Original subtitles

[♪ tense music playing]

[man 1] Here were two young men who had found each other

and shared this basic understanding of how fucked up life was.

[man 2] Ray and Jay went through everything together.

They were just brothers.

[gunshot echoes]

[man 3] [over radio] It looks like there's two bodies.

I didn't want to go over and look.

[indistinct radio chatter continues]

It's the most bizarre court case to hit the American justice system.

Heavy metal rock stars accused of using their music

to convince a pair of kids to kill themselves.

The two youths had apparently listened to six hours of music by Judas Priest.

Heavy metal was under attack.

There were people saying, "Burn it."

[man 4] This case was a crusade for me, good versus evil.

They thought every metalhead was a devil worshiper.

James and Ray were super fans and that put them in extreme danger.

I feel sorry for 'em

'cause I listen to it, and I hope it doesn't happen to me.

If the music caused them to kill themselves, why didn't we?

[man 5] The utter preposterousness.

If you could make a case based upon these kinds of flimsy allegations,

there might be an avalanche.

[Rob Halford] It's not just Judas Priest here.

It's books, filmmaking,

everything in the art world is at stake here,

and we are here to defend it.

♪ Better by you, better than me ♪

"This could change history, you know, freedom of speech, man."

We gotta fight for our right, man, to listen to our music and party, man.

[group] Judas Priest!

We-- We know that what we do is right

and we've come here to defend it and heavy metal.

[♪ heavy metal music playing]

[♪ energetic heavy metal music playing]

This ticket is probably my third time seeing Judas Priest.

♪ Up here in space ♪

♪ I'm looking down on you ♪

[Tim MacDonald] When I first saw Judas Priest,

it was the "Screaming for Vengeance" tour.

There was multilevels.

♪ Always in focus ♪

♪ You can't feel my stare ♪

Amps everywhere.

♪ I zoom into you ♪

♪ But you don't know I'm there ♪

They were a bit mysterious.

I was attracted to that. A bit to the dark side as well.

♪ Smash and grab at all I had ♪

♪ Build my funeral pyre ♪

My kids were very fond of heavy metal music.

That's how I became acquainted with 'em.

But they were an extremely well-known band.

[all chanting "Priest"]

Everybody pretty much knew who Judas Priest was.

♪ Out there is a fortune waiting to be had ♪

♪ You think I'll let it you go, you're mad ♪

♪ You've got another thing comin' ♪

[audience cheering]

My parents felt that, uh, something was going to happen to me.

I want you to know that Satan is using the media,

things like rock music, Dungeons & Dragons,

to influence young people into Satanism.

Guys like Rob Halford of Judas Priest say that

not only do they sing about it and wear all the chains,

that's actually the way that they experiment and live off stage.

[motorcycle engine revving]

[Bill Peterson] Heavy metal appealed to rebellion and supernatural stuff.

It was kinda fun, you know?

The entertainers at the time played it up.

It was popular with the kids.

Heavy metal rules. All that punk shit sucks.

Fucking Judas Priest!

Judas Priest!

A lot of people felt the youth were being led astray

by this Satanic culture,

heavy metal.

Rock music has been blamed for just about everything

from teenage pregnancy to anti-American thinking.

Now, a mother in Reno has filed suit against a heavy metal band,

blaming the group for her son's suicide.

[Ken McKenna] Anita came to my office,

and I knew it was her son who was in the news.

She said to me that the detectives that had investigated the scene told her

that the music that James and Ray had been listening to

was being accused of causing teen suicide.

Have you seen the album cover?

It's a kid killing himself.

The bullet, the ray, it goes in his eye

and there's a little explosion out of the back of his head.

I knew I was gonna pursue the case.

I filed for Ray Belknap's family

and there was a separate case for James Vance.

I wasn't looking for a landmark lawsuit.

I got a call out of the clear blue.

My secretary said, "There's a Phyllis Vance on the line.

She wants to know if you're a Christian attorney."

I said, "I'm not an attorney who happens to be a Christian.

I'm a Christian who happens to be an attorney."

Phyllis said, "Well, you're the only one we want to handle our case."

