nineteen eighty five,

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Speaker 1: Ozzy Osbourne was sued along with CBS Records when their

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Speaker 1: son John McCollum these are parents in California, took his

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Speaker 1: life after listening to Suicide Solution, the Ozzy Osbourne song.

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Speaker 1: It was dismissed very key ruling here on First Amendment

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Speaker 1: grounds that basically said, hey, music lyrics are free speech

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Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter what they say. You can't sue

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Speaker 1: someone for writing a song and singing it. Very quickly

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Speaker 1: after this, there were two more pending suicide cases that

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Speaker 1: were scrapped.

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Speaker 3: But then a couple of years, well, I guess wouldn't

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Speaker 3: a couple of years.

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Speaker 1: It was just a few months later, in December of

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, a very tragic thing happened in Reno, Nevada,

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Speaker 1: just outside of Sparks, Nevada.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, this is a very sad story. This is

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Speaker 2: where it gets tragic because there were two boys who

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Speaker 2: were best friends. They didn't really like most other people.

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Speaker 2: They were just as tight as two people could be

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Speaker 2: with one another, though, and they loved Judas Priest. Their

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Speaker 2: names were Raymond Bellknapp, who was eighteen, and James Vance,

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Speaker 2: who was twenty, and everybody called them Ray and Jay

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Speaker 2: because they were essentially inseparable. And I think I said

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Speaker 2: it before, but it bears repeating. They loved Judas Priest.

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Speaker 3: They did. It was their favorite band.

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Speaker 1: These are guys that, you know, if you sort of

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Speaker 1: think about the typical metal heads of the nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: maybe some anti social behaviors. Like you said, they just

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Speaker 1: hung around with each other, hung out in a room,

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Speaker 1: drinking and smoking grass and listening to heavy metal over

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Speaker 1: and over and over and reading lyrics and looking at

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Speaker 1: the posters and you know, number one fans basically. But

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Speaker 1: these were deeply troubled kids who were very unhappy. Raymond

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Speaker 1: had had one attempted suicide before and that night they

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Speaker 1: made a suicide pack that they were going to in

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Speaker 1: their lives. They got a shotgun as sawed off shotgun,

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Speaker 1: went to a playground after drinking and smoking pot all

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Speaker 1: day and went to a playground behind a Lutheran church,

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Speaker 1: and Raymond shot and killed himself with a shotgun under

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Speaker 1: the chin.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's even worse than that though, because, like you said,

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Speaker 2: it was a suicide packed. So after he witnessed ray

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Speaker 2: shoot himself with a shotgun point blank range, jay was like, well,

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Speaker 2: I guess it's my turn. So he picked up the

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Speaker 2: shotgun that was covered in blood and gore and ejected

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Speaker 2: the shell, put in another shell, and then put it

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Speaker 2: to his own chin. And in that article from the

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Speaker 2: Village Voice that you cited, the author calculated based on

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Speaker 2: the nine to one one call and when the ambulance

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Speaker 2: got there, that he probably sat there for a full

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Speaker 2: five minutes contemplating whether to do this or not. And

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Speaker 2: he said later, because he actually survived this, that it

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Speaker 2: was the sound of sirens that essentially hurried him up.

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Speaker 2: And I guess the gun slipped or he didn't quite

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Speaker 2: line it up the way that he had intended to

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Speaker 2: or there was just some little part of his head

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Speaker 2: that was like I don't want to die. But he

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Speaker 2: did pull the trigger, but he shot himself under the chin,

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Speaker 2: out at an outward angle, away from himself. So he survived.

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Speaker 2: But he also took off like a significant portion of

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Speaker 2: his lower face.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, his his chin and mouth and nose. You know,

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Speaker 1: he was he was reconstructed as best possible. If you again,

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Speaker 1: big trigger warnings here, but if you if you want

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Speaker 1: to go look up you know, parts of this trial

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Speaker 1: or interviews with this with this kid, you can do that,

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Speaker 1: just you know, do so at your own risk.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, so Jay survived, Ray died. And it was

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Speaker 2: in a letter to Ray's mom that Jay wrote that

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Speaker 2: he first said he he he identified the Judas Priest

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Speaker 2: record they were listening to over and over all day

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Speaker 2: while they were getting trashed as something that prompted them

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Speaker 2: to to take their lives. And he said, quote, I

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Speaker 2: believe that alcohol and heavy metal music such as Judas

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Speaker 2: Priest led us or even mesmerized us into believing that

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Speaker 2: the answer to life was death. He also was He

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Speaker 2: also spoke to a guidance counselor afterward and told her

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Speaker 2: that he had heard do It do It in the

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Speaker 2: song in the end that they were listening to. And

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Speaker 2: the song in particular is better by You Better than Me,

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Speaker 2: which is off of the Judas Priest Stained Class album

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Speaker 2: from nineteen seventy eight. And there's a lot to talk

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Speaker 2: about with that.

