ONE of the craziest men in heavy metal is backing a campaign to save a live music venue in Blackburn.

Rob Halford, the lead singer of Judas Priest, has recorded a message of support to a group of rockers who want to reopen the Sir Charles Napier pub, on Limbrick, in the town centre, as a community facility.

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Halford, who is famed for his trademark high-pitched, operatic, soaring screams, has also sung for Black Sabbath, and he said: “The Napier is an amazing place, full of history.”

Judas Priest were formed in Birmingham in 1970 and have sold more than 45 million albums to date.

MTV ranked them the second Greatest Metal Band of all time and their 1980 album, British Steel, was viewed as a defining record of the heavy metal genre.

Adam Dore, Save The Napier’s new chief of marketing, media and PR, said: “Rob has taken a break from their world tour promoting their latest album to record a short video urging others to do the same on the campaign Facebook page.

“In the video, in which he can be seen wearing one of the official campaign T-shirts, he talks about the history of the pub.

“The singer began his music career in pubs like The Napier and he knows how important places like this are, not only to the music community, but to the wider community in general.”

Judas Priest’s stage show often featured Halford riding onstage on a Harley-Davidson motorbike. At a 1991 show he was seriously injured when he collided with a drum riser hidden behind clouds of dry ice, but carried on to complete his set before going to a hospital.

Alex Martindale, a spokesperson for the Save the Napier campaign, said: ‘It’s incredible to have the support of such a massive personality, we hope this encourages other figures from the scene to come forward and help to spread the word for us.

“The campaign is building momentum daily with more and more people visiting the facebook and Twitter pages and purchasing the limited edition T-shirts, the funds from which the group will use towards the legal costs for the campaign.”