John Bush on 80s Heavy Metal Podcast: Armored Saint, Anthrax Talk

Hey everyone, this is John Keyville from Warbringer, you're watching CNSTV. How frustrating is it for you that you put together literally a supergroup and it just hasn't hit the way I'm sure you guys thought it was going to? Well, I've always had low expectations at which I do about everything because that's just the way I approach stuff, but you know, the record itself kind of happened really naturally and just out of like, hey, let's write some tunes and then we wrote a couple more and the next thing, you know, we had enough for records, so let's just make a record. So it's kind of, to me, it was real honest from that perspective that we wrote some killer tunes and it just made sense to record and put them out just because you're a bunch of known guys doesn't mean you have an obvious success level that's going to happen. You know, there's still whole marketing and trying to convince people, is this a real band or what is this? Is this a project? That was a big issue for people, including people internally. And it was like, look, why are we worried about this? Like, let's just put a record out. I mean, I know there's the marketing aspect from the label and the management, but my musician and man, my goal is to just write songs and if they're great, we should record them and as simple as that. So that was my approach the whole time. The record got a great critical claim. I mean, James Hethel, so it was one of his favorite records and get better than that. So the reality is, is that it just doesn't mean you have a sure shot. You know, everybody is busy in this band. We had a lot of conflict scheduling-wise because everyone's doing other things because everyone's out of the bands. You know. It is Chris Aiken Presents. I, of course, am Chris Aiken and today on the show. One of my favorite guys in all of Heavy Metal, as well as one of the best vocalists ever to do it. He of course is John Bush. He right now has two different projects that he's going to tell us about. He of course has the upcoming tour with Armored St which starts in about a month I believe or a few weeks, as well as a few shows that we have been talking about for at least a decade. That's celebrating the songs of Anthrax, his songs from Anthrax, that is. And it's going to be a fantastic time for those lucky enough to catch that as well. But let's talk all about it with the man himself, the mighty John Bush. John, how are you, man? What's happening, Chris? How are you doing, buddy? Good, man. It's great to talk to you. And I'm just going to say it, I like seeing that you're busy, man. It's been such a whirlwind with you and Armored saying, I mean, I know you guys stay busy, but when you're busy, you're busy, but then you guys always go away for a while. And then you come back and it seems like you're busier now than you've been in a long time, no? Well, yeah, we've really haven't gone away too much now since kind of like when hands down came out and we've been pretty much trying to stay in the public eye as much as we can. I mean, sometimes you go away a little bit because you know, it makes people yearn to see you again. And we've been recording a record. So that's what we've been doing lately and we're in the mixed phase of it and it's sounding awesome. We're real excited. We're going to come out next year, sometime around March, April, spring time. So we'll probably be busy again in 26. Sure. You know, you want to, you want to make people really look forward to seeing you again. So, but at the same time, we still try to stay somewhat in the public eyes, just to let people know what we're doing and keep people, keep people abreast about our lives. And I recently joined social media, which I was for a long time avoiding and trying my hardest to not do it, but I finally decided to cave and join. So I have an Instagram page now and that's keeping people informed about what are we doing and what I'm doing and sometimes just daily things that I do, like go to a concert or show some clip from a few months ago or whatever it is. It's just something that kind of says, hey, John Bush, this is what I'm doing. Sure. Do you like being on social media or does it drive you crazy? Not necessarily. No, I don't actually, I refrain for a long time, but eventually when I decided to do these shows, celebrating these tunes of anthrax, my agent, he was like, dude, you gotta have your own page. Right. And I was like, all right, reluctantly, so I keep it just music related and I don't really need to get too much into my personal life. Sure. I don't really, I kind of like to keep that separate. That to me is important. Although I did put a clip on my son playing hockey and getting a rad goal, but we put the hammer from Motorhead and the background so it feels so cool. Nice. Perfect, man. Well, John, let's talk about the anthrax shows before we swing back to armored saint. Probably the fans have been wanting this for a very long time and I'm sure you've heard that for the last 10 plus years, you've heard, you know, I know me, I've interviewed you three times, sent you left anthrax and all three times I've asked you the question and I'm sure that's every journalist that you speak to because of the love of that music. So I guess let's start there. What was it that made now kind of the right time for you to do it? You know, honestly, I don't know, Chris, if there's really a righty time, there was a little bit of free time and that was something that my agent and I had discussed. We actually had some shows planned for this summer in Europe. We had a bunch of festivals and we had a couple of headline shows and it, for one reason or another, doesn't really matter. We had to pull