ARMORED SAINT FRONTMAN JOHN BUSH DISCUSSES HIS DEPARTURE FROM ANTHRAX STATING, “IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS, IT WAS NOT HANDLED CORRECTLY”

Current Armored Saint, and former Anthrax singer, John Bush was recently interviewed by rock journalist Mitch Lafon for his podcast. Excerpts from the interview appear below, as transcribed by Blabbermouth.net.

On his departure from Anthrax in 2005 after being with the band for 13 years:

“It was definitely not one of the best-handled situations in the world. I mean, we were doing a tour of South America, but it already had been leaked that the reunion [with singer Joey Belladonna] was gonna happen, and, of course, I knew, but we never had, like, an official conversation about it. So, we were doing interviews in South America on this tour, and people were asking about the reunion, and then bandmembers were, like, ‘What are you talking about? What are you talking about?’, and kind of making the journalists feel stupid about something they already know about. And I’m just sitting there, going, ‘Well, this is awkward.’ So instead of just going, ‘Yeah, we’re flirting with that idea…’ There was a way to handle it, and it just wasn’t handled right. In no uncertain terms, it was not handled correctly. So… You know… Whatever… Looking back, it’s certainly not a fond time in my life. There was a manager that was handling the band [at the time], and he was talking to me about how it was gonna go and he was explaining it to me as if I was some new guy who just came in on board. And I had been in the band for twelve, thirteen years at that point, and I’m, like, ‘Dude, do not talk to me like this. Show me some respect. C’mon, man.’ But, you know, it really wasn’t his fault, because he was kind of put in the position of doing what should have been a conversation between Scott [Ian, guitar] and Frankie [Bello, bass] and Charlie [Benante, drums] and I. If they would have said, ‘We think we’re gonna do this. We think we’re ready to do this,’ I probably would have said, ‘Well, do it. I don’t wanna stand in the way of that. Do it.’ It could have been really that simplified, in all honesty.”

Discussing his current relationship with the members of Anthrax:

“Well, I do talk to Scott, and I see Scott on occasion. And Joey Vera [Armored Saint bassist] and [his wife] Tracy are very close to Scott and [his wife] Pearl. And so they come to family functions and things of that nature. And I played Pearl’s 40th-birthday party, and we did [Anthrax’s] Safe Home, and it was real fun. So I have a relationship with Scott, because I see him more often, but I have not talked to Charlie or Frankie — I haven’t spoken to them since, literally, that time. And, you know, it’s weird and kind of probably sucks, but they haven’t made an effort to call me, and I haven’t made an effort to call them either, I guess. There was some weird stuff that happened when Charlie’s mom passed away. I actually did reach out to him, but maybe I had the wrong number or something. I don’t know… And so he was, I guess, bent out of shape about that. But… I did actually do it — I really did; I wouldn’t lie about that. Obviously, when it [comes] to personal, all the other stuff is meaningless. But, you know, whatever… It is what it is. And there’s no reason for me to be okay with Scott and not okay with those [other] guys, ’cause I had a relationship that was the same with all of them. It wasn’t like me and Scott were closer and those guys weren’t. We were all close at one point.”

Armored Saint’s seventh studio album, Win Hands Down, was released on June 2nd through Metal Blad.