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Speaker 1: Song, yeah, there is. It was their fourth record. The

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Speaker 1: song is actually a cover song. Maybe ironically it's a

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Speaker 1: cover song, and that these weren't even Judas Priest, you know,

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Speaker 1: words that they had written. And you know, we'll get

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Speaker 1: to the duet part, but well, I guess we should

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Speaker 1: just go ahead and say that supposedly at the end

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Speaker 1: of like three different lines in the chorus right afterward

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Speaker 1: you hear do it. And the boys heard this and

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Speaker 1: thought that meant to take their lives. There were also

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Speaker 1: four other parts that they thought were backmasked. One that

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Speaker 1: said try suicide backwards, not try suicide backwards, Try suicide.

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Speaker 1: Suicide is in sing my evil spirit and curse words here,

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Speaker 1: but I'm going to clean up for the crowd here

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Speaker 1: f the Lord f all of you.

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Speaker 2: Some more about that song, Chuck. The other thing about it,

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Speaker 2: it's on a Judas Priest album. It's associated with these boys,

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Speaker 2: suicide and suicide attempt So of course you'd think, like,

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Speaker 2: this is some dark material that you're talking about, And

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Speaker 2: like you said, it's a cover. It was originally written

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Speaker 2: by Gary Wright, who was a member at the time

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Speaker 2: of Spooky Tooth, who recorded it in nineteen sixty nine.

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Speaker 2: That same Gary Wright went on to have quite a

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Speaker 2: successful solo career with his number two hit dream Weaver

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Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six. That Gary Wright. But it was

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Speaker 2: a song. I don't know if it was an anti

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Speaker 2: war song. At the very least, it was a look

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Speaker 2: inside the psyche of a boy at war, a sensibly

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Speaker 2: in Vietnam, who was having such a rough time that

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Speaker 2: he couldn't he couldn't express himself to his girlfriend back home.

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Speaker 2: So he was actually talking to his best friend saying,

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Speaker 2: like you talked to her, You tell her how I'm

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Speaker 2: doing because I can't express myself. It's better by you,

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Speaker 2: better than me. That's what the song's about. There's no

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Speaker 2: nothing about suicide in there. There's nothing about taking your

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Speaker 2: life or killing other people. It's just kind of like

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Speaker 2: a soul bearing song about somebody who's going through the

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Speaker 2: horrors of war. It's a good song it is a

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Speaker 2: good song, and I really like Judas Priest's version of

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Speaker 2: it too. It's like, I like Judas Priest, but I'm

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Speaker 2: also like, after a while, everything sounds like Motorhead in

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Speaker 2: a certain way. This does not. This sounds like Priest.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's really yead.

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Speaker 3: So it doesn't even it doesn't even sound that metal.

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Speaker 2: Actually no, it's it's almost like do wop?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, did you say do wop?

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Speaker 3: Or do it?

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Speaker 2: I said wow, See I said do wop? Everybody. I

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Speaker 2: definitely did not say do it.

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Speaker 3: Do it? Then.

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Speaker 1: I hope there are no bloodsucking attorneys listening, because that's

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Speaker 1: just what happened. This is where the story to me

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Speaker 1: gets a little gross because in nineteen eighty six, three

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Speaker 1: attorneys headed by a man named Ken McKenna, who was

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Speaker 1: quoted at one point of saying, I was born.

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Speaker 3: To sue people. I guess is the dot dot dot.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like a vanity plate.

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Speaker 3: It really born number two sue. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So they mount a case, file a case rather a

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Speaker 1: lawsuit against Judas Priest and CBS Records, which and this

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Speaker 1: is just sort of a nitpicky thing, but it is

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Speaker 1: specifically was a product liability lawsuit, meaning the same kind

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Speaker 1: of lawsuit you would bring if any other product had

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Speaker 1: something that made you sick to your stomach.

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Speaker 2: Or something exactly. And in this case, the plaintiffs were

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Speaker 2: bringing this as if CBS Records and Judas Priests had

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Speaker 2: put out a product that had a harmful flaw to it,

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Speaker 2: which was these subliminal messages that had brought harm to

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Speaker 2: Ray and Jay, which had caused them to kill himself

357
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Speaker 2: and then attempt to kill himself. So that was essentially

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Speaker 2: what they were coming at it with, and they drew

359
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Speaker 2: a judge in Washoe County, where Reno is I think

360
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Speaker 2: the courthouse is in Reno. Judge Jerry Carr Whitehead heard

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Speaker 2: this case and in pre trial hearings he heard a

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Speaker 2: lot of expert testimony. He heard testimony from a lot

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Speaker 2: of junk science, scare quote experts, and he agreed to

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Speaker 2: hear the case. There was no jury, it was just him,

365
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Speaker 2: but he allowed the case to come to trial, and

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Speaker 2: just that was a landmark decision because what he's saying is,

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Speaker 2: I think there's enough possibility that what the plainis are

368
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Speaker 2: saying is right that these guys incerted subliminal messages that

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Speaker 2: got these kids to take their lives or attempt to

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Speaker 2: take their life, that I'm willing to hear lawyer's debate

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Speaker 2: whether it's correct or not.

