In the new movie Rock Star, a young man fronting a cover band is tapped to join his heroes and replace their lead singer. The story should sound familiar, since it’s patterned after what happened to Tim “Ripper” Owens, the cover-band singer who replaced Rob Halford in Judas Priest. However, Owens told LAUNCH that while Rock Star might sound similar to his story, the moviemakers chose to exclude him and his bandmates from the project.
“There was a New York Times article on me, and they bought the rights to the story and they called us,” he said. “And from the way I, I remember it, they wanted to do a movie, but they didn’t want to ask us about ourselves or really get the information, so this movie has nothing to do with me. We have nothing to do with the movie-they have nothing to do with us.”
Rock Star features stars Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston as well as musicians including Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde, John Bonham’s son Jason Bonham, Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson, Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins, and Verve Pipe leader Brian Vander Ark. The film opens nationwide today (September 7).
Judas Priest is on the road, supporting its latest album, Demolition. On Friday (September 7) the band plays CrediCard Hall in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with a Mexico City show at the Teatro Metropolitan set for Sunday (September 9). After a few days off, Priest kicks off a month-long North American trek next Friday (September 14) at the Universal Amphitheatre in Universal City, California, with Anthrax and Iced Earth also on the bill.