 Hey everyone, it's Perrin from the Metal Voice here at the Mandalay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Night number one of this work for Boss and Armored Saint, and very very happy to be here today. Gracious with this time, Mr. John Bush. Hello everybody, I'm Perrin, I'm Billy Cameron, I'm from Canada, I don't know where else you've seen me. Well Metal Voice is all over the place man, we're global. That's great. Jimmy and the Boys are global. Jimmy and the Boys. So this tour is like one of the hottest tours of the fall, like a lot a lot of buzz. Wasp hasn't toured in a long time. You guys don't tour as much as we did. I'll like you too. How did this come about? What was the genesis of this tour? Does Placky call up John, do managers call managers? It's the agent. We have the same agent. He basically got our own Saint on it. He told Placky the Wasp was going to do a tour. He said, how about Saint opening and Placky loved it. Same agent again. So he just got on. It's been great. Shows have done beyond our expectations as far as pre attendance. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Wasp hasn't toured in a long time. And even though Saint has been busy in the last five to eight years, there's still a lot of places that we haven't played in a long time. For instance, the Albuquerque is the fourth show on the bill. The tour we haven't played there since it's a delirious nomad. Same in Nashville. Some of these places we haven't played in years. So I am bummed that it's not going to Canada. However, I've made like a list of about like 20 to 30 other cities that we can literally do on a second leg. If everything goes great and if the tours smash and the vibes are great. It's like why not do a Canadian tour. There you go. Scoop number one. If all goes well on leg number one, maybe we get a second tour. Maybe we get Canada and we'll see. So is there any nostalgia associated with this because you Wasp and a little band named Metallica toured together, I guess it was what, 85, 84, 85, so like 37 or 88. So like is there a nostalgia vibe for this? Like do you guys stay in touch with Blackie or other people? Not really. No, not really. I think there's a nostalgia vibe for the obvious reasons. Because people still talk about that tour to this day about the Wasp and Metallica, the same tour in 85. Ride the Lightning and first Wasp record, March of the Saints. So it was a great run. Those shows were dead awesome. It was a big buzz on it. Makes sense that we would go out on the road with Wasp. We played shows as a club band in 83, 84. The Troubadour anywhere from there to Perkins Palace, which is in Pasadena. Country Club probably. I don't remember playing there with Wasp, mostly the Troubadour. But we had a lot of shows as bands starting out. So there's definitely an LA connection with that. And I think it's really exciting. And like I said, it's 40 years later. It's their anniversary. Basically it's our anniversary. It's a whole new generation that can pass it on down to people, our kids. We can pass it on down and hopefully it just keeps going and going and going. Probably beyond us going and going and going. So, set list-wise, I think I saw a post yesterday on social media. You guys just finished rehearsals. So first off, does everything come back to you guys like a muscle memory? I don't think you guys have played since the live stream show for Punching at the Sky in LA. I think you guys played a lot since then. No, we really haven't. The Punch in the Sky tour show, it was great. It was fun and we had a lot of fun doing that. But it was the one and only kind of show that we did at that time. So there was a lot of desire to see Armored Saint, especially after that record came out. And we were totally pumped on that record. We think it's a really awesome album. And to not go out and do any shows is disheartening. But I think a lot of bands experience that and a lot of bands had to wait it out. We don't really think too much about putting the record out because I figured people are staying home. They're kind of quarantining. They're already kind of having some emotional question marks with all, why are we going to not give them a record? Give them the record. Create some tunes. Put on your headphones. Grab a nice Canadian beer and rock out and have a great time. So yeah, I think that there's just a lot of cool aspects of these two bands coming together and playing shows and we're fired up. And then I don't know if you want to give us any spoilers. You know, we're definitely going to play some new songs because we haven't played that. So I think that without a doubt we do want to play some new tunes because they sound killer live and we're fired up about playing these songs. I'm very conscious of the fact that, you know, as an older band, people obviously