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Speaker 3: That's enormous right.

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Speaker 1: And that it didn't get bumped because of the ASSI

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Speaker 1: free speech ruling because they were specifically because they were

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Speaker 1: subliminal messages, which to him, setting this president doesn't count

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Speaker 1: as free speech because there's no dialogue that can happen

377
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Speaker 1: where you can determine if something is correct or true.

378
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Speaker 1: And on top of that, even subliminal messages were invasion

379
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Speaker 1: of a right to privacy because the listener didn't know

380
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Speaker 1: this going into it and had no way of avoiding this.

381
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Speaker 1: So mark rulings. Another thing, two things I want to

382
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:07,280
Speaker 1: point out here was part of this. Part of this

383
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Speaker 1: was because these attorneys stepped forward, of course, and they

384
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Speaker 1: thought they could make a lot of money. Part of

385
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Speaker 1: it was because these parents hated this music. These weren't

386
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Speaker 1: like rock and roll parents who were like, oh man,

387
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Speaker 1: I was kind of into that too, but it turned

388
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Speaker 1: my son wrong. These are people like when you see interviews.

389
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Speaker 1: I watched that documentary on YouTube.

390
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Speaker 3: It's not very good.

391
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Speaker 1: It was sort of from the time though that but

392
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Speaker 1: it showed a lot of the trial and interviews the

393
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Speaker 1: mom I believe it was James's mom.

394
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Speaker 3: You know.

395
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Speaker 1: They asked her like what kind of music she was into,

396
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Speaker 1: and she liked music that her parents were into, so

397
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Speaker 1: people from like the nineteen forties and fifties, she was like,

398
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Speaker 1: you know, like Ry Rogers and the singing nun So

399
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: the idea of Judas Priest being in their household, they

400
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: hated this, so they're angry about that to begin with.

401
00:23:57,119 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 1: And then the other thing that people I don't think

402
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:01,360
Speaker 1: thought about my which at the time was is that

403
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 1: Judas Priests like they were devastated by this. These were

404
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 1: big fans of theirs and Rob Halford and interviews was even like, well,

405
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:14,199
Speaker 1: first of all, we're not inserting backward messages anyway, but

406
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Speaker 1: if we were, like, why it's ludicrous. Why would we

407
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Speaker 1: have our biggest fans and tell them to kill themselves?

408
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 1: And he's like, if anything, we would say buy more

409
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:25,439
Speaker 1: shirts and buy more records. Yeah, and it like it

410
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: devastated them emotionally that these these kids took their lives

411
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Speaker 1: and that they loved Judas Priest and they were being

412
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Speaker 1: blamed for it.

413
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that really struck me too in reading quotes

414
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 2: from Rob Halfer is just the amount of empathy that

415
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 2: he had and that he was able to kind of

416
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:42,439
Speaker 2: like cut through all the other stuff and be like,

417
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,119
Speaker 2: you guys, don't lose sight of what this is all about.

418
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:49,639
Speaker 2: These two kids, yeah like died, Yeah, and yeah, but

419
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Speaker 2: also at the same time defending their music and defending

420
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 2: their other fans too, saying like, don't pick on these

421
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Speaker 2: kids just because they listened to Judas Priests, Like, there's

422
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with listening to Juwus Priest. It was a

423
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:05,360
Speaker 2: really strange, awful position that the band was forced into by,

424
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 2: like you said, those ambulance chasing lawyers who created this

425
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Speaker 2: lawsuit out of whole cloth.

426
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Speaker 3: Basically. Yeah.

427
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: The other thing too, from watching the documentary was just

428
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Speaker 1: the complete lack of and I'm not saying like parents

429
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 1: are responsible if a child takes their life, because there's,

430
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: like you said, there's so many things at work here,

431
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 1: but the complete and utter lack of these parents' ability

432
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Speaker 1: to look at the environment they were raised in was

433
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Speaker 1: just startling.

434
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Speaker 3: You know.

435
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 1: The stepfather of James was an alcoholic and had a

436
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: gambling addiction, and when they asked her about it, in

437
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:46,679
Speaker 1: court and cross examination, she couldn't even say the word alcoholic.

438
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 1: The wife she was just like, well, he had a

439
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:52,199
Speaker 1: drinking problem, but James the quote was James would make

440
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: extremes out of situations. And then it cut to an

441
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,640
Speaker 1: interview with her on the couch with her husband that said,

442
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:01,919
Speaker 1: big deal, you had drinking problem, and like a lot

443
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: of people have drinking problems and their kids don't kill themselves.