I said, "Why, are you suing the devil?"

She said, "Well, we think so."

She said, "We wanna sue a heavy metal satanic rock group

that influenced my son and his best friend to shoot themselves."

"I thought it was a double suicide."

And she said, "You don't read the newspapers, do you?"

She said, "It was a suicide and an attempted suicide."

Her son, James, was a survivor.

I wasn't prepared to be as shocked as-- as I was, seeing him.

The recoil from the shotgun pulled it away.

But the blast blew the lower part of his face away.

James had literally come back from the grave to tell us what happened.

[♪ eerie music playing]

It was James' 20th birthday.

Ray gave him this Christmas gift,

"Stained Class" by Judas Priest.

He said, "Wow, the only one I don't have."

For several hours, they listened to that album.

They looked at each other and said, "Let's do it."

They ran to the backyard playground of the Church of Christ.

Ray grabbed the shotgun

and said, "See you on the other side."

[gunshot echoes]

James couldn't stop.

He picked up the gun.

[gunshot echoes]

It was a compulsion.

I said, "Level with me.

Why'd you shoot yourself?"

He leaned forward in the chair and--

He wasn't there anymore. He was like in a trance.

[strained voice] "Take this life with all its sin.

It's not fit for living in."

♪♪

♪ Keep the world with all its sin ♪

♪ It's not fit for livin' in, oh ♪

[Tim Post] He quoted lyrics as if he were quoting Bible verses.

And then it's like he came back.

He said, "I feel that the heavy metal music of Judas Priest

"mesmerized us into thinking that the answer to life's problems is death.

And so we proceeded."

♪♪

[Peterson] The band members were very sympathetic

to what happened here.

They felt sorry for these boys.

Their attitude was exactly what I would expect

from people who are actually not responsible

and totally innocent of the charges.

We just thought it was inconceivable that somebody could be taking a musician

[chuckles] to court for making music.

[Peterson] Well, the facts are undeniable.

Belknap committed suicide and-- and Vance, uh, uh, blew his face off.

Uh, but what caused the-- what caused that?

Uh, it wasn't a record.

Motion to dismiss was probably started the day after,

if not the day that the complaint was filed.

These type of cases have been tried

and they've been summarily picked off on First Amendment free speech.

[McKenna] Ozzy Osbourne had a song called Suicide Solution.

That's pretty direct.

The song says, quote, "I tell you to end your life.

I wish I could end mine," end quote.

In Los Angeles today,

a lawsuit claiming music by singer Ozzy Osbourne

drove a teenager to suicide

was thrown out of court.

Superior Court Judge John Cole said music is protected

by the free speech rights of the First Amendment.

Lyrics are protected under free speech.

The judge was gonna throw us out on First Amendment

if we didn't have something.

[Post] I talked to co-counsel Ken McKenna.

I said, "Do you think we should have this album analyzed?"

He said, "I already did it."

♪ You could find a way to ease my passion ♪

[McKenna] Our audio expert, Bill Nickloff,

was specifically a subliminal audio expert.

He was able to play what he found

on the particular song Better By You, Better Than Me.

He just played Better By You, Better Than Me.

♪ You can say what I only can see ♪

♪ It's better by you, better than me ♪

[song slows, distorts]

He'd taken the song and broken it into pieces,

and then in some places, he slowed it down

and just really going in second by second.

[slowed, distorted] ♪ It's better by you, better than me ♪

[McKenna] You have to kinda tune in.

You're not supposed to hear it, uh, in the normal consciousness,

that the end of a phrase,

it would be like, "Better by you, better than me,"

right at the end, there would be a, "Do it."

It's a little stretched.

Dooo it.

Doooo it.

And then there's one that's crisp and it says, "Do it."

[♪ tense music playing]

[Post] Ken calls me. He was really excited.

He said, "The 'Stained Class' album is jam-packed with subliminal messages."

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[McKenna] We had a meeting that afternoon with the judge,

and I told him, "We have found subliminal messages on the album.

"This is not protected by the First Amendment.

This is a whole new ballgame."

Putting the words "Do it," what does that mean anyway?

