Former Anthrax singer and current Armored Saint vocalist John Bush recently spoke about the fans’ perception of the band and their long-standing challenge in the music business.
Bush was asked about how casual fans perceive Armored Saint and whether some still consider them a thrash metal band from the eighties. His response shed light on the identity struggles the band has faced throughout their career.
“Some might even think we’re a hair band,” Bush said. “We also get called power metal. Throughout our whole career, the biggest problem has been where do we fit in.”
The comment highlights a recurring challenge for Armored Saint. The band has often found itself difficult to categorize within the rock and metal landscape despite decades of activity.
This identity struggle is not without reason. Armored Saint has always occupied a unique and somewhat unclassifiable space in heavy metal, drawing from a wide range of influences that resist easy labeling.
Formed in Los Angeles in 1982, the band emerged from the same scene that produced some of the era’s biggest names. They deliberately avoided the glam metal and Sunset Strip trends that defined much of the city’s rock output at the time. Instead, they built their sound around a bluesy, melodic, and precise style of heavy metal. This style drew more from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal — bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Saxon — than from anything happening on the local club circuit.
Bush has described the band’s sound as a “hard rock, bluesy Heavy Metal” style. That definition, while accurate, still doesn’t fit neatly into any single genre box. That ambiguity has followed the band throughout their career, making them a cult favorite among dedicated metalheads while keeping them comparatively unknown in the mainstream.
The band’s history has also been shaped by personal tragedy and significant lineup changes. Founding guitarist Dave Prichard passed away from leukemia in 1990, a loss that deeply affected the group. The band disbanded in 1992 after Bush departed to join Anthrax, with whom he recorded several albums. Armored Saint reunited in 1999 and have remained active since 2008. They released albums including La Raza (2010), Win Hands Down (2015), and Punching the Sky (2020), their most recent studio effort.
Despite never achieving mainstream commercial success, Armored Saint has built a legacy as one of the most respected cult acts in American heavy metal. With nine studio albums to their name and a core lineup that has remained stable for decades, the band continues to be regarded as leaders of the American heavy metal scene — even if the question of where exactly they fit in remains, by their own admission, unanswered.