444
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: And she said, everyone tries to blame everything on me,

445
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:09,679
Speaker 1: and none of this is my fault.

446
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm having empathy for her.

447
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: Because she lost her child, but also just like the

448
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 1: utter lack of like it's all this rock band's fault

449
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 1: and nothing had to do with this. And the kids said,

450
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,919
Speaker 1: like being raised in that home was awful, Like he

451
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:27,960
Speaker 1: said that, you know.

452
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, and not just him. I think his siblings also

453
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 2: were basically in the same boat. Yeah, and for sure

454
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 2: I read I read an article in Skeptical Inquirer by

455
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 2: one of the psychologists for the defense for Judas Priest

456
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 2: who was saying, like, this is not blaming the victims.

457
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 2: We're not blaming the victims here, but you can't not

458
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:53,399
Speaker 2: take into account all of the other factors in these boys'

459
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 2: lives that made them extremely high risk for suicide. Yeah,

460
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,640
Speaker 2: and to instead just ignore all that stuff like an

461
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 2: inability to stay employed, engaging in tons of crime, fighting,

462
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 2: trouble at school, fighting, being beaten at home, all of

463
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 2: these things put together. You can't just throw those out.

464
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 2: And it doesn't mean it's these kids' fault. And you know,

465
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways it doesn't necessarily make it

466
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 2: the parents fault either, but it's certainly not the band's fault.

467
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 2: Like you're really failing to take any sort of tountability

468
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 2: if you're like you said, you're placing all the blame

469
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 2: on Judas Priest.

470
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so, totally all right. So they go to court.

471
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: The thing that they had to do to persuade Judge Whitehead,

472
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: they really had a four prong approach that they had

473
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: to prove in order to prove that Judas Priest and

474
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: CBS Records had at pay money. One is that there

475
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 1: was definitely a physically present message on that song that

476
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: you could identify. They brought in this guy, William nick

477
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:03,680
Speaker 1: Loff Junior, who this is For some reason this struck

478
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: me as funny. He had a business that specialized in

479
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 1: detecting subliminal messages, but it went out business.

480
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 2: He also made money selling subliminal message tapes himself, those

481
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,120
Speaker 2: self help tapes that supposedly help people that quit smoking

482
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 2: and lose weight. Right, He also made money doing.

483
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: That, right, So he supposed he was an expert at

484
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:27,479
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. He you know, isolated and slowed

485
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,640
Speaker 1: down and amplified the parts of the song that supposedly

486
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,479
Speaker 1: said do it. We'll get to you know, the outcome

487
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: of that later. And then he also played some of

488
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: the backward masking stuff in court.

489
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's really important too, Like there were two

490
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 2: components to this. If you listened to it regularly, you

491
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 2: heard do it. If you listened to it backwards, you

492
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 2: heard all of those other satanic messages right, right. That

493
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 2: wasn't clear to me at first. It took a little

494
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 2: while to kind of sink in. So they were trying

495
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 2: to get them both ways, forward and backward.

496
00:28:57,680 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the one thing that I don't get is

497
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: in try well, they were talking about just lyrics in general,

498
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:04,239
Speaker 1: and that's the stuff that should have been protected by

499
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:06,719
Speaker 1: free speech. Because the judge even said at the beginning,

500
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,239
Speaker 1: like nothing that the only thing that matters here is

501
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: the subliminal messages. That's the only thing this case hinges on.

502
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think back masking would fall into subliminal

503
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 2: messages too. Well.

504
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: No, no, I'm saying they were just talking about regular lyrics

505
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: on the album.

506
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 2: Oh gotcha, probably just prove the case or established the

507
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 2: case that Judas Priest was evil.

508
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah. Sure.

509
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 2: So one of the things that really helped the plaintiffs

510
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 2: that came from Rob Halford is on the stand. He

511
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 2: was asked like, have you ever included any back mask

512
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:44,959
Speaker 2: lyrics and he said, yeah, we actually have before. And

513
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 2: it was not too hide any kind of secret message

514
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 2: or anything like that. But it was a cool effect

515
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 2: playing something backwards when you listen to it forward. That

516
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 2: was the point of it. But the plaintiff lawyers were like,

517
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 2: case closed basically, and of course the case wasn't closed,

518
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 2: but it was not. It was not. It didn't help

519
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 2: the defense at all.

520
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: No, for sure. And that was the second prong. First one,

521
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: like I said, was there was an identifiable message. The

522
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 1: second one was that they deliberately put it there. Yeah,

523
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: if they're going to be held liable, so yeah, just

524
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 1: the fact that they did that at all, does it

525
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 1: mean anything, because a lot of bands were doing that

526
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: kind of thing.

527
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, just read our chapter on backmasking, go do it.