"Do it," w-- what?

We denied, of course, that there were any subliminal messages,

and if there were, they didn't put them there.

[McKenna] The other side never saw it coming.

They didn't like it.

[Peterson] How can a case get this far

based upon facts that-- that didn't exist in the real world?

♪♪

[Post] Judge Whitehead said, "Well, I was ready to dismiss this case,

but now this changes the complexion."

The judge ruled subliminals are not protected

by the First Amendment.

We were going to trial.

[♪ tense music playing]

It's the most bizarre court case to hit the American justice system.

Media just inundated us.

The music is charged with containing hidden messages.

We were introducing the world to subliminals.

I feel sorry for 'em

'cause I listen to it, and I hope it doesn't happen to me.

I got a phone call from Ken McKenna

asking if I would be willing to be a consultant on the case.

That kind of effect,

that something in music that's generally published

that would have the effect of causing somebody to commit suicide,

you know, the burden of proof would--

you-- you'd really have a difficult time showing a direct link of those two things.

[Peterson] The utter preposterousness.

If you could make a case

based upon these kinds of flimsy allegations,

there might be an avalanche.

[Halford] The repercussions through the whole art world,

people that write books, people that make movies,

-you know, it-- it's just-- -This interview, at some point in time,

would have to be vetted and-- and...

-Because somebody would say... -...get scanned to see--

...there could be a subliminal message in this interview that we're doing now.

[interviewer] Is there?

I started seeing this shows,

and there was Rob Halford on there and Glenn.

The last thing we would do is put subliminal messages on

for hype or any other reason.

And I was like, "What? What-- What's going on here?"

But it was on every chat show.

Holy shit, man. Jesus!

And I know for a fact that I didn't do any of that.

I know I didn't. And I've mixed-- I mixed the album.

I sat down with Judas Priest

and they said, "You know, Dennis, if we lose this, it will change history.

The freedom of speech will change."

Can you imagine?

Heavy metal bands being charged all around the country?

"Yeah, let's find this other album, this other rock band, you know,

let's put them on and see if we can hear anything."

"I didn't go to work for five years 'cause it said, 'Don't go to work.'"

You know? I mean, that's how crazy it is.

And yet, I can guarantee there's "thousands" of attorneys who'd go,

"Ooh, wait a minute. I might listen to some stuff."

What about, currently, some young, aggressive lawyer

looked at soft drink companies or food companies

and said, "If you're using subliminals in your advertising

"and people are overeating, and becoming obese, and having diabetes,

is that your fault?"

Or alcohol. Alcoholism.

Are you overdrinking because you're being compelled to by subliminals?

Are you smoking cigarettes

in this modern time, when we know how dangerous they are,

because there are subliminals in the advertising?

[David Van Taylor] There were two lawyers driving this.

Ken McKenna just seemed like a hustler.

He saw there was something here

that could open up a whole area of tort law

that would be lucrative for him and everybody else.

Tim was very Christian, and you just knew that from the get-go.

He also didn't seem to have a lot of experience with this kind of law.

I'm a documentary filmmaker and my very first film was Dream Deceivers

about James Vance versus Judas Priest.

You know, when I wanted to really know what was going on,

I would usually turn to Ken.

But if I wanted some, like, color, I would turn to Tim.

I have no qualms at saying I treated this case like a crusade,

good versus evil.

That's how I saw this case.

Family values, Christian values

versus death, evil, Satan,

you know, things that heavy metal is proud of, uh, promoting.

I just wanted them to stop.

[Van Taylor] The very first day I walked into Tim Post's office

and the first thing he said to me was, "Are you a Satanist?"

And I was like, "No, I'm not a Satanist. I'm just from New York."

I spent time with James' mom, and his dad, and the family

over the course of nine months.

I was just a couple of years older than James.

He really wanted to talk.

He wanted to tell me how much Judas Priest meant to him

and what it meant to him.

One of the things that James would say resonated in the music of Judas Priest was

this idea that, like, we're living in hell on Earth.

There's no question that both James and Ray

had a very tough situation at home.

James' stepdad is a recovering alcoholic, maybe sometimes not so recovering.