want to see the nostalgic and old school tunes. So it's how you bridge them together on a set. You know, I admire bands like Made In who'll go out and play like five or six new songs in a row. It's like, wow, you know, but they're made in. I saw them two weeks ago and they opened three straight from the new album. Yeah. And that's great. I really commend them for doing that. And that's awesome. I mean, we're not as, we can't, I don't think we can get away with that as much, but we're going to, but we're going to push our audience and challenge our audience. And we, you know, as much as this certainly is a nostalgic 40 year anniversary, we put out a record and it was critically acclaimed. So we're really proud of that. I mean, I think people want to hear new material from us, including when hands down. So I think it's going to be, it's going to be really cool that we're playing. I don't want to hear just one song from the new album. I want to hear a few. Well, that's great. Because yeah, you didn't get to tour it and it was critically acclaimed. It was on all of our top five lists of the year. It was a great, great record. So it's a shame for that kind of record to get bypassed, I guess. And then just move on to the next thing. Well, that's, I totally appreciate that. And I agree, you know, like I said, you want to be honest and fair with your fan base. And, you know, for me, it's always just kind of like weaving it out. So like, you might start with something new or old and then you go something, something familiar and then you can just say, okay, we're going to check out a new tune. It's really kind of how you put it all together. I think it's going to be great. But I don't want to tell you what songs, just because, you know, I want to. Well, I guess I'll be out there tomorrow. Look, one more question about the set list. I think on your social media, six weeks ago, you guys celebrated the 35 year anniversary of Raising Fear. And it was asked what, if we played these songs live, what might you want to hear? So might we hear anything from Raising Fear? We will hear something from Raising Fear. All right. Yes, you will. It's always my goal to try to play at least one song from every record. I don't always get a chance to do that and we don't, should I say. And it's kind of hard sometimes because, you know, for instance, you want to play, you know, playing 10 songs in a set is, that's pretty much what you'll get lucky doing as a support act. And so that's about a 50 minute set. We've been tinkering with some things to try to make sure we squeeze in another song. The last thing I want to do is actually not play a song because there's just too much, you know, mobile jumbo going on. So we had to, we made some adjustments. Minimal banter, basically. Minimal banter. I mean, I have no problem not talking. Nobody really wants to hear me talk, although I do have some funny and good interesting stories and I think I'm entertaining and I never really try to say the same thing every night because I think that's kind of played. But at the same time, you know, you want to play enough songs that, I mean, if I could, like I said, I'd play a song off every record. I don't think we're achieving that quite on this tour yet. But, you know, we've learned about five or six additional songs that I'm calling the audible songs. So my goal is to try to change it up a little bit every night. It may not happen every night. It may not happen right away. But I do like the idea of just kind of tinkering the set. That was going to be one of my questions. I was just curious if we were to keep it tight every single night because some bands just like to do that, keep everything synced up. Other bands, hey, like you said, they'll call audible, let's do this instead of that. I think it just kind of vary. It depends on what's happening that night. I mean, to me, you know, the last thing I would, we're not a Broadway musical. You know, this isn't, you know, the same show that you're going to see, you know, the Thunderdown or whatever. It's a different set every night if we could do it within reason. Again, it goes back to within reason. I don't want to just change it up just to do it. And then it kind of rocks with flow, pardon me. You want to do what feels right and it feels like, hey, you know, let's change the song tonight. Then you do it. It all just kind of goes by vibe and feel. So what's going to come next? So you mentioned, okay, there could be another leg. Wow, that's just wide. Whether there is or isn't, you know, is there a new album in the works? Are you guys already writing, throwing down some ideas? Like, when could the fans possibly see a new Armored Saint record? I don't know yet because we, you know, based on Punch in the Sky that we really didn't do any dates with it, to me, that's what this