528
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 2: But they couldn't. But they rob however, couldn't say no,

529
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 2: we've never done this, right, which would have been really

530
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 2: helpful if you've done it once, who knows if you've

531
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 2: done it before, right, So there was another one. The

532
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 2: next part that they had to prove was that these

533
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 2: messages were in fact subliminal, because the point of them

534
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 2: being subliminal is that you couldn't resist the messages you

535
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 2: were getting because you couldn't identify them, and you couldn't

536
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 2: be like, this is not this is not right. And

537
00:30:56,800 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 2: so the idea that there was such a thing as

538
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 2: subliminal messaging. Apparently there was a guy named Wilson Key

539
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 2: And I don't know, did you say that he didn't

540
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 2: actually testify at the trial, but he was an advisor

541
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 2: to say like William nick Lough.

542
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he basically he literally wrote the book

543
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: on subliminal advertising. Yeah, and they interviewed him a lot,

544
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 1: like he never took the stand, I think, but they

545
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: used a lot of his like quoted testimony to back

546
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: up their case.

547
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he was a hammer, and subliminal advertising is

548
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 2: the nail. Like he saw it everywhere. He saw the

549
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 2: word sex and the ridges of a Ritz Cracker on

550
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 2: the box, that old chestnut. That like there was a

551
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 2: naked woman hidden in the ice cubes of a Johnny

552
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 2: Walker ad that came from him. He said, it was

553
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 2: in the Sears catalog, as in the assistin chapel. It

554
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 2: was everywhere. That just subliminal messaging was everywhere in the

555
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 2: media and it worked. That was the point then that

556
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 2: really helped bolster that plaintiff's case that the messages were

557
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 2: and then they also needed to show that subliminal messages

558
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 2: could create the impulse to die by suicide.

559
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 3: Yeah.

560
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: By the way, I got a quote, a real quote

561
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 1: from Wilson Okay, Wilson Key on science. He said, science

562
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: is pretty much what you can get away with at

563
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: any point in time.

564
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 2: At least he didn't say that he's a self taught neuroscientist,

565
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 2: but it's definitely in the same ballpark.

566
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 3: That's a good point, all right.

567
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: So you said they had to prove that they contributed

568
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 1: to that impulse, those messages contributed to the impulse to

569
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: take someone's life. They brought in the plane was brought

570
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: in a guy named Howard Chevron. This guy was an

571
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: actual legitimate clinical psychologist, very respected guy. Yeah, and he

572
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 1: is the guy that basically in court showed experiments that

573
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: showed how the unconscious mind and the conscious mind operate

574
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: and how they're separate, but how they do interact with

575
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:07,280
Speaker 1: one another, and that subliminal messages are potentially very very

576
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: powerful because your brain is confusing it.

577
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 3: And here's it as a truth.

578
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:14,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this guy, like you said, he was legit.

579
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 2: He back in the sixties, he in a colleague essentially

580
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 2: proved that Freud's theories on the unconscious mind were right,

581
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 2: that we do have an unconscious mind. They detected it

582
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 2: by showing subliminal messaging to people or images and then

583
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 2: you know, analyzing their brain waves and they were like, yep,

584
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 2: this is actually a thing. He went too far, though,

585
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 2: and he attributed way too much potency to subliminal messages

586
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 2: on the unconscious mind. And he essentially said that when

587
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 2: the unconscious mind gets its hands on a subliminal messager,

588
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 2: is presented with a subliminal message, it doesn't understand that

589
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 2: it's just been it's just taken. It externally and so

590
00:33:56,160 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 2: the mind confuses it as an internally generated thought and

591
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 2: it gets all it's accorded, all of the importance that

592
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 2: your own thoughts and beliefs are given even though somebody

593
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 2: else told you to do it. You just don't understand

594
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: it like that. So yeah, ergo, if you suddenly have

595
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,799
Speaker 2: this idea like, oh, I should kill myself, even if

596
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 2: it's subliminal, you might act on it.

597
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, too far.

598
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 1: I believe he was a guy in court too that

599
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: said that was talking about just their lyrics and their

600
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 1: anti religious connotations, which I didn't you know, it just

601
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 1: cut right there. So I don't see if the judge

602
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 1: was like irrelevant or whatever, because again that's the part

603
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: that was supposedly not on trial.

604
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 2: Right.

605
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 3: Should we take another break?

606
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take our break.

607
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 1: All right, let's take our final break here, and we'll

608
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: talk about the defense case and the ruling right after this.

609
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:13,320
Speaker 2: Okay, So we went over the plaintiff's case and judas

610
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 2: priests had defense pretty well established. One. Essentially, they had

611
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:22,959
Speaker 2: to show number one that the words do it were

612
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 2: not actually the words do it, that they were random

613
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 2: sounds that to the ear, especially once somebody pointed it

614
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 2: out to you that it sounded like do it. You

615
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:35,479
Speaker 2: would hear is do it? And so I couldn't find

616
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 2: it anyway.