He spoke without any hesitation of abusing James.

And I never met Ray's stepdad, but I saw him in court.

And this is one scary son of a bitch.

Ray and James, they saw not just their situation,

but the whole world as a terrible, terrible place.

Judas Priest's music was about making sense of the world,

the existence of evil, the existence of suffering,

and, you know, maybe we're gonna go to a better place afterwards.

James' mom was evangelical,

and the number one person she had to evangelize was her son.

Phyllis would try to drag James to church with her.

She would try to get him to renounce heavy metal.

It made me uneasy. His behavior would change.

And, uh, we would constantly fight.

He said-- Did you understand what he said?

He said, "Looking back now, the music would almost drive you crazy."

Both Phyllis and James were aware of this parallel

between how she needed her religion, depended on her religion,

and how James needed Judas Priest, depended on Judas Priest.

They were both aware of it

and they used it to go at each other.

♪♪

There was always a tussle going on within James

about who he was going to be loyal to:

to Ray, to his mom, or to Judas Priest.

Jay blaming Judas Priest, that wasn't his thoughts.

That weren't-- That was his mom's.

I knew Ray and Jay when I was growing up, 15, 16 years old.

Ray was liked by everybody that knew him.

You were lucky if you were able to, like, hang out with him.

Jay was a little more hotheaded.

Like, if you're walking down the street

and-- and accidentally got shoulder checked by somebody,

he would--

"What are you doing?" You know?

"What-- What are you doing this to me?"

I only knew Ray and Jay as a team.

Those guys were inseparable.

They were just brothers.

We would go steal alcohol from Safeway or something,

go cruising around.

It was great.

There were probably times where somebody had a problem at home

and we'd help each other through it.

To be that family that might be the one that you can't go home to.

When I found out what had happened, it was bad.

It was devastating.

It used to be six of us. Now there's only four of us.

I was there at the gas station, filling my car,

and Jay happened to have been there.

I didn't know who it was.

But I saw his eyes.

It was like, "Holy shit, it's you."

And I was still mad.

"What the fuck did you do that for? Why?"

I know I never called him again.

You know?

I should've.

♪♪

[MacDonald] Everyone knew who he was,

but they didn't really wanna talk to him.

They didn't really wanna look at him.

With that lawsuit, I think that people were pissed off, you know,

that, "This is-- This is absolute bullshit!"

That all weighed heavy on him.

If the music caused them to kill themselves, why didn't we?

It's, like, not the music that's gonna kill you,

it's yourself.

We would wanna be able to sing like Rob Halford and--

"Waah!" You know, and, "Oh, man, I wish I had his voice."

Or, "Oh, my God, I wish I could play guitar like that."

Not, "We gotta kill ourselves because of the-- the-- the band."

I mean, that is-- that's ridiculous.

It's like a mockery. It made a mockery of their lives.

I don't know why he would blame Judas Priest.

I mean, maybe if he thought in his mind these were his heroes

and he thought that they were suggesting,

uh, this was the way out,

and that instead, it resulted in these horrible tragedies and stuff,

that he would feel betrayed by them

and-- and have a motive for, you know, vilifying them.

I mean, certainly, the other boy expressed that,

you know, he had fucked up his life

and I think-- I think James felt the same way that--

but in a different sense, you know?

Kind of after the fact that he had really screwed up his life.

He'd call me,

and he'd say, "Tim, I'm-- I'm really depressed."

I'd say, "Why?" I knew.

And he said, "This trial, this is killing me."

[MacDonald] I'd heard that he had institutionalized himself

and that he was not doing good.

It was the anniversary of when him and Ray tried to take their lives.

♪♪

I got a call at 3:00 in the morning, "Tim, you gotta get down to the hospital."

I got a call

telling me that James

had died.

He died of a drug overdose.

In the psych ward.

Uh, and that's all I'm gonna say about that.

We really lost the key witness

but I had my sword out for Ray, for James, and for everybody.

[Peterson] What was on trial here was heavy metal.

We walked the block to get to the courthouse from the office,

and every day, it would be lined with kids cheering us on.

They thought it was an attack on their culture.

