Hailing from Los Angeles in the early 80’s, the band Armored Saint shared more
in common with the new wave of british heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest,
and Saxon than hair metal bands that ruled the sunset strip. While they would be influential
in the metal underground scene and signed to a major label, it hasn’t always been easy for
the band as tragedy would hit close to home. Stay tuned for the full story of Armored Saint.
Armored Saint would be a highly influential metal band in local circles, even though they didn’t
break big nationally. Formed in 1982 by the Sandoval brothers including guitarist Phil and
drummer Gonzo, they soon added vocalist John Bush, bassist Joey Vera and guitarist Dave Prichard to
the lineup. The name Armored Saint came from the 1981 medieval fantasy film Excalibur. The band
would record a 5 song self titled EP that caught the attention of metal blade records who released
the song Lesson Well Learned on the compilation album titled Metal Massacre 2, The band would soon
enough sign a deal with metal blade in 1983 before landing a major label contract with Chrysalis
records the following year. It was a strange signing given that Chrysalis records didn’t have
a lot of metal acts on their roster and as you guys will find out it wasn’t a smart decision.
Armored Saint would release their first album through Chrysalis in 1984 titled March of the
Saint. While it would be met with positive reviews and the song Can U Deliver got the video treatment
paying homeage to Mad Max and received some airplay on MTV overall it was a frustrating
experience for the band members who felt like their sound was too commercialized and sanitized.
Produced by Michael James Jackson who previously worked with Kiss, Joey Vera would recall in a
2006 interview with full in bloom music how the band fought with their producer revealing
Our producer Michael James Jackson (KISS, Creatures of the Night) was never there or
always on the phone. But we didn't quite see eye to eye with him anyway. One day he told us that he
didn't like Black Sabbath. From that day on it was like "you just don't get it".. Suddenly we
had all of these outside people messing with our thing, slowing tempos down, making things overly
polished, trying to manufacture a "sellable item". And the producer and our manager let
us spend over 300,000 on our first record. To this day we are still in debt for that one" he'd say.
According to the same interview Vera would admit that the label seemed happy enough with
the sales of the groups first album that they were allowed to make another for Chrysalis.
Their follow up release would be 1985’s Delirious Nomad and it would see the band team up with Ozzy
Osbourne producer Max Norman to try and get the sound they wanted. Unlike their previous record
the band didn’t do any music videos for Delirious Nomad as Vera would reveal in the same interview.
Just as Delirious was being finished, MTV cancelled their Heavy Metal Programming. So we
decide to not make a video at all. Save the money and put it towards tour support. 6 months after
Delirious came out, MTV added Metal programming back into their program. We were pissed" he'd say.
During the recording of the album founding member and guitarist Phil Sandoval would leave the group.
In 1987 the band put out what would be there final album with Chrysalis titled Raising Fear.
Due to the departure of Sandoval the band would record the album as a four piece.
Raising Fear represented probably the lowest point in Armored Saint’s career with their label.
Vera would reveal a number of factors working against the band including the fact there the
label was undergoing major personnel changes, they lost their A&R man, Chrysalis wanted to bring in
outside song writers to help the band write more radio friendly songs and finally their label was
against letting the band tour in Europe, which the members of Armored Saint felt was key to
widening their reach. Following the release of Raising Fear’s they were dropped by their label.
The album would also represent a dark milestone for the group as it would be the last record
that guitarist David Prichard would play on as the musician would receive tragic news that he
was diagnosed with leukemia a few years later. His cancer would be discovered as the guitarist
was taking a test to see whether he would be a suitable candidate for a strong acne medication.
Prichard would pass away in February of 1990 part way through the writing sessions for their next
album. With no label backing them and Prichard having passed away the band almost called it
quits, but Metal Blade Records would come to the rescue signing the band again and urging them to
put out the record. It was during this time Phil Sandoval rejoined the band and new guitarist Jeff
Duncan was added to the lineup Working with Alice in Chains and Jane’s Addiction producer
David Jerden, the resulting record would be 1991’s Symbol of Salvation which is probably band’s most
respected album of their career. To the members of Armored Saint, it was the album they had been
trying to get out of their system for almost a decade.Symbol of Salvation featured a more
diverse sound than their three previous releases, highlighted by the song last train home. Frontman
John Bush would admit that the song wasn’t direct tribute to Prichard Bush would sum up what the
album meant to the band telling LA Weekly in 2018 Sometimes the identity issues probably messed
with what we wanted to accomplish, and what we felt we should accomplish. It was only around
Symbol of Salvation that we started to not really worry about fitting in with a scene.
We just said, “Let's be us.” I really think Symbol of Salvation is the perfect example of that.
It's probably the most important Armored Saint record. Its legacy is probably enhanced by it
being the last record where Dave Prichard was part of the songwriting. You can still feel
the emotion of us just trying to hold on. It has a lot of mystique to it" he'd say.
Despite creatively being happy, the sales for Symbol of salvation weren’t there. The band
felt like despite everything they had gone through they should’ve been much bigger than they actually
were. The band also ran into problems with their management and frontman John Bush soon
joined Anthrax leading the band to breakup. Joey Vera would tell Full in bloommusic
After Symbol was out for a year we started to have problems in the band. We also began to have more
problems with management and a general sense of more stress was in the air. We were at a point
where we were not sure if we could keep going. Then John got the call. He originally said NO.
But they called him back. He had to reconsider and he and I had many conversations about it. I felt
that he might regret not taking the offer if our band just fizzled out so I gave him my blessing
to make a move. Once he did, I was quite relieved as I was so tired of the frustration surrounding
Saint. It was time to move on" he'd say Prior to breaking up the band did make a quick
appearance in the 1992 film Hellraiser 3 hell on earth. During their time apart The members would
pursue other musical projects, but 7 years later they reformed. In 2000, the band released their
first album in 9 years with Revelation through metal blade. It was during the mid 2000’s that
John Bush rejoined Anthrax along with Vera and the band wouldn’t put out a new album of material
until 2010. During the 2010’s the band’s musical output has increased with them releasing several
albums and just this past year dropping another record with Punching the Sky. The band has also
released a trailer for their upcoming documentary featuring the members of metallica and many other
members of the metal community. That does it for today's video guys. Thanks for watching. Be sure
to hit the like button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.