617
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 3: I couldn't either.

618
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I listened over and over to that section, and

619
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: I just don't hear it at all.

620
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 2: But apparently if somebody is pointing it out, especially if

621
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 2: they're slowing it down and isolating it and all that, yeah,

622
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 2: you supposedly hear do it. It was played over and

623
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,360
Speaker 2: over again in the court, So there is something there

624
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 2: enough that no one said objection, this doesn't sound anything

625
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 2: like it. And it became like just one of the

626
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 2: central components of this, like do it is? Do it there?

627
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 2: Is it purposely there? And then conversely, on the defensive side,

628
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 2: does do it even exist? Like are these actual words?

629
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 2: And so a lot of weird stuff happened. Rob Halford

630
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 2: sang better better buy you better than Me in the

631
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 2: witness Box, and he was basically showing how he likes

632
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:26,800
Speaker 2: to say ea at the end of like every line.

633
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a very interesting part because they were like,

634
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 1: you know, and why do you do that? Like it

635
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 1: was an implication. He was like, he's like just the

636
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: emotion of the song, and you know, like basically, I'm

637
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:39,799
Speaker 1: just a singer man.

638
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, Satan told me to.

639
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, well he shouldn't have said that, but he let

640
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 3: it slip.

641
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:48,280
Speaker 2: So, just like how the Plainliffs brought in nick Lough,

642
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 2: William Nicklough as sound engineer, the defense brought in their

643
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 2: own sound engineer, and they managed to slow it down

644
00:36:55,680 --> 00:37:00,720
Speaker 2: and essentially prove that do it was just a random

645
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,800
Speaker 2: combination of sounds, not even speech.

646
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was a.

647
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 2: Combination of a guitar sound and Rob Halford the lead singer,

648
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 2: exhaling on the line, and that you put those together

649
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:15,280
Speaker 2: if you listen to a certain way, especially if somebody

650
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 2: said sounds like do it, doesn't it? You could hear

651
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 2: do it?

652
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were like three more things though. It was

653
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: in that big, big article from the Village Voice. I

654
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 1: just can't remember. I know, the high hat that had

655
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: something to do with it, and like some sort of

656
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: an echo. But yeah, the point is they were like,

657
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: do it's not even in here? So why are we

658
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: even in here? Is what they were thinking.

659
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:35,359
Speaker 2: Right.

660
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, again, still having empathy this whole time. One of

661
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: the most troubling parts of this trial for the defense,

662
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 1: of course, is having to you know, cross examine these

663
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: families and talk about the history of depression and these

664
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: anti social behaviors that these boys had. Like one of

665
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: these guys, and this is seven years before Columbine, one

666
00:37:57,120 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 1: of them. I don't think it was Jay, I think

667
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:03,840
Speaker 1: it was Raymond. It was Raymond talked about getting automatic

668
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 1: weapons and like shooting up large gatherings. And you know,

669
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: the defense attorney's asking this this mom, like, like, can

670
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 1: you agree that to hear something like this, you know,

671
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 1: something is wrong with your son. And she's like, well,

672
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: I don't understand what your question is, Like, what do

673
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: you mean something's wrong with them? And she was just

674
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: you know, it was a tough tough thing to bring

675
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: the sister out and say, like, you had two previous

676
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 1: suicide attempts and you never listened to this music, right.

677
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 2: She's like, no, I just listened to Roy Rogers.

678
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 1: It was all very hard to watch because they had

679
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: to paint a picture of their unhappy home life and

680
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 1: their unhappy childhood.

681
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was I mean, there was just no

682
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 2: way of mounting a defense without of course doing that,

683
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 2: you know. But yeah, from what I could tell in

684
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 2: that Dream Deceiver long form article, the all members of

685
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:58,919
Speaker 2: Judas Priest found it very distasteful.

686
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:00,319
Speaker 3: But yeah, they all.

687
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 2: Seemed to understand they had to do this, but none

688
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 2: of them were happy about doing it. Yeah, and they

689
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:06,799
Speaker 2: were all I mean, it wasn't just Rob Halford, like

690
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 2: all of them were deeply affected by this and having

691
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 2: to hear the story of what happened to these kids,

692
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 2: and like it haunted them. For sure.

693
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 3: They were mad in there.

694
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:17,360
Speaker 2: They were mad that they had been dragged into court

695
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 2: across the pond over this ridiculous stuff. But at the

696
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:24,360
Speaker 2: same time, they were definitely affected by what had created

697
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 2: this whole kerfuffle.

698
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw too. Halford was really just upset that

699
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: it was America. He was like, this is a country

700
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: that was always so good to us, and we loved

701
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: America so much, and you know, to be taken to

702
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 1: court in America was just really hard for us. And

703
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 1: you know, they sat there every day in the trial.