My legal secretary, who was a high school kid at the time,

was one of them.

Everybody wanted to see Judas Priest.

[Scott Schlingheyde] All the metalheads, all of--

I mean, they had a lot of support from that community,

I guess, you could say.

People hanging out all up and down the-- the-- the street,

sitting on the-- the-- the steps of the courthouse.

[crowd cheering]

[Halford] The reason that we are here doesn't exist.

There are absolutely no subliminal messages

on this particular song or record

or any of Judas Priest's records that we've made today.

All rise. The Second District Court of the State of Nevada is now in session.

The Honorable Jerry Carr Whitehead, District Judge, presiding.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Please be seated.

[McKenna] The opening statement was on me.

There's a lot of stuff in the law, uh, that isn't about the law.

And it's not about the facts.

It's about the presentation.

The evidence in this case will show that on December 23, 1985,

Raymond Belknap took this shotgun,

placed it under his chin

and pulled the trigger

ending his young life of 18 years.

You wanna capture that momentum right off the top.

How do you prove

that hearing the subliminal caused somebody to commit suicide?

Let's ask the one person who is most qualified to tell us,

James Vance.

James didn't live to come to trial,

but we did have evidence from James.

James sent a letter to Anita Roberson, the mother of Raymond.

[McKenna] Is that the letter,

uh, and photograph you received from James Vance?

[Anita Roberson] Yes.

"Since I believe that alcohol

"and heavy metal music, such as 'Judas Priest,' led us

or even 'Mesmerized' us into believing the answer to 'life was death'."

[McKenna] Why do you think

Raymond committed suicide that day?

I think he was affected by the music he was listening to.

[McKenna] James was adamant that the music mesmerized them

to want to commit suicide.

And who's a better witness than the guy who did it?

[Van Taylor] The members of Judas Priest were there

because they wanted to defend themselves.

But I could see the band stop and think

like, "Have we created something problematic here?

"Have we created something that is hurting people who,

you know, believe in us?"

[McKenna] Our audio expert, Bill Nickloff,

brought in his audio system speakers.

It's all set up on a table in front of the judge.

He's gonna demonstrate the "do its."

This is a big moment.

The judge has to hear 'em.

He'd isolate a phrase of the song and he'd slow it down.

[♪ distorted music playing]

The "do its" were clear.

They're so clear when you isolate 'em.

♪ Better by you, better than me ♪

[slowed distorted music repeats]

And I'm looking at the judge. Nothin'. Poker face.

He's not giving away anything.

Everybody was watching him to see how he was reacting.

And he looked kinda perplexed.

♪♪

If that's their idea of a subliminal message,

well, God help us all.

I heard absolutely nothing.

I heard nothing but background lyrics being intensified.

[McKenna] I was a little shook.

I look over at the judge's secretary, and she goes...

She heard the "do its."

And I thought, "I'm home free."

She's gonna tell him.

♪♪

[Dennis MacKay] I actually listened to the album to double-check.

♪ Better by you, better than me ♪

♪ You can tell what I want it to be ♪

I couldn't hear anything.

I-- Even now, I can't hear it.

I don't-- I-- You know, I've tried to.

What does that tell you, you know?

[Peterson] I was not particularly happy about saying, "You can't hear it"

because you can.

If you suggest to somebody, "Listen to this word,"

and then you listen hard for the word, you can actually hear it.

I could hear it.

[Peterson] What we ascertained was,

it was like an exhalation combined with a guitar stroke

that made it sound like the words "do it."

And so we have the mixer explain to the court

how you mix the guitar and the drum or whatever

to make the actual performance.

All of a sudden, boof, light goes on. Boof.

They're all focused on me now.

"You're the producer. You did this."

I was like deer in headlights.

Like, "Oh, shit.

This could change, you know, freedom of speech, man."

I'm looking at the band, and they're all like...

wondering what I'm gonna say next.

Because, "Dennis, we could get prison time.

"You know, we could get--

Things can change here depending on what you say."

The attorney says, "What is subliminal messages?

What is backwards reverb?"

You could imagine trying to explain analog 24-track or 16-track.