out of it, which is a bummer because it was like Valkyenne and Alcatraz and some pretty big shows. Maybe that's a good thing because I was still trying to finish the same record and it might have been conflicting and truth doesn't matter, it's probably always a little something conflicting. I don't think December is quite frankly, which is a good time to choose to do these now. But you know, that may be never a perfect time where there's nothing going on and maybe that's good because that means nothing is going on. So not nothing is going on if that makes sense. Sorry, that's early years, still I just woke up about a half an hour ago and then you're making the adjustment. Sure. But yeah, you know, I wanted to do it for a long time, it's really just coming down to making it happen and finally taking the cheese and doing it. So we're doing three shows, it's kind of like the beginning, that's the first step. And I try to be strategic about where we're playing, so it's LA, Midwest, East Coast, New York and St. Charles, so you know, I think there's more to do, but it's also going to have to work in conjunction with me doing saint stuff and touring with that record that's coming out next year. And you know, I don't want to bite off more than I can chew because I want every show to be great and I want to make it really feel celebratory because that's the whole concept of it and the name of it to really just kind of honor those tunes from that, from that era. Does the success of the three shows kind of dictate if there will be more or if there will be like a US tour or a half tour or a regional tour event, you'll further down the road. Sure. I mean, success determines everything really. You know, if you do well, you'd probably want to do more and like I said, I was supposed to do some dates in Europe first and that was something I wanted to do, some festivals and stuff. So, you know, it's really just kind of making it, you know, obviously the better it does, the more exciting it will be and the more promoters will be interested and, you know, when I was in Anthrox, we did a lot of touring and played everywhere. Europe, South America, Japan, many times. So I mean, these are places I would want to play, but it also coincide with, you know, this armored saint record coming out and not getting in the way of that. So it's, we'll try to figure it out. It'll be fine. I think we'll find our way and it'll hopefully make everyone happy. I mean, to me, it took me all these years to do it. I'm playing records that are 20 to 30 years old. So it's going to, it's an nostalgic. That's what it is. It's the truth. But I don't think like, if I don't do something right away after the first three shows, it's going to go away because like I said, it's a 20 to 30 in the first place. So. Right on. 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It seemed like you might have been somewhat frustrated that those guys when Joey came back did not do much with with your ear of it. I mean, every once in a while, they covered only, but that's kind of it. In hindsight, when you look at it now, did they kind of do you a favor because they let that music kind of, they let the fans grow to want it more by not playing it? I mean, that's the one way of looking at it, I guess. I always wanted them to play the songs, of course, because, you know, I don't want them to go into obscurity to kind of have done a little bit. So I understand and I get why they don't want to or particularly maybe Joey, he's reluctant to do it because he has his own material, of course, the old school and stuff, including the new records they're making, they're making their new records coming out next year. So they'll have three records since he's returned. So I understand, you know, they have plenty of material from that, from that time, new time and also from obviously the 80s stuff. So I get it, but you know, I just don't want it to, like I said, fade away into into nothing else, because then it's like that part of my life is erased almost. Right. It doesn't feel good. So, you know, in the end, I guess, if they're not going to do it, then I mean, I might also do it. It's still promoting records that those guys made and music I've made and it's music people really dig. And let's face it, you know, let's time goes by. As you said, you know, the more you don't want to hear it, the more either A, you forget about it or you kind of, you're going to hear it. So I'm hoping and betting it's going to be the latter, but yeah, we'll see. Sure. Now, now choosing the set list and I, before I, before you even started, I know you're not going to call me the set list. I do. I look, I would love to hear in the zone. Okay. And it's the tune I would love to hear because it's my favorite tune of your, of your era is. I just love that whole guitar, denier, denier, denier, denier, denier, it is so cool. And it fits the whole, it carries the kind of the whole song. Yeah. So yeah, there's my request in, in a zone, but for you, how do you, without telling me, because I know you're not going to, but how did you choose the songs? Is it strictly out of songs you like? Is it songs that you feel like you can still present to the same level, vocally, little old? What? All of that stuff, I think, you know, obviously those, the, the obvious choices of, like the hits, if you will, but, you know, I certainly want to go into some deeper tracks as well. I have to be considerate of the musicians who are playing with me because, you know, I can't go, here's 30 songs, go for it, you know, so I want to be realistic about that as well. But yeah, I want to, I don't want to just play obvious choices because, you know, I don't know, I just don't want to do that. I want to play some