23-12-2009Snail trail - Armored Saint
Our resident metalosaurus Scott G takes a walk down memory lane
Armored Saint " Saints Will Conquer ... Live (Metal Blade 1988)
Back in the day I'd seen many magazine articles about Armored Saint, especially around the release of their 1987 album 'Raising Fear' and they had always been a band that I'd been interested in but never actually heard. All the reviews tended to say the same thing; quality, no nonsense, straight forward heavy metal from the heart. Well, that was me sold.
My introduction to the band's material came one Friday night whilst I was religiously listening to Tommy Vance's godly Friday Rock Show (RIP Tommy, you were a legend), when he dedicated a track from Saints Will Conquer - 'Can U Deliver' to all the pizza gaffs in his listener's respective areas. I fell in love with the song, set about learning Gonzo's drum solo in the middle of it plagiarising parts of it into my own playing and then began the hunt for their 3 previous albums starting in Liverpool's Penny Lane Records.
First purchase, the live 'Saints Will Conquer' ...
"Hello Cleveland,. Are you ready?"
"Will you please welcome, from Los Angeles California, ARMORED SAINT!!!"
Kicking straight off with the then current album title track 'Raising Fear', the first thing that struck me was the immediate sense of live energy which, for an impressionable teenager with the music tastes that I had, was like presenting meat to a hungry lion. The pacey track whizzes by, showcasing the tightness and musical proficiency of the band after the recent five to four piece streamlining as guitarist Phil Sandoval had left before the recording of their Raising Fear opus, leaving vocalist John Bush (yes, he of latter day Anthrax fame), guitarist David Pritchard, bass player Joey Vera and Sandoval's drumming brother Gonzo to crack on with their metal quest. The live sound is great, giving a good balance of instruments mixed with relevant crowd reaction which realistically puts the show in your room with you - especially when played at the appropriate volume...
No time for breath catching, the end of opener Raising Fear sends the band immediately crashing headlong into 'Nervous Man', taken from their second album Delirious Nomad. Due to the lack of a second guitarist, the fluent lead playing from David Pritchard really stands out, taking the song to the next level, rather than accentuating the lack of depth often found on live recordings from single axe fronted bands (It was with great sadness that the metal world heard about his passing through leukaemia in 1990).The rhythm section of Vera and Gonzo holds everything down solidly, giving Pritchard space to work his six string magic, highlighting how good a guitarist he was.
In later years, I bought the cd release of the live album on which, after Nervous Man then brings one of the two cd extra tracks 'Chemical Euphoria' from Raising Fear - another pacey, fist banging stormer which guarantees to get you moving, or at the time, shaking your mane and air guitaring like a demented asylum escapee.
The pace then slows down slightly with Book of Blood, again taken from Raising Fear, bringing with it a slightly more melodic feel but with no loss of passion or energy in the delivery. Another fine solo spot from Pritchard leads into a quieter passage of the song with Bush crooning "Everybody is a book of blood" before cranking up the energy for the final sprint to the finish.
"So I tell ya, we got the energy, we're stoked man, we got the energy, we just wanna know if Cleveland's got the energy, so all I got is one question for everybody out there, just one question: I wanna know - CAN U DELIVER?" screams Bush as the band launch into their classic debut album March of the Saint tune that had got me started with the band in the first place. Some have said the live presentation of the track loses momentum as half way through it, the rest of the guys give centre stage to 'The One and Only Gonzo' for his brief but pretty efficient drum solo. Coming from someone who lived and breathed drums for so long, at under 2 minutes long I however always thought it was a great addition and didn't outstay its welcome, bringing boredom as some live album drum solos had done in the past.
Picking up the energy levels once again, the other cd only track, Delirious Nomad's 'Long before I Die' goes directly for the jugular. In keeping with the drum solo, being fairly short at less than 3 minutes it's straight to the point and leads nicely into the faster, thrashier crowd favourite 'Madhouse'. There is more guitar shredding, more crowd interaction as they scream out Madhouse along with Bush and more high energy head banging heavy metal as it brings the live material to a close.
Tagged on the end of the album is a studio version of the early demo track "No Reason to Live" which alternates nicely from gentle melodic verses to more powerful bridges and choruses. Showcasing some Maidenesque qualities, it gives good insight into the potential that Armored Saint possessed which, back in the day, promised so much.
It's a shame they never reached the heights that others achieved after them. At the height of their popularity, they offered a break from the trend of hair/glam metal that was sweeping the world by sticking to their guns and delivering their goods in the vein of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal that had previously enjoyed great success. After all, Metallica approached John Bush to be their full time vocalist when James Hetfield was having doubts about his own vocal capabilities (John opted to stay loyal to AS but later answered the call to Anthrax). Metallica then also showed great interest in Joey Vera for bass duties after the untimely death of the legendary Cliff Burton, however it was actually Anthrax again who benefitted from Vera's playing when he filled Frank Bello's vacancy when he temporarily left in 2004 as well as being a member of prog metal band Fates Warning. So it goes to show how high level Armored Saint was at one point.
