1985 - Judas Priest
Judas Priest fans Raymond Belknap and James Vance shot themselves after listening to the Judas Priest album ‘Stained Class.’ The two had drunk beer, smoked marijuana and then listened to hours of the album. Afterwards they took a shotgun to a nearby school playground where Belknap shot and killed himself. Vance suffered serious injuries, but lived for more than three years before dying of effects of the shooting.

MUSIC

When Judas Priest overcame bizarre suicide lawsuit amid subliminal messages controversy

Joe Taysom
MON 24TH AUG 2020 14.00 BST

Judas Priest once found themselves at the centre of a bizarre lawsuit by the families of two young men from Nevada who shot themselves on December 23rd, 1985. The case brought against them alleged that the metal band were blamed for directly causing the incident because of subliminal messages planted within their music.

18-year-old Raymond Belknap died at the scene whereas 20-year-old James Vance maimed himself in the incident and died three years later. Their families filed a lawsuit alleging that Belknap and Vance were driven to the fatal acts because of subliminal messages hidden in Judas Priest’s Stained Class album, a record which they had been listening to on the evening whilst the duo consumed drugs and alcohol.

Five years following the catastrophic event that devastated the two families and their quest for answers saw them take Judas Priest to court, the band forced to defend their lyrics as well as the alleged subliminal messages. What made this case different to previous lawsuits involving the likes of Ozzy Osbourne was that Priest were not protected by freedom of speech because, technically, subliminal messages aren’t classed as actual speech.

The complainant’s attorney wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times about the alleged subliminals which he claimed included phrases including “let’s be dead” and “do it” which he labelled an “invasion of privacy”. He then quoted Jimi Hendrix to try and bolster his defence on how hypnotising music can be, however, it turned out that the guitarist didn’t actually even say the quote he mentioned which is an encapsulation of the whole case.

{snip}