Leaders and stalwarts of the American heavy metal scene since the early 80s, Armored Saint’s Punching The Sky sees them returning hard. A diverse, attitude-drenched collection, it’s everything the band’s faithful have come to expect from them while pushing their signature sound forward. We talk to vocalist John Bush about the new record and the need to try new and different things with each record.
Andrew: So how has things been on your end with the pandemic and all that stuff?
John: Well we are trying to live just like everyone else in the whole wide world. I guess since it’s a pandemic obviously we can only lead to one another no matter where you are at, what country you live and where you’re from right? So life, we’ve kinda been breaking out a little bit out here, I mean we’re still trying to be as respectful and as safe as we possibly can. My wife has a business, we’ve been working. We’ve also done a little travelling, I’ve been on an airplane, I went to Denver for my sons hockey tournament. We’ve had some rehearsals because we’re doing this live stream with Armored Saint so we’re trying to do things but like I said we’re just trying to also be respectful and safe at the same time. And then during the covid period we were spending a lot of time as a family and also eating some home cooked meals and watching a lot of movies, just a lot of things that people are probably doing. How are you doing?
Andrew: We’re doing fine on our end. I’m on the west coast of Australia so we got our numbers right down to zero practically so we’ve opened up pretty well.
John: Oh that’s great because I heard Melbourne has some problems right?
Andrew: Yeah that’s right, in Melbourne they were back to a near zero count at one stage and then a spike with the second wave hit and all that kind of stuff as it’s been happening in parts of the world with these second waves.
John: Right I know England had a really bad surge just yesterday, like one of the worst of their whole period. So I don’t know, I mean I keep hoping a vaccine is going to come and we can move on from this thing that’s for sure.
Andrew: Yeah that’s it and you must also be pretty busy as far as getting the new album ready and promoting and stuff. Did you get any delay on the album release at all because of covid or did you have this release date intended from the start?
John: No we were lucky in that way, we actually didn’t have any issues with that. It’s scheduled to come out on the 23rd (October) and we were luck enough to have finished all the recording for it before the actual quarantine happened so at that point we were ready to just mix the record and we gave the recordings to Jay Ruston and he mixed it and made it sound amazing. So we had some good luck when it came to that because sometimes Armored Saint can have some bad luck! But we had some good luck this time.
Andrew: That’s good to hear! I had a chance to listen to the album that your publicist sent me and it’s fantastic. It’s hard to believe you guys have been around since the early 80’s and still putting out real quality songs like this, what’s the secret to your success and the ability to come up with fresh and new ideas?
John: Well thank you for one, and number two is I think our goal is to just try to be as inventive as possible and make sure that we can try anything and be open minded to try anything and push the boundaries and not to be limited to just being “a metal band” so that we can do anything. I think if we have that state of mind, maybe not everything is going to work but at least we’re going to be willing to try it and I think that’s what kind of keeps us sounding fresh. I mean it’s really a record that sounds like it was recorded by a bunch of guys in their 30’s, honestly that’s what my opinion is! So I’m proud of that and like I said I think we’ve pushed ourselves and taking chances, that’s the kind of stuff that I think will make you sound like you’re progressing and that’s what we do.
Andrew: Yeah and obviously you do take a lot of chances and you do a lot of different things on here, for example on the song “Never You Fret” you add an Indian flute on there in the intro which is an interesting idea. How did that one come about?
John: Yeah and even Gonzo (Sandoval, drums) played on it and he was very stoked to do it and he really wanted everyone to know. Those are the kind of things, willing to try different song arrangements, willing to try and bring different instruments into the fold, not being afraid to write about anything lyrically. Those are the kind of things that I think all can make a record sound like they had more depth and I think that’s the goal, is to bring in some keyboards. We weren’t really thinking about doing that in the 80’s but now we just maybe it can broaden the sound of the band, I think it’s something that we’re always open minded towards. So I think it added to the song’s depth like I said and it also makes it feel like a little bit timeless at the same time so I know we’re a metal band like I said but I don’t think that we want to be limited to just being that, we want to be able to do so much more and we’re willing to take those chances like I said before and willing to push ourselves and I think the quality is in the music.
Andrew: Yeah and it’s interesting that you consider, and I guess a lot of people would consider you guys as a metal band but I’ve always felt that you guys bridged the gap between hard rock and heavy metal because you guys have bridged those gaps between the heavier side and the more melodic side and you have a lot of that different diversity on this album as well which I guess you guys have always strived to have on each record.
John: Yeah I mean I agree with you completely, I think we’re a hard rock / metal band. I just say metal because it falls under the metal genre [which] is probably broader at this point than like hard rock is. But yeah I agree completely and really if you look back at our older records, we always kind did things like that too. We would have songs like “Over The Edge” that’s on “Delirious Nomad” that was this bluesy kind of thing, we always wrote these kind of ambient type ballad songs like “Isolation” and “Tainted Past” which are an older song and we could show a kind of long, epic song like “Muscle Memory” on the last record.
So we’ve always had it in us to do it, whether it was kind of a more of an epic song like “Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants” is or a bluesy groove like “The Truth Always Hurts” or like a song like “Fly In The Ointment” on the new record. So like I said we want to try and bring out those things, I think the key to Armored Saint’s sound is the groove. The rhythm grooves are very important and I also think my soulful and bluesy approach to singing and coupled that with, we can always write the slammers as well. Songs like “Missile To Gun” and “End Of The Attention Span”, I think those are new songs that sound like they could be old school but are very aggressive and powerful.
Andrew: I did want to ask you about that particular song as well because obviously it’s quite relevant to the times that we live in. What are your thoughts on how technology plays a part in society and do you think it’s been a negative or positive thing?
John: Well I think there’s definitely pros and cons. I’m not like Ted Kaczynski over here, the unabomber that’s just completely anti-technology! I don’t feel that way but I do feel like I get a little worried about the future of, say my kids because I know the impact of technology, it kind of consumes people including the younger ones, but not only younger ones, older ones too. So I think it’s somethng that is an important tool and it’s certainly helpful, I mean technology is doing so many great things for society but it’s about balance and I think that’s the key. We all struggle with it, even adults do. I do, certainly myself so like I said there’s pros and cons, it’s just a matter of whether or not we can find a balance, that’s the key.
Andrew: It is amazing though when you look back to the beginning of Armored Saint and how we’ve come to where we are now as far as technology, I mean it’s just a completely different world isn’t it?
John: A shiny new and crazy world! I mean we started in the 80’s, it was all about analog tapes. I mean I still love the way analog tapes sound, I really do because they’re so warm. LP’s, even cassettes, the cassettes I could do without them because the tape would get messed up and they would break in the car and you would have to pull it out and try and roll it back up and it was never effective. But to this day I still love vinyl and I actually think CD’s have got a bad rap because I like CD’s as well but however you do listen to music, I think the key is to just listen to it and the important thing is to try to listen to the record as a whole as well. They are made to listen that way from front to back so I think that’s how we want people to listen to our music for sure.
Andrew: Yeah definitely. Well look I’ll let you go but congratulations on the new album, as I said before it’s killer stuff and look forward to seeing what everyone else thinks when it gets released. I hope you enjoy yourselves at this live stream show because it’s happening this Saturday right?
John: It is this Saturday yes so please check it out, it’s going to be real fun. It will be weird but it will be fun and we’re looking forward to it. And we gotta get back to Australia, we’ve only been once and it’s been years and we really need to get back. I remember having amazing shows when I played there with Anthrax and always love coming down there, it’s a great country and we’re eager to come back and make up for some lost time.