Even for engineers, to comprehend, it's like...

I'm not bluffing it. I can't explain it.

Forty minutes, sitting there,

getting cross-examined by all these other attorneys.

In the end, I just went, "Wow, Dennis, you're going to prison."

Then Rob took the stand, which was totally-- Didn't help.

Of course, they planned it. Of course, he was prepared.

Of course, it wasn't a surprise when his attorney said,

"Would you sing us a bar?"

"Oh, you want me to sing?"

♪ Better by you, better than me ♪

♪ You can say what I only can see ♪

[lawyer] Thank you.

The "yeh" is the exhalation of breath?

Yes.

[lawyer] Is that a normal part of your singing?

[Van Taylor] They were saying that it's that exhalation

that made sounds that could be interpreted as subliminal messages.

And that's what they wanted to get out.

[lawyer] Are there subliminal "do its"

on the Better By You, Better Than Me song?

Absolutely not.

♪♪

[Peterson] You can't prove the source of that phrase "do it"

without the original soundtrack, the 24-track tape.

If there was a voiced "do it" on there, they'd be in one of those tapes.

♪♪

We rented the studio-- Very expensive.

It was just the judge, the lawyers, and the studio people that were there.

We spent an entire afternoon listening to each of the tapes.

[♪ heavy metal guitar music playing]

It would just be like the guitar playing.

[♪ bass guitar playing]

Or the bass playing.

Or the drum playing.

[♪ drum playing]

There is no message in there, "do it."

We were extremely pleased with the demonstration

'cause we thought it absolutely proved it.

Uh, and it did. It scientifically proves it.

There's no subliminal message.

At the end of the demonstration, I asked the judge,

"Would you like me to do anything else?"

And he said, "Yeah, I want you to play it backwards."

And I thought, "Wow. Uh, that's disappointing."

♪♪

[McKenna] Backwards masking came up in this case,

and, honestly, I was never a fan, uh, of it as part of our legal case.

Backward masking is when you put a word in or a sentence in,

and when you play the music backwards, it actually says something.

The second line, again, sung forward is...

and a phrase that's unintelligible.

Played backwards, you get...

[♪ distorted music playing]

"[Bleep] the Lord. [Bleep] all of you."

[Peterson] Wilson Bryan Key, he was a star witness for the plaintiffs.

He promulgated all kinds of crazy theories about subliminal messages.

One of which is that Nabisco would deliberately put

the word "sex" all throughout the cover of the Ritz crackers.

This is a guy that sees the word "sex" in Abraham Lincoln's beard.

He sees sex in Ritz cracker boxes.

He sees, uh, the Pope

and, uh, and, uh, the-- the Virgin Mary performing an act on ice cubes.

[McKenna] The backwards messages that we found on the album

all related to Satanism,

anti-Christian, uh, beliefs.

From my point of view, trying the case,

I thought the, uh, Satanic and the backwards stuff was a distraction.

Backwards, that say Satan is good and Christ is bad,

how does that relate to committing suicide?

But people were up in arms about the Satanic element.

I knew the trial judge would be interested

in secret subliminal messages, or backmasking.

Jerry Whitehead was a very devout Mormon.

He had a tendency of the magical, of the supernatural.

He believed that there were subliminal messages.

I know he did.

And I think he believed that all of that was deliberate

because it was part of this culture that he didn't like.

He was offended by what was represented by the band.

He was probably the worst trial judge we could have had for this kind of case.

[♪ tense music playing]

[Van Taylor] The band got this idea.

They had taken the album, played backwards

so they could find other backward masked messages in the songs.

Because their contention was,

"If you take anything and you play it backwards

and you're listening for it, you're gonna hear something."

The case was almost over

and then, "Oh, wait a minute. They're calling him back to the stand."

[Halford] Playing forward, "Stand by for exciter.

Salvation is his task."

The backward interpretation,

which is, "I asked for a peppermint.

I asked for her to get one."

[♪ heavy metal music playing]

[Van Taylor] It was really a brilliant piece of theatrics by the band.

You could see the judge realizing like, "Oh.