deeper tracks, too, but, you know, some of these songs I've never played or haven't played in years as well. Well, obviously, I haven't played any of them in years, but, well, that's not true. I played a couple of songs with the Metal Legion skies a couple of times, so, but, you know, the fact is, some of these songs, like King's Eyes from that record, and, you know, Catharsis, you know, from William E. I mean, we just haven't played them in a long time, so the reality is they're going to feel fresh, I hope, and I want to kind of, mess around with the set list, I don't want to be, like, so obvious. So it's a little of that, plus I'm singing these tunes and figuring what songs are a little easier than others to sing, and luckily, all the lyrics are, well, I should say all the lyrics, well, a lot of the lyrics are coming back to me. So that's a really thing, that means my brain is still working. So, you know, it's, it's exciting and it's going to sound powerful and, you know, like I said, hopefully it's going to sound fresh because it's just, you haven't heard them in a while. Sure. Yeah, I'll make a note about it on its own. Right. Very good. Well, John, I've read, but I'm not clear on it, and I'll ask for the clarity on it. I've read that it's you with Category 7 opening. I've read that it's Category 7 is your band that's going to play the anthrax stuff as well as a set of Cat 7 stuff. What is, what is it that we're going to be seeing? Is it, is it an opener, and then new, other guys, or is it all Cat 7? Yeah, some anthrax songs. Well, no, it's going to be both, actually, because I want to play two sets. Okay. It's, it's the Cat 7 guys minus Jack Gibson because Jack had some prior commitments, the touring minds. So, unfortunately, he can't do it, and it's a bummer because I love Jack and he's such an awesome person. Sure. Great guy. Actually, a little easygoing guy. I love it. But, Joey Vera is going to fill in for him because Joey's my pro and then Joey played in an anthrax for a brief period of time, so it makes some sense. But it made sense to try to kind of piggyback the two things together because Category 7 really hasn't chatted a chance to play many shows. As a matter of fact, we played one, so, yeah, and that was the whiskey in LA, so we're going to play that again, but we never even played New York, which is where Mike Orlando is from, it's a bummer. So, we're going to play a short set of key FC 7, and then we're going to come back out with the same guys. I said, if I started a band from scratch, I can't imagine any guys who I'd rather have than, you know, Phil, Mike and Bettner, I mean, those guys are just incredible musicians, and I know they'll tear it up, so it's going to be a lot of fun. Sure. Now, John, you've had a couple of tours with Category 7 that have gone down because, and you guys have been very honest about it about just saying that it's low ticket sales, which I think is a problem most people are having in general now. I just think that the concert scene is kind of effed up after the pandemic, really. It never has come all the way back. How frustrating is it for you that you put together literally a supergroup, and it just hasn't hit the way I'm sure you guys thought it was going to? Well, I've always had low expectations, which I do about everything, because that's just the way I approach stuff, but, you know, the record itself kind of happened really naturally, and just out of like, hey, let's write some tunes, and then we wrote a couple and then we wrote a couple more, and the next thing, you know, we had enough for records or like, let's just make a record. So it's kind of, to me, it was real honest from that perspective. We wrote some killer tunes, and it just made sense to record and put them out, just because you're a bunch of known guys, doesn't mean you have an obvious success level that's going to happen. Sure. You know, there's still whole marketing and trying to convince people, is this a real band, or what is this, is this a project, that was a big issue for people, including people internally. And it was like, look, why are we worried about this? Like, let's just put a record out. I mean, I know there's the marketing aspect from the label and the management, but like, I'm a musician, man. My goal is to just write songs, and if they're great, we should record them, and as simple as that. So that was my approach the whole time. Record got great critical claim. I mean, James Heffields, that was one of his favorite records, you can't get better than that. So, the reality is, is that it just doesn't mean you have a sure shot, and everybody is busy in this band. We had a lot of conflict scheduling-wise, because everyone's doing other things, because everyone's out of the bands. You know, Dumbledore and Kerry King, and Bynur played with Overcalde the time, and Shadows fall, and that's just like, we're busy, and Micro-Rolando is an engineer who records and does a lot of engineering. So, it's not like we had so many easy things, so we found three weeks in America, or like, we could do this, and then, you know, maybe some people got cold feet, and you know what? We should have done the shows anyway, even if there was a hundred people at every gig, quite frankly, we should have done them, it was a mistake. We should have made it done it. We would have had shows that were going to do better than that, of course, but we might have had a couple stinkers, as we call them, so what? And we should have done them, and that was a mistake. And then South America, that was just a bad idea, because we really didn't have a legitimate person promoting the shows, and you know, South America, and I love South America. It's one of the best continents in the world