{"id":320848,"date":"2025-11-29T17:27:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T17:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/320848\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T17:27:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T17:27:14","slug":"last-train-home-by-armored-saint-the-story-behind-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/320848\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Train Home by Armored Saint: the story behind the song"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the end of the 1980s, Armored Saint<\/a> were beginning to wonder if the world was conspiring against them. Formed in Los Angeles in 1982, they had released three widely acclaimed studio albums and become major players in the burgeoning US metal underground. What they definitely hadn\u2019t done was conquer the rest of the world: an oversight vocalist John Bush wearily attributes to the fact that Armored Saint didn\u2019t tour Europe or the UK until much later in their career.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Perhaps surprisingly, then, Bush and his bandmates \u2013 bassist Joey Vera, guitarists Dave Prichard and Jeff Duncan and drummer Gonzo Sandoval \u2013 were only one year away from recording what would become their biggest and most celebrated album, Symbol Of Salvation. But as they began
to contemplate penning a follow-up to 1987\u2019s Raising Fear, all was definitely not rosy in the Armored Saint camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we were going to get dropped by our label at the beginning of \u201988,\u201d Bush tells Hammer. \u201cWe were going to do another tour but the label withheld tour support and said they weren\u2019t paying for it. So we went out in a van and drove from LA to Syracuse, New York, across the country in January, and it was freezing. One of our fondest memories of that tour was when Dave made this funnel thing to piss in, so you could put the tube outside the window of the van and take a piss, and we wouldn\u2019t have to stop. It was a great idea, but it was also a bad idea! Ha ha ha! We just got piss all over the place. It was funny!\u201d<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Despite slumming it across the States with no tour support and a strong chance of frostbite, Armored Saint were buoyed by their last tour of the 80s, which took in shows with both Michael Schenker and Ted Nugent, alongside some sold-out headlining dates. Unfortunately, their efforts would prove to be futile, at least in commercial terms, and an even more devastating bombshell was just around the corner.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Armored\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Randy Bachman\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got home and we officially got dropped, so we didn\u2019t have a label,\u201d John shrugs. \u201cThat was the moment when we truly started saying, \u2018Right, forget it, we\u2019re just going to write songs and we\u2019re not going to care about anything. We\u2019re just gonna write!\u2019 We weren\u2019t on a label so why we would we look for a particular style, when we don\u2019t know what the future holds anyway? So we started writing, and right after that was when we found out about Dave\u2019s illness with leukaemia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were experimental, but it was because we didn\u2019t know what we were doing, and that\u2019s the truth\u201d<\/p>\n

John Bush<\/p>\n

Not just an insanely gifted lead guitarist but, as Bush notes, the most natural leader in Armored Saint at the time, Dave Prichard had discovered that he had leukaemia after taking a blood test to assess his suitability for a powerful acne medication.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a death sentence in the 80s, it was a pretty severe form of cancer,\u201d John says. \u201cThey\u2019ve made a lot of strides with leukaemia now, but back then it was pretty bad. So his illness, the band being dropped and our whole future being so uncertain, that was all what propelled us towards just writing songs and not worrying if something was totally out of the box compared to what Armored Saint usually did. And that\u2019s where songs like Last Train Home came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Dave Prichard passed away on February 28, 1990, midway through writing sessions for the new Armored Saint album. The band took several months to mourn their friend and to work out exactly how to proceed, but it soon became apparent that the sheer strength of the material that they had been writing compelled them to move forward and make a new album. With Gonzo\u2019s brother (and original member) Phil rejoining the band on rhythm guitar, the retooled Armored Saint had kept things very much in the family. Significantly, the band\u2019s line-up remains exactly the same today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat family feeling is super-important to this band \u2013 even though I know that we made Symbol\u2026 and then I left the band and joined Anthrax! Ha ha ha!\u201d John says. \u201cIt kind of ended for a while, but we got back together and made Revelation [released in 2000] and we\u2019ve continued on as the same guys, so it\u2019s always been like a family, for better or worse. Families sometimes have a little conflict here and there, but it\u2019s still a family. Back in 1990, we knew that that was how we were going to get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Symbol Of Salvation was released on May 14, 1991, through Armored Saint\u2019s new home of Metal Blade Records. A 55-minute hard rock and heavy metal<\/a> tour de force, it sounded like the work of band truly hitting their creative stride, with everything from skull-rattling thrash to trippy, blues<\/a>-tinged ballads hurled into the mix. One song immediately stood out, however: the titanic, heart-rending melodic feast of Last Train Home. Written toward the end of sessions for Symbol Of Salvation, the song was not a direct tribute to Dave Prichard, but its lyrics seem unbearably poignant in light of his untimely passing: \u2018Crossroads of my life \/ Feel my body glide \/ To a place I need to be \/ It\u2019s within my sights \/ When I get there I\u2019ll be free\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\n