"Yeah, that's right, if you play something backwards and you listen,

you can find whatever the hell you want."

I think that really was where-- where the whole thing was over.

♪ I asked for a peppermint ♪

Sorry. [laughs]

[♪ gentle music playing]

I've made films where I had to act like an investigative reporter,

but I did not take that on here.

From the very beginning,

I felt like this isn't plausibly about these kids being mesmerized

by the subliminal messages

or, in any other way, induced in a blame-worthy way to commit suicide

by Judas Priest music.

[Peterson] What happened here was two troubled, vulnerable boys,

uh, committed suicide.

Unfortunately, it happens all the time to young men like this.

Especially if they're vulnerable

in the sense that they did exhibit some violent behaviors in the past.

My partner, Suellen Fulstone, cross-examined Phyllis Vance,

who established that she was fully aware of the problems that her son had.

Your son was expelled from Reed for fighting, wasn't he, Mrs. Vance?

[Phyllis Vance] Yes, he was.

They talked about taking, uh, automatic weapons, yes.

[Suellen Fulstone] And killing numbers of people.

Yes.

You knew it was abnormal behavior, didn't you?

It was always after they had been listening to,

uh, Judas Priest albums in the bedroom.

[people chuckling]

People who are suffering look for a solution

and they're not necessarily the best judges of what that solution is.

Phyllis wanted to make sure that the band was held accountable

because her son tried to kill himself,

and she didn't wanna blame her son

and she didn't wanna blame herself.

Over the course of nine months with James,

he didn't particularly want to keep driving home the message

that it was the music that made them kill themselves.

[♪ gentle music playing]

James told me that even though they had discussed the possibility

of a suicide pact at some point,

James was shocked that Ray had actually done this.

James was really in a bad spot,

alone without his person.

But also, if he didn't pick up the gun and shoot himself,

he was going to feel incredibly guilty

that he hadn't fulfilled this promise that they had made with each other.

[♪ gentle, somber music playing]

The germ of this case is

James having to explain to himself, and to everybody else,

like, "What the hell happened here?"

I think when James wrote the letter to Ray's mom,

he never imagined in a million years

that the end point of that was him going into court

to accuse Judas Priest, whom he idolized,

of causing Ray's suicide.

We've lost two good fans,

and if-- if they're fans, that means something to us, too, you know?

It appeared that their only pleasure was listening to Judas Priest

-and heavy metal music. -[Glenn Tipton] Absolutely.

If there was something on the album,

we'd-- we'd-- we'd be-- we'd be devastated, you know?

I mean, like you say, we're human beings, the same as everyone else.

We'd be ashamed. And we are here to face the world.

We have nothing to be ashamed about.

A judge in Reno, today, ruled

the heavy metal rock group Judas Priest is not responsible

for the suicide of two teenaged fans.

[journalist] No subliminal messages at all?

-None at all. -None at all.

The judge went kind of sideways on us.

And I think he knew better than the order that he gave.

I was just-- We were scratching our heads.

This certainly isn't gonna be the last case like this.

And, uh, I would certainly file another one tomorrow morning.

Sooner or later, a case like this will win.

It's just a matter of time.

Civil rights didn't happen on the first try,

so, yeah.

Yeah, it was-- And I was-- I thought it was important to be part of it.

You don't always have to win to win.

That's another thing I've learned in the law.

[MacKay] Thank goodness they won.

It's a terrible thing that might've happened.

I mean, freedom of speech.

Imagine rethinking your music.

That alone is monumental.

I guess, inevitably, the little guys get swept under the rug

in these kind of cases, you know?

Well, I think we should pay attention to the fact

that there are two young men that lost their lives here.

And, um, I'm not sure that their choice in music

necessarily would've changed the outcome of this.

[Peterson] What was on trial, for a lot of people,

was not the subliminals.

It-- It-- That didn't matter.

It's the heavy metal.

[group] Judas Priest!

♪♪

[Peterson] They thought it was a Satanic culture

being fostered in our youth by these bad people.

They need to be punished for that.

And that's why I think it was a landmark case,

because it vindicated the lifestyle,

that it's just entertainment.

♪♪