704
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: And I wasn't the biggest Judas Priest guy because I

705
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 1: just didn't listen to a lot of that kind of.

706
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,360
Speaker 3: Music, But like they were good dudes.

707
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:53,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, yeah, I've always respected Rob Halford for

708
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 2: coming out in the metal community. You know, like he

709
00:39:57,480 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 2: was as far as I know, the first and maybe

710
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 2: even still the last so far.

711
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine if they knew he was

712
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: gay at the time, what they were done in that trial.

713
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 2: No, because this was a really bizarre time in American history,

714
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 2: and there was just so much boldness to take somebody

715
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 2: to court over things like free speech, over things like obscenity,

716
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 2: just over moral policing. There was no qualms about taking

717
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 2: somebody to court over morality. So, yeah, you're right, who

718
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 2: knows that they would have done? Yeah, for sure. So

719
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 2: there was also the point of essentially debunking all the

720
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:40,240
Speaker 2: pseudoscience that the plaintiff's witnesses had spouted from the witness stand,

721
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 2: And luckily they were basically able to do that. They

722
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 2: were All they had to do was say, there's zero

723
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:52,919
Speaker 2: body of literature in the scientific corpus that suggests that

724
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 2: this is even remotely possible that at best, studies that

725
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 2: have shown an effect from subliminal messages could maybe disturb you,

726
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 2: could maybe trigger anxiety in you that certainly couldn't actually

727
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 2: create behavior, and certainly not behavior as monumental as suicide.

728
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. And they use like the opposite just

729
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:20,400
Speaker 1: help prove their point. They were like, when people like

730
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,320
Speaker 1: want to lose weight and quit smoking more than anything else,

731
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 1: and they buy these books and tapes with subliminal messages

732
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 1: supposedly to help them do it. They're trying to do

733
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: this and using it as an aid, and it's still

734
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 1: not helping them achieve that goal. It doesn't work. It's

735
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 1: not working.

736
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that definitely helped their case too. So the defense

737
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:42,799
Speaker 2: put up a pretty good well defense and just kind

738
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 2: of picked apart a lot of the plaintiff's case. But

739
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 2: ultimately it was up to Judge Whitehead, who, from what

740
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 2: I read in that article was just his face was

741
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 2: totally impassive. He didn't let on anything that he'd taken

742
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:59,279
Speaker 2: in on any given day, and so I don't know

743
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:01,480
Speaker 2: that they had any clue how it was going to go.

744
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 2: And so he ruled in favor of judas priests. He

745
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 2: ruled against the plaintiffs, and like you said, the plaintiffs

746
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 2: that brought this is essentially a product liability case, but

747
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 2: Whitehead viewed it instead as an invasion of privacy case.

748
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:19,880
Speaker 2: And the big difference between those two is intent. And

749
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 2: I think Attorney McKenna put it like, if you're in

750
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,919
Speaker 2: a Ford. Pinnow that blows up. It doesn't matter whether

751
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:28,320
Speaker 2: Ford didn't mean for that to happen, it still happened.

752
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 2: The harm was done. But if it's invasion of privacy,

753
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 2: there has to be intent. And so Judge Whitehead essentially said,

754
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 2: I believe that subliminal messages are real. I believe that

755
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 2: they can impact behavior, but I don't think judas priests

756
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 2: intentionally put these in there. And I'm ruling in favor

757
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 2: of judas priests.

758
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:52,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, looking back, it was a totally sensible

759
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,280
Speaker 1: decision on a case that never should have been brought.

760
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,399
Speaker 1: But it still feels like a bit of a brave

761
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 1: decision for a a loone judge to make without the

762
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: assistance of a jury, don't you think.

763
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean he added to the free

764
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 2: speech body of law. That's enormous. That's an enormous ruling

765
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 2: just from that, just by ruling that subliminal messages are

766
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 2: not protected speech. And then yeah, in his ruling, he

767
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 2: didn't do anything to debunk the idea that there were

768
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 2: subliminal messages and that they could affect us, and that

769
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 2: metal bands are putting them in their records. So the

770
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 2: fact that he didn't say that that wasn't correct. Actually

771
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 2: bolstered people's viewpoints of that later on in other criminal cases.

772
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:41,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the end, Judas Priest spent about a quarter

773
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: of a million bucks in their defense.

774
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 3: Did not do the conversion on that for some weird reason.

775
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 3: But i'd sufvise just to say it's a lot more

776
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 3: now I feel hollow.

777
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 1: CBS was ordered to pay forty thousand dollars to those

778
00:43:55,520 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 1: plaintive attorneys as cost reimbursement for not complying with discovery reorders.

779
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: It all came down to their providing the master tapes

780
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: for the song. They went back and forth saying that

781
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 1: they didn't have them, and then finally I think after

782
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 1: a long time, they did provide them, but there was

783
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 1: chunks missing that, you know, the conspiracy minded plane of

784
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:21,839
Speaker 1: attorney said was them sort of whitewashing it.

