ARMORED SAINT Bassist: 'People May Hear Songs From Us Sooner Rather Than Later'

Australia's PyroMusic.net recently conducted an interview with bassist Joey Vera (ARMORED SAINT, FATES WARNING, ANTHRAX). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

PyroMusic.net: When you and John [Bush, vocals] decided to get ARMORED SAINT reactivated, did you cop any cynicism about it? The band hadn't really been dissolved for that long, so was there any sort of backlash against it?

Joey Vera: No, not at all. The band really was totally inactive for about eight years, between '92 and 2000, and that was when we first got back together and we did "Revelation". And so, more than anything people were really excited that we got back together because there was speculation that we would never play together again. But you know, things worked out the way they did and we ended up making "Revelation" and we've done some tours here and there after that. We haven't really done a full record since then, but we've kind of maintained this really strange cult following. I think because of the mystery... are we a band? Are we not a band? There's the whole thing with ANTHRAX... Who's in the band, who's not in the band... Will they ever make another record? It's kind of created this strange demand for it. So more than anything, it's always been a really positive thing. We've never really experienced anything negative about it, other than "What's taking so long?"

PyroMusic.net: The last album was almost a decade ago, that's true, but you've all been fairly busy. You still do stuff with FATES WARNING, of course, and you and John were both in ANTHRAX for a while. Is there a chance we'll see something new from ARMORED SAINT?

Joey Vera: Well, yes. We've been writing and we have a pretty good handful of songs that we've accumulated since summer, basically, but we didn't make the full decision about what to do until recently. We have decided to put some songs out. We're still in the writing process, but we've got a good ten songs ready to record. So we hope to go into the studio very soon. People may hear songs from us sooner rather than later. We may do some recordings in the next couple of months. We may want to start getting songs out there as soon as possible. But we are in the process of making a new record.

PyroMusic.net: It must have been a tough time for you and John with the whole ANTHRAX "reunion". John hasn't really spoken much about it, but I believe he's made his peace with the guys and it doesn't really seem to be a big issue with him now. But was that a difficult period?

Joey Vera: Certainly. It wasn't so much an issue with me because I was only hired as a temporary replacement for [Frank] Bello so I knew what my situation was. And I was with them for an entire year... twelve or thirteen months to be exact. At the end of it I knew that I was going to go on and do something else. John wasn't quite prepared for what they came up with to do... have him be excluded in this reunion thing, and I think at first it was of course a very difficult thing for him to deal with and to swallow, but he pretty much hasn't really come out and said anything bad about the situation. He just knows that he felt like he had to do what was right for him and he stands behind it. And he's been able to move on from that. He has no ill feelings or harbors any resentment or anything like that. He's totally fine with everything.

Read the entire interview from PyroMusic.net.