There are very few bands who continue to persevere simply to artistically create. Some of these bands have overcome tragic personal losses, market evolutions, label turnovers, and uncertain futures; more so, this truth becomes more consequential after decades in the industry when many bands can choose to simply 'survive' by standing on an established catalogue. Obviously, the bands that continue to, not only write (and be creative), but continue to adhere to a high standard of quality are the bands that are reputable, respected and admired; That has always been the stigma of one of LA's most revered bands, Armored Saint. Their eighth full-length studio release, Punching The Sky, proved just that! Despite being released in 2020, the record never got its due out in the public domain due to the pandemic.
During Armored Saint's recent visit to Austin, Texas, bassist Joey Vera appeared on Robb's MetalWorks. The complete interview can be seen below. An excerpt has been transcribed as follows:
Joey Vera: "Our career speaks for itself in a way. We've never made the same record twice. Every record we make is slightly different; it takes a few chances here and there. We never went on a 30 year hiatus, and then only go out and play weekends, and just play the hits. Hits, I use that term lightly with us. So, for us, this opportunity to always move forward, is the thing that keeps us together."
RMW: It's kind of ironic cause the single for Punching The Sky was called "End Of The Attention Span". With that kind of mentality now in our society, and with music fans, many bands have opted to say, 'Let's adapt with what's happening and release singles and EPs, rather than a full-length record.' Is that a conversation you guys have had?
Joey Vera: "Well, yeah. It's funny you bring that up because we've always been a band that's just written ten songs, recorded ten songs, and then put out a full-length record. But it is true that people get their music differently now. They just do. They get their music differently, they treat their music differently, they listen to it differently. It's not the same. So, I kind of feel like there's less pressure, and there's less of a need to make a full-length record. I'm not saying that we're going to just sit around and start putting out singles, but we did experiment with this. It hasn't actually happened yet. We have a single coming out June 12th. Again, this was an idea that came up. It kind of came out of something frivolous, just a fun idea I had. It was an old R&B cover tune by the band The Four Tops, who I'm a big fan of, and so is (vocalist) John Bush. I said, 'Let me do a metal version of this song, and I think you would kill it singing it.' Cause he's got such a soulful voice. This thing came out amazing! I said, 'We have to bring this to the band now. We should do this as Armored Saint.' Everyone was kind of scratching their heads like, what? It's just so good, and it came out cool. Let's just do it as a standalone single, and that's what's happening. It's called 'One Chain Don't Make No Prison'. It's by The Four Tops, done by Armored Saint. It's coming out June 12th on Metal Blade. For now, it's just a digital release. We made a video for it too, which came out really cool. Really fun. The whole thing, it's just fun. We're not taking ourselves too serious with this, but it kicks ass!"
"End Of The Attention Span" video:
