Rob Halford believes he's the only man capable of fronting Judas Priest.

His reasons might surprise you, though.

Mr. Halford, 56, left one of the most important and influential heavy-metal bands in history in 1991, only to return 12 years later as other projects failed to ignite, incite and resonate as Priest does.

His replacement, Tim Owens, the inspiration behind the Mark Walhberg movie Rock Star in 2001, had the same issues.

FILE 2005

Rob Halford says he's back where he belongs as the only person who can lead Judas Priest, which comes to town today.

"To be brutally honest, Jugulator and Demolition," the two Priest albums made with Mr. Owens as frontman, "were affected by my not being in the band, much like when Bruce Dickinson went away from Iron Maiden, the way Van Halen [was] affected when David Lee Roth left," Mr. Halford said by phone from Detroit on a stop during the Metal Masters Tour, which hits Dallas tonight.

"But I don't think a straight man can do my job in Judas Priest. I've never said that before. I'm sorry, but they can't."

Mr. Halford's disclosure of his homosexuality a decade ago verified what many already suspected. And in the end, it didn't matter a whit. Judas Priest's fan base is as strong as ever, Mr. Halford's penchant for showmanship (this is the man who popularized studded leather as a fashion statement) is as enthusiastic as ever, and the band's consistent willingness to push the boundaries of heavy metal for 38 years is still intact.

Recent release Nostradamus, a double-disc, 100-minute, biographic project about the 16th-century soothsayer that took two years to make, is proof of that. Conceived by band manager Bill Curbishley, who was involved with the Who in the Tommy days, it's a drastic shift that sounds like no other Priest record. But then again, no Priest record ever really sounded like any others, anyway.

"We don't replicate ourselves," Mr. Halford said. "If you want British Steel, go and play it; if you want Painkiller, go and play it. We don't want to keep making the same thing over and over again, with a different song title and different words. What's the point?

"I've always felt that if you wanted to compare us to anybody, compare us to Queen ... God what a band that was. They were so heavy. I see a lot of that in Priest."

Priest will perform only the album's opener, "Dawn of Creation/Prophecy," at the Dallas concert, as a taste of what likely will come after it: a world tour that will focus on Nostradamus. And Mr. Halford sees no limit to the performance possibilities.

"I want to go over the top with all of it, but that's me," he said. "I love to go onto the stage with the big set and costumes and lights. We all do that in the band, but I know what my role is, and I love to get lost in that theatrical, flamboyant style. That's what makes me click as a metal guy.

"I could see Cirque du Soleil doing it, I can see Broadway doing it, I can see a movie with Johnny Depp playing Nostradamus doing it, I can see a full classical opera interpretation, I can see a full symphonic classical presentation. I see everything in this record."