is kind of all about in terms of playing new material. So even though, to some people, it may have felt like without records old, it really isn't because we haven't toured on it. So to me, it's kind of all about that. Have we talked about a record? Yeah, we've talked about it. It's about, I'll say at this point, you know, it's sometimes Armored Saint takes time to make records. It can, you know, it can be up to like five years since the last album and people like. Well, you guys are busy and do other things as well, I think, right? That's true. Yeah. So I think it just, it'll come down to, to doing this, you know, right now all my focus is in this tour, doing this tour, playing great every night, kicking butt, having fun. Then we'll reevaluate at the end of the year and there's some talk about a European run. Hopefully that can happen because we haven't been to Europe in years too, in a couple of years at least, should I say. So, you know, it'd be great to go there. And there's talk about, you know, writing. We'll see. Okay. Yeah, I've been looking, the symbol of salvation tour that you guys did, went to 2018, which is amazing. Right, when we played those two convincing dates. Yeah, play the Canadian dates. And just the great reviews and the live album that came after it. So, any headlining offers, any possibility of doing, you're not doing off-nights headlining shows? No, we're doing off-shows as it is. I mean, dude, don't kill me. It's night number one. Yeah. No, I think we're, I think it's, we're just kind of focusing on, on this leg with Was, those songs, maybe changing it up here and there, playing some new stuff, not doing a full set, just the support access. But I think it's going to be great. I think people are going to be really fired up. I'm excited to see Was, I'm sure they're going to be great. And hopefully when we look back, say the tour was great, and then we're going to go, okay, maybe we can do another run. They're going to Europe, I know for sure. And like, their dates got pushed back in Europe. So they did that house in March, April. I think that festival could happen. Yeah. So maybe, you know, in a perfect world, perhaps we could do something in the fall. If, if we can, maybe. Object question, we mentioned the Hell on Wheels Tour. So 87 is when, you know, you probably got to a lot of markets throughout North America. The first time I saw you guys was at a roller skating rink in Montreal. Cool. With Grim Reaper, Halloween, and of course, Armored St. So, you know, sadly, Dave Pritchard is no longer with us. Very sadly. And Ingo from, from Halloween. That's true. And then we just lost Steve Grimmit, who was a really good friend of the show. He was great. So just any thoughts or memories of that tour? I had Steve Grimmit, because he really was a great person, who was a great friend of the show, and we spoke to Millie after everything happened. And just, you know, any memories from there? Great. We had some great shows with those guys. It was so fun. You know, playing places like First Avenue in Minneapolis, where they filmed it for the Hell on Wheels. Yeah. I remember the Headbangers Ball Tour. Headbangers Ball Tour was killer. That's some great gigs. You know, Halloween was doing really well. Then there was some, there was some a little bit of conflict with, with them maybe getting a little too big. So there was some questionable set changes. But again, it's looking back. It was all, it was funny. It's amusing to look on. 80s Egos. I guess everyone's. You know, I mean, Rod Small would manage, made in, if it still does, I think, any match Halloween at that time. So it helped me was doing good. So at one point they were like, you guys are going on first. We're like, what? That wasn't the plan. But the shows are great. And some really good memories. And, you know, like I said, Steve Grimmett, you know, Nick Bocott, great guys. See you in hell. Classic song, you know, Keeper of the Seven Keys, Michael Kisk, you know, Kai was on that tour. Yeah, that was their first North American tour. That's right. His first North American tour. Yeah, so it was, it was, you know, some great gigs. Yeah, that was just, literally, I remember sitting on the boards at the Roller Skating Rink watching this show. Yeah. It was pretty, pretty surreal. All the preppy kids that showed up on a Saturday night for Roller Skating. Oh, that's what you got. There wasn't a Roller Skating. I think they got you guys. Yeah, we played The Palace, I think, in Los Angeles. So that was a great gig. It was always a great venue. Many shows. Like it was at First Avenue. I'm trying to think of one we played in maybe Chicago or Detroit. Harpa was probably, I don't remember the venues in Toronto. Is that the one? Yeah, well, Monterey Hall was a place called the Palladium. The Palladium, I think that