as far as fan base goes, but you still want to do things correctly, and if you don't, you know, you've brought a risk of going there and making mistakes, and it's a long way to go, and it could be real dodgy. So that was a mistake, and we should have done that. But in retrospect, it doesn't really matter, you know, the record is a great record, and I'm really proud of it, and you know, we move on, keep going, and now we're going to do this thing, and we're going to, like I said, piggyback with this anthrax thing. Just for at least these three shows, I don't know what the future holds are, I really don't. I'm just going to find out what happens, we're going to kind of go along the way and see what comes up out of all this. But for now, this is what we're doing, and I think the shows are going to be great, and it takes themselves already been really great for these shows, so we'll figure it out as we go. Sometimes I do that a little too much, and you know, does it always bode well, but I do it like that's kind of the way I roll sometimes, and you know, these shows are going to be great. Absolutely, man. It's the album that shocked the world, Judas Priest's Turbo. In 1986, when Heavy Metal embraced the glam of air metal, Judas Priest followed suit, unleashing Turbo. It divided fans, rocked MTV, and sparked controversy that still echoes today. In cause and effect Turbo, Chris Akin dives deep into the making of this polarizing album, sharing insider stories and personal memories from that explosive era. Whether you loved it or you hated it, Turbo left its mark on Heavy Metal History. Relive the controversy. Get your copy now at ChrisAkin.net or on Amazon. Well, let's go, let's switch directions a little bit here, let's talk about the upcoming tour with Michael Shanker. Obviously, if you're a metalhead, that's a tour you need to see. I mean, it's as simple as that. That's an easy one for you guys, for Armored Saint, and I have been fascinated about this pretty much since you guys put the band back together, you always seem to 90% of the times I've seen you since bringing the band back has been in an opening slot. You guys like to go out there and challenge other bands to raise their game. I've seen you with a lot of other bands that you guys blow everybody off the stage. I'm not just kissing your ass, I'm telling you that is a fact. For you, is that the goal? Is it your goal to get out there early and just mow them down? Well, you know, we're all honored when we get a chance to play with anybody. Michael Shanker or Wasp, we toured. We're actually doing three shows in England with Wasp before the Shanker tour, and that's why we couldn't do the whole Shanker tour because we already committed to these three shows in England with Wasp at the end of this month, and we're really excited about those shows. The Wasp tours have been awesome with us around the states the last couple of years. Queen's right, we toured with Saxon. We're just happy to be able to go out with somebody, and usually it's something that our agent finds and says this would be a good tool for you guys. Let's go out and do it. So we're like game. We'd go out and play on our own. We did a bunch of highlight shows in Europe last year, and we're doing a couple actually in conjunction with this tour, playing in Pomona on our own, which is basically just east of downtown LA, and we're doing El Paso, which we haven't played in like 30 years and Vegas again because it's Vegas. So we still do some headlight shows and we'll do whatever we have to do. It's just if this is a good tour, we can make a pretty good amount of money so we can make it work and go on support and play in front of a lot of people and hopefully sell some merch. That makes sense. Plus it's Michael Shanker, he's a legend. He was UFO fans from the very beginning, and we toured with Michael back in the 80s when he was McColley Shanker. We've done some shows actually in the last five to eight years with UFOs version of UFO, with Film Walling, of course. One of my favorite singers of all time. So, you know, it's just whatever makes sense. If it's a good tour, we can go out and play. We'll do well. Hey, Armored Saint kicks ass, we're going to go out and we're going to do our thing, and we're going to go out and play our best, and hopefully convince people who don't know us, and for all the fans, hopefully it'll be in Hog Heaven. But you know, there's no like negative perspective of trying to blow somebody away. Look, it's a competitive thing. I think deep down everybody wants to be the best they can be, but not in some kind of negative way. It's more like let's really elevate the show. That's kind of the perspective, but yeah, we're all honored to be playing with Michael, and like I said, he's going to be doing all of UFO stuff, which is going to be really amazing. I'm sure we'll be watching most of the shows every night, and you know, maybe he'll pull me up on stage and do one song. I'm hoping, at least somewhere, because I know him. Nice. Any chance that we'll hear even one of the new songs that you've been working on, or is that off the table until then? Yeah, I don't think so only because I know the label kind of frowns on it, because then it's released. And you know, these days with everything on YouTube, if you have something out there immediately, and I don't think so, but I mean, that's not going to be too long before the record comes out. And trust me, we're real proud of this album. I think we took another step level as far as songwriting goes. And it's just continuation of some of the great records that we made over the last few years, with Punch in the Sky, and when it ends down at La Raza, like I'm really proud of our records. I think we've really shown