785
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 3: And they said when they did receive the.

786
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 1: Master tapes they were sort of like flaking apart, and

787
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 1: that they didn't want to even they didn't even play

788
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 1: them because they didn't want to assume any responsibility for them.

789
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 1: So it was just sort of a mess in that

790
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: discovery period. So they ended up having to pay them

791
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:38,280
Speaker 1: forty grand.

792
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, so the Christian Wright kept going after

793
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 2: metal bands for a while after this, and you might say, like, well,

794
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:48,839
Speaker 2: how did this ever stop, Like how did it end?

795
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:53,759
Speaker 2: It didn't, and they just changed targets and once rap

796
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:56,880
Speaker 2: music became a thing in the late eighties, yeah, they started.

797
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:00,080
Speaker 2: There was a new moral panic, and in fact, that

798
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 2: same year, in nineteen ninety, two Live Crew was arrested

799
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 2: for obscenity in Florida and went on trial and ended

800
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 2: up prevailing. As well.

801
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 1: I had a great idea the other day that I

802
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: can't remember now that had to do a two Live Crew.

803
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:17,319
Speaker 2: Probably their free speech Crusade.

804
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:19,759
Speaker 1: Wasn't a podcast episode, it was something else. It was like,

805
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: I don't know, it was a good title for something

806
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 1: that had to do.

807
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 3: With Two Life Crew. Okay, hey we want some podcasts?

808
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 2: Was that it miso podcast?

809
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 3: Well?

810
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: Sadly we should mention that. As for Jay, he only

811
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 1: lived a few years after that.

812
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 3: He went to.

813
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 1: A mental health facility for depression, and it's very hard

814
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 1: to find out exactly what happened because they, I know,

815
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: he suffered from an overdose, went to a coma for

816
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 1: a few days, showed no brain activity and died, but

817
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 1: there is dispute between the parties over whether or not

818
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:03,320
Speaker 1: that was a suicide or whether it was an accidental

819
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 1: overdose of methadone, whether or not the plug was pulled.

820
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:08,760
Speaker 3: Like I couldn't get any straight answers.

821
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:11,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems that for sure.

822
00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they wanted that lawsuit to continue, they appealed,

823
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: of course, and I imagine a suicide probably would not

824
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:21,319
Speaker 1: have helped their case any So maybe that had something

825
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: to do with that.

826
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 2: I don't know. And despite feeling betrayed by America, Judas

827
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 2: Priestill tours here and if you want to see them,

828
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 2: they will be at the Alliant Energy Powerhouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,

829
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:34,760
Speaker 2: September twenty first.

830
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 3: I've never seen them. I'd love to.

831
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 2: I bet I would love too.

832
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 3: Well, you got anything else, nothing else.

833
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 2: Nothing else here either, which means, of course, everybody, it's

834
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:45,439
Speaker 2: time for listener mail.

835
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:51,919
Speaker 1: Appropriately you're going to talk about streaming music. Hey, guys,

836
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 1: went to your New York show the highlight of my year.

837
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 1: I've worked in the music industry for nearly a decade

838
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:58,880
Speaker 1: and must give you guys kudos for summing up the

839
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:01,440
Speaker 1: streaming debacle so well well I have a few additions

840
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 1: that may add color to the situation, namely that it

841
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:07,760
Speaker 1: was a crisis for the industry and Spotify is credited

842
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 1: with saving the fan consumption model for music. Still, Spotify

843
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:14,280
Speaker 1: is in a power struggle with the labels, and because

844
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: they pay out seventy percent of the total revenue to labels,

845
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:20,279
Speaker 1: they lobby for lower payout rates for musicians and songwriters

846
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: to achieve profitability to a loophole involving audio books and bundles.

847
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:27,720
Speaker 1: As of May twenty twenty four, Spotify will be paying

848
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:32,280
Speaker 1: songwriters approximately one hundred and fifty million dollars less per year.

849
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 1: Spotify is kind of in a three way standoff with labels.

850
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 1: Without label owned content like Drake and Taylor Swift, no

851
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:43,800
Speaker 1: one would use Spotify, but labels need stores like Spotify

852
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 1: and Apple for fan consumption. It's a convoluted power dynamic

853
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: that has trickled down effects on music that most fans

854
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 1: don't even recognize.

855
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:54,360
Speaker 3: Keep finding the good fight, guys. That's from Nate in

856
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 3: New York, New York.

857
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:58,120
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Nate, thanks for that email. Thanks for

858
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 2: coming to see us too. That was a fun show.

859
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:01,800
Speaker 3: A town hall totally.

860
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,439
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Nate. You can come

861
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 2: see us too wherever we perform live in the meantime,

862
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 2: You can also send us an email send it off

863
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 2: to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

864
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

865
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:22,799
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

866
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:24,720
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.