sounds good. Like I said, it was literally a Roller Skating Rink when there was some concerts. So whatever reason, they would have the odd metal concert there and the only metal concert. So the metal church played there in Motorhead and Slayer. Sure. And you guys, but any other night, they were Roller Skating. So. That's cool. Well, the Roller Skating would probably be fine, too. Yeah, I'm sure. We made for an interesting night. A cursory anthrax question, if you don't mind. Okay. You know, just they, they just did 40th anniversary tour. Yeah, I went to the show in LA. It was great. And well, how did that feel then? Because I think a lot of people were surprised that they busted out only. And it's the first time anyone ever heard Joey Belladonna singing only. Well, I changed. To mixed reviews. Right. He did a few shows with it. He actually did that. I think it was on the Big Four. They did a show. Oh, yeah. Only was on that soundtrack if I'm not mistaken. Maybe YouTube is a lot bigger now. I'm sure, of course. So the five seconds after they did it, it was pretty much everywhere. Right, of course. So how was that for you watching the show from the wings or from the audience and Joey's up there doing a classic? I mean, you did a lot of his classics. I did a lot of them. Yeah. I kind of adopted them when I was in the band because I, you know, that was my job. So, you know, I always support Joey singing those songs. I wish they would do more, to be honest. Well, Frank said, like I think in a recent interview about the mouth, Frank said, you wanted to do high pro glow. I did hear about that. That was pretty funny. The pop feel that he mentioned. That's pretty funny. Yeah, I mean, you know, again, I have no qualms with that. I support that. I mean, Joey, you know, we're not the best of friends because we just aren't. It's funny because my wife and his wife have become pretty good text friends. So they're closer than him and I. But I always endorse it and tell me he did a great job and, you know, support whatever he does. And I get, you know, he has his own backlog of stuff and he also has the new songs and new records that he's done. So I understand and I'm not offended by it, but, you know, if they want to play some songs from the John Bush Around, I'm great with that as well. Well, Bill reminded me that next year is the 30th anniversary. It's not a white noise. I know it's just mind boggling when you think of it. It's crazy. I know it's just all that stuff just makes me feel like, wow, you know, but hey, I'm still kicking and I'm still pushing and I want to rock out and have a great show and great tour. And I feel pretty good. Would you do those songs? Like would you solo and put together? Because I think there was, I might have read something about you maybe putting together a band or just for metal, metal engines. Well, it's never gone to the point where it actually has been has made it happen yet. But I mean, I'm up for the idea. I think it'd be great, you know. I don't really want to go out and do like a 30-day tour with it, but it would be cool to do a handful of shows and some key markets. You know, we could certainly play no songs for a support slot or even a headlining slot. Let's face it. I think there's no songs of the four records I made that would make for a great show. Who's in the band? I'm not exactly sure. I told it. You know, I talked to Paul Crook about it because I love Paul. He's just a great guy. And he was actually there when I made a couple of those records as far as engineered and played guitar in it. So, and I have done some stuff with the metal engines guys. We've done the only end room for one more of various shows. Rocket Rio being one we just played and some stuff in conjunction with that too. I'm open to it. It's just a matter of the timing. I think it's just is really that's what it comes down to. CBD. All right. And then let's just close the loop on St. 20 last word for the fans just on if you're on the fence about seeing this tour. Why would you be on the fence? Yeah. Yeah. Why would you be on the fence? It's going to be a killer tour. We're fired up that, you know, we're going out through the boss. It's totally old school. These two bands, there seems to be a big buzz on people wanting to see this this tour, which is great. A lot of sold out shows. Yeah, a lot of sold out shows. And, you know, I mean, obviously you can't do it without the fan base. And I mean, come out. It's going to be a killer. We're so fired up. Well, with that, I'm going to thank you. So, guys, metal voice. Merci. Manila Bay. We will be here tonight getting some footage of the show as well. So, John, thank you very much for your time. Thank you, brother. And see you on the road. All right. Hope you up in Canada and other markets as well. Let's go. All right. Take care.