\"Armored\n<\/p>\n

Armored Saint\u2019s John Bush onstage in 2016 (Image credit: Scott Dudelson\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s in there subliminally,\u201d John suggests. \u201cAt that time, what I\u2019d sometimes do is just babble over things to try and get a melody. It would sound like I was saying words but I really wasn\u2019t, I was just trying to get the melody across. For some reason, whether it was my idea or somebody else\u2019s, we were playing that song and trying to write it and the lyrics just came out. I sang \u2018Last train home\u2026\u2019 and just repeated it. That sounded like a cool title and it just happened. Not to get too spiritual about it, but it seemed very organic. Then the lyrics took shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we were going to get dropped by our label.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Bush<\/p>\n

Not just the catchiest and most anthemic song on an album full of wildly dynamic moments, Last Train Home also seemed to be a major milestone in the evolution of the Armored Saint sound. While the band\u2019s first three records had been largely rooted in traditional metal, with a strong and obvious influence from Sabbath and Priest, their fourth was incredibly diverse and fervently contemporary. With its unapologetic pop sensibilities, Last Train Home was a significant detour for the former trad metal diehards. Thirty years later, it\u2019s the band\u2019s biggest song, from an album that remains their most definitive work.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, I love the first three records,\u201d states John. \u201cDelirious Nomad [1985] was like the mischievous kid, March [Of The Saint, 1984] set it all up and Raising Fear [1987] has some great moments as well, but I don\u2019t think we really hit our stride until Symbol\u2026, and that opened the door to what followed. Suddenly we had a lot more security about our identity. We weren\u2019t thrash, we weren\u2019t a hair band, we were a hard rock band and we could play Mad House [from March Of The Saint], which bordered on thrash, and then we\u2019d have a moody ballad like Isolation [from Raising Fear], so we were always all over the place. In retrospect, I like it all. We were experimental, but it was because we didn\u2019t know what we were doing, and that\u2019s the truth!\u201d<\/p>\n

Armored Saint – Last Train Home – Live at Wacken Open Air 2015 – YouTube
\n\"Armored<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Bush admits that his band may struggle to ever write a song that hits the emotional bullseye with quite the same ferocity as Last Train Home. Although memories of the making of Symbol Of Salvation will always be tinged with great sadness, the songs that came out of those tough times have sustained Armored Saint through many decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh man, Last Train Home has a huge chorus and it\u2019s easy for people to sing along to!\u201d he beams. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly a moody track and it\u2019s explosive at the same time. It has a cool breakdown that people really seem to get drawn into and then it ends with another big chorus. But it\u2019s a hard song to sing! There are some high notes in there. My voice is very different from how it was in 1991, so sometimes it\u2019s an opportunity for me to stick the mic out there for the crowd, because I really need a breath!\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published in Metal Hammer 324 (March 2020)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the end of the 1980s, Armored Saint were beginning to wonder if the world was conspiring against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-320848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}