a lot of growth since the 80s, and we keep going, and it's going to make people who love Armored say happy. Sure. Is there anything in any of the catalog that has John Bush on it that you look back at, or just like, eh, wish I wouldn't have done that, or wish I would have changed this, or whatever? Ah, yeah, there is. I mean, I'm not going to divulge that because I decided before people like, that's my favorite song. Right. Sure. So, you know, I mean, I have my own favorites too, because I'm a fan. Right. But you know, I think throughout the years, I think we've made pretty solid records. I mean, you know, it's hard to say is anyone like horrific from front to back, you know, I don't know about that because, you know, I'm pretty hard of myself sometimes, but I don't think of them as I don't really want to put them up against one another. I kind of think of them as all my children, and you don't want to say that's my favorite child. Right. You would never say that, right? Even though maybe you feel it a little bit certain times depending on what that child, other child does, to have, you know, but to me, they're all different, and they're all just great in their own way. So, from March of the St. Deliverus Nomad, which we're honoring, 40th anniversary of this year, to Symbol, Mark Raising Fair, to, you know, Revelation and LaRaza and Win and Punch of the Sky, all the records since, you know, we kind of reformed, if you will. You know, they're all great in their own way, and I think we have a lot of killer materials, tunes. So, you know, headline shows are something that we do want to do here there, because then we could play longer sets and play a lot of different songs, and certain tracks, which I like to do as well. So, you know, they're all just different, but I think that I'm real proud of all the armored St. Records. Absolutely. Is there one moment in your career, whether it's concert, an album, a song, anything that you, you personally, after all this time in the business, you look back and you say, yeah, that was the peak, whether, you know, and again, it could be a show or a song or something you did with someone else, even. You know, I mean, believe it or not, I think we're maybe at the top of our game right now. I really think that armored St. enthusiasm is pretty high. I think that we're in a place where, you know, we're arguably bigger than we ever were. I mean, sure, you can go back to maybe when we're just saying came out in 1984, and can you deliver us being played on MTV? You know, we're pretty popular at that time, and then a couple of mistakes were made, and a couple of things happened, and we kind of took a dip. And then, you know, God, Dave became sick and lost his life, and that was pretty low, you know, emotionally for the band, and then we made simple salvation, we kind of came back, and that was, you know, maybe arguably one of our most popular records, and one that's pretty deep, and then we kind of rebuilt, and then, you know, then I left and joined Andrax, and so we took a dip again, so there's been a lot of ways that we've ridden on this journey, but, you know, we're at a good place. I mean, we, those last couple tours that we did were awesome, and we sold more merchandise than we probably have ever sold in our history. So, I'm basing it on that, I think, we're at a pretty high level right now, so, you know, we'll kind of try to ride this wave. We don't want to take another dip here if we can avoid that. Right on, man. Well, there's no dip in sight as you've got two, two great sets of shows that are coming up. You've got the Armored St. Michael Shanker tour, which starts in October, and then, of course, in December, you've got the celebration of the songs of Andrax. John, where's the best place we should send people to keep up with you, to follow you on Instagram, or to, you know, get merch, or get tickets, or any of that kind of stuff? You're always going to go to armoredstain.com. You can go there, of course. And then, at official John Bush is the Instagram page. So, that's the IG page, if you want to look at, you know, what's happening with me on a fairly daily basis. You know, it's, those are the two places. And, you know, we're excited to be going out there and playing some shows. Don't forget in Britain, and we're playing with Wasp, so, that's going to be real exciting, because we're playing the old London Hammersmith Odien, which is, you know, Aversmith Odien. Mostly to Aversmith, and lots of every bands of play, have plays, and it's legendary. Plus, we're playing Newcastle, first time every time. Every time we've been in Britain, we've never played there, so that's going to be the first time we've played there. And then, the Chinkertour, it's only in the Southwest of the States. So, we're sorry for everyone else, but those last days, we're conflicting with it, so we couldn't do the whole tour. But we'll be back out there in 26, and we're eager to see people out there. And then, of course, the December dates, you know, please come out and make a road trip, if, you know, live in Los Angeles, or Chicago area, or New York. Come on out, I'll make it worth your while. Very good. Well, one more time, he is John Bush, and it is going to be a great time for the next, sounds like for the next year or so, to catch John Bush and Albert St. or Anthrax music, if that's what you are so inclined to get. So, make sure you get out there and support, support, support, so we keep getting more, more tours from the mighty John Bush. So, John, thanks as always, man, for joining me here on Critzaker Presents. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for all the support, through all the years, and I appreciate it. It did very much, man. Thank you. Music