After nearly six years, heavy metal stalwarts Armored Saint are preparing to unleash their ninth studio album later this year via Metal Blade Records. While fans are eager for details on the follow-up to 2020’s acclaimed Punching The Sky, vocalist John Bush has made one thing clear: do not expect him to spoon-feed you the meaning behind the music.
In a recent appearance on the “Thunder Underground” podcast, Bush revealed a shift in his promotional strategy. Rather than offering track-by-track breakdowns, he intends to step back and let the listeners do the heavy lifting.
Speaking on his approach to the new material, Bush explained that explaining his lyrics often diminishes the listener’s personal connection to the song.
“I made it a point that I don’t wanna go out and tell everybody what these songs are about. I really just want people to come up with their own ideas,” Bush told the podcast (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “So I’m probably gonna be certainly a little bit less helpful to the record company when it comes to doing press. I’ll always do interviews, of course, and I love doing interviews, but sometimes what you’ll do is you’ll do a bio and they’ll say, ‘What are the songs about?’ And it’s, like, I’m not gonna tell people what the songs are about. I want people to tell me what the songs are about. So that’s kind of my goal on this.”
He emphasized that his objective is to provoke thought rather than dictate it.
“So I do think the lyrics are really great, and I think there’s some thought-provoking things. And that’s what I wanna do. I wanna make people think. I don’t wanna tell people what to think. I want people to think, ’cause I’m not here to say, ‘Hey, you should think this.’ That’s not my objective. It’s more, like, ‘You know what?! Actually, this is kind of making me think this way.'”
Lyrical ambiguity aside, Bush did not hold back his enthusiasm for the sonic quality of the new record. He described the album as a natural evolution of their recent work, bolstered by top-tier production from engineer Jay Ruston and bassist Joey Vera.
“The record’s killer. It’s really, really awesome. I’m really proud of it,” Bush enthused. “It kind of expands on [2020’s] Punching The Sky and [2015’s] Win Hands Down, but it kind of has its own sound and vibe to it as well. And the production is just off the charts. Jay Ruston engineered and he mixed it again and just did an incredible job. And Joey [Vera, Armored Saint bassist], he’s the orchestrator of it all and did an awesome job. But everyone contributed songs and some lyrics. So it’s a great record. I’m really excited about it and can’t wait for it to come out.”
When asked if his writing process has changed over four decades, Bush noted that his primary goal remains avoiding repetition. He also admitted that inspiration can strike from the most mundane sources—even bad drivers.
“My goal is to really always challenge myself as a lyricist and to write things that… What’s important to me is not repeating myself,” he explained. “There’s just really no topic I won’t tackle. I don’t really feel, like, ‘Is that metal? Is that within the parameters of a metal song?’ I don’t care. I really don’t care.”
He added:
“I also try to write a lot in metaphors. Sometimes I’ll start writing a song lyrically and then all of a sudden go, ‘Wait a minute. This is really kind of feeling like it’s starting to feel like it means more about this.’ So I don’t really feel like there’s anything I can’t do.”
To illustrate why he prefers ambiguity, Bush shared an anecdote about a track on the upcoming album that changed meaning for him after it was already finished.
“The song was done, it was mixed, it was mastered, and then all of a sudden I was listening to it the other day and going, ‘Wow, that song, it means this to me now.’ It’s a completely different topic. And that wasn’t my objective going in, writing it at all, and all of a sudden I was like, well, that now is about that. So that’s why I don’t wanna tell people what the songs are about anymore, because now all of a sudden this song means this to me.”