I believe, plans are abound for a newly regrouped Armored Saint to deliver fresh material sometime in 2009 with a tour currently being put together. As the advert on their new look site says "The Saint is Back ��" stay tuned for more to come"
09-03-2010Interview - Armored Saint
ARMORED SAINT talks to Rocksnail
It gave me great pleasure in having the opportunity to put some questions to Armored Saint, as in my mind, they have been criminally under changed in the wonderful music world we live in. It’s a cut throat, shark infested environment at times so when a genuine band don’t get the break they've worked so hard for over a number of years, I really feel for them and I've always felt that Armored Saint were one of the good guys.
When the Rocksnail Editor gave me the chance to get some questions over to 'The Saint' (which ended up being handled by the pivotal mainstay and highly respected 4 stringer, Joey Vera) I jumped at the chance. Bloody right I did!! Their new opus, intriguingly entitled 'La Raza' is due in the immediate future and if it's anywhere near as good as their last studio outing 10 years ago, the critically acclaimed 'Revelation', I believe we're on for a killer album of genuine no frills, blue collar hard rock/heavy metal from the heart. For those readers amongst you who have been with Rocksnail for some time, you'll remember my Blast from the Past piece on the 1988 'Saints Will Conquer' mini live album from their Raising Fear tour so you'll already know how much I respect the guys; for those of you that haven’t, lets just say I believe in the ideal world Armored Saint should be as big as the likes of the touring machine that is Machine Head or the singer pilfering NY hoods Anthrax. Unfortunately, life isn’t fair; the world has to deal with poverty, fatal diseases, child abuse, warfare caused by retarded religious imbeciles and The Saint are still criminally under rated.
As soon as I get my poor battered ears around the new album, I'll be getting my review together for the wonderful Rocksnail masses – until then, I hope my ten questions wets your collective whistles.
Why the big conscious effort to go back in time and record in analogue rather than keeping with the times and scream in digital as Queensryche once said in the mid ‘80’s - what benefits did you gain compared to 100% digital?- The opportunity came to us when our friend and engineer Bryan Carlstrom offered the use of his studio which is mostly an analog studio. Had he not come to us, maybe we would have done it all “in the box”. But since the offer was there, we felt like the analog domain would only support the songs. The music on this record reflects much of our early influences from the 70’s, so to have the recording process be very similar to most of our favorite records, well it just made sense. The benefits of working in analog is really the sound. There’s inherent qualities to the sound of analog that are just not there in the digital world.
Nearly 10 years to the day from the release of last album ‘Revelation’, how have you managed to keep the same cohesion between band members who will have naturally moved on in their lives to write and record the same 5 man vision for the new Saint album?- This time the music was written by myself and John Bush. Between the two of us, we made an effort to keep it cohesive. The other guys are big enough to allow the process take shape and not hold it as a personal threat.
New album ‘La Raza’ means ‘The Race’ or more commonly ‘The People’. What influenced you to use such a striking yet ambiguous title ?- The term is something we grew up hearing in the area of Los Angeles that we grew up in. The term is “viva la raza”, “long live the race”. A term of pride for the heritage in the Hispanic community. John wrote the lyrics form a universal standpoint though, so it’s more about the human race. It seemed to offer a cool overall title for the record so we used it.
With John Bush in Anthrax, then being ‘surplus to requirements’ (dumped out of) to Anthrax in favour of them jumping on the retro bandwagon, then being asked back to rejoin the New Yorkers when their plans didn’t work out, how do you keep morale high as a band when you know your Pandora’s Box is being plundered from interlopers which could force the band into another hiatus due to losing your singer?- We honestly had no intentions of trying to revive our career with this record. We just don’t have it in us anymore, to tour and make efforts to sell records and all that. Our goal was to make a good record and maybe play a few select shows. So, it’s not like Anthrax is taking anything from us. I’ll agree that the timing is pretty bad but only for the distraction and confusion it’s created.
In 1984 you asked ‘Can U Deliver ?’ – Who is delivering it for you in 2010 ?- My familia.
Have you any plans of playing our tiny country anytime on the back of La Raza once you’ve got California and Australia out of the way?- We would love to. We had a great time during our last tour there. Who knows when, but we’ll come back.
Given complete freedom of the music world, who would Armored Saint put on the bill of your own full weekend festival and why?- I can’t answer that for the band. For me I would have Faith No More, King’s X, Opeth, Devin Townsend Project, Danko Jones. Just because it would be a jolly good time.
How have you gone about putting your current setlist together ? What can audiences expect from the Saint in the live setting after all this time?- That’s a good question. I don’t know. We have the obligation to play a few of the popular ones of course but maybe we’d try and throw in some weird ones for us. People never want to hear the new songs but we would throw a bunch of those in too, for us.
I read somewhere that John wasnt sure whether he wanted to get back into the ways of Armored Saint post Anthrax but he did want to continue to write stuff with Joey which then naturally evolved into more Saint material. If you all pursued solo material a la Kiss in the 70's, what would the five solo albums sound like?- Like 5 chickens without heads running around a farm yard.
If David was able to communicate with you from his amp stack cloud high above, after watching you piece the new album together, what would he be saying to you right now? - Pour me a Bacardi and Coke.
