{"id":31001,"date":"2026-05-05T05:30:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T09:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=31001"},"modified":"2026-05-05T07:30:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:30:33","slug":"armageddons-first-and-last-stand-part-1-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/05\/armageddons-first-and-last-stand-part-1-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Armageddon’s First and Last Stand (Part 1 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

(A shorter, edited version of this feature appeared previously in The Tonearm<\/em><\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"\"Armageddon was one of those groups that could have only come together in the 1970s. Formed in the wake of the dissolution of Steamhammer, the band was founded by that group\u2019s guitarist Martin Pugh along with the band\u2019s late-period bassist Louis Cennamo and two other musicians of great repute. By 1974, the foursome of Pugh, Cennamo, Yardbirds singer Keith Relf and former Captain Beyond drummer Bobby Caldwell had come together as Armageddon.<\/p>\n

The band recorded but one album, a self-titled LP released in 1975. An opportunity for a high-profile tour arose and just as quickly evaporated, and mere months later Relf was dead, accidentally electrocuted in his basement studio. Armageddon never reunited, and though the band\u2019s album had earned positive critical notices and worldwide distribution, it soon went out of print. And Armageddon<\/i> would remain unavailable for many years: other than select CD-era reissues in Germany, Japan and the UK, the hard rock quartet\u2019s sole release had largely gone unheard, undiscovered by modern-day listeners.<\/p>\n

But in December 2025, Deko Entertainment released a new vinyl reissue of Armageddon<\/i>. Pressed on red vinyl in a limited run of 500 copies, this new authorized release was brought to market with the enthusiastic cooperation of the band\u2019s surviving members. I spoke with guitarist Martin Pugh about the band\u2019s roots in Steamhammer, the making of the album, and the (now sold-out) vinyl reissue.<\/p>\n

Even though Steamhammer was a British group, you were most popular in West Germany. How did the band build a fan base there? <\/b><\/p>\n

Martin Pugh:<\/b> It basically came after Woodstock in Germany. They decided to have a \u201cWoodstock\u201d almost every weekend. We first started going over there in \u201868, and then all these big festivals started happening; you\u2019re playing to 10, 15, sometimes 20,000 people on a regular basis, maybe two, three times a month. And they loved Steamhammer; we used to go down a storm. So very quickly we became a household name in Germany. And the single \u201cJunior\u2019s Wailing\u201d took off as well.<\/p>\n

Prior to all that, we had been playing clubs in London. But once you get onto the big stages in front of those large audiences, you either fold or you go forward. And we kind of really got onto a roll. Our set would consist of songs, but then in the middle of those songs, it would be \u201cimprovise time.\u201d And the Germans loved that. We would [develop] patterns within those improvisations over [successive] gigs, and a song would emerge from that. And the beauty of that is that you could see how the audience was reacting to those parts. When a new song is born, it\u2019s built-in that they\u2019re going to love it, because previous audiences have kind of approved it.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how we grew a lot of strength in Germany.<\/p>\n

Louis Cennamo joined Steamhammer for what would become the band\u2019s last album, 1972\u2019s <\/b>Speech<\/b><\/i>. Soon after that album, you launched Armageddon with him, Keith Relf and Bobby Caldwell. Backing up a bit, how did you initially connect with Louis and Keith? <\/b><\/p>\n

Steve Davy is a very rhythmic player; I remember one time in Germany where Kieran [White, guitarist] fell sick in the hotel and was taken to hospital with a bleeding ulcer. We were in Copenhagen, and Steamhammer had a big festival to play the next day, so we went out as a three-piece and basically did a Cream-type thing. And I remember being glad that Steve Davy was the bass player because he and Mick Bradley \u2013 a phenomenal drummer \u2013 held the whole bottom together. I could just go and solo for days and get away with it!<\/p>\n

Funnily enough, that one gig is where they had cameras set up. They filmed it in black and white in very high definition. And about a year or two ago I was sent a copy of the three-piece live in Copenhagen; we\u2019re flying by the seat of our pants, but it\u2019s brilliant. It went down really well.<\/p>\n

But to answer your question, Steve left the band suddenly. Some auditions were set up, and various bass players were recommended to us; he was one of them. Keith and Louis had played together in Renaissance. And of course Louis is a very different bass player from Steve. When Lou came in, the band changed a little bit because Louis is a very melodic bass player.<\/p>\n

Obviously, Speech<\/i> was a great departure from other Steamhammer albums we had done. When we started recording that, Kieran left because of \u201cmusical differences.\u201d Kieran is a great songwriter; I think he went to a record company to write songs for various artists; he was happy doing that. [New drummer] Mick [Bradley], Louis and myself started to get into more out-there, jazzier sounds, trying to feel our way into the next era of our music. And after an initial week of recording, Louis suggested that Keith could come in. I think Keith came over to see us and said, \u201cYeah I can help you produce this album.\u201d I was a huge fan of the Yardbirds; that little bit of age difference \u2013 four or five years \u2013 is quite huge when you\u2019re that age. Although I loved all the guitar players, I thought Keith was really<\/i> special in that band; I loved his harmonica playing.<\/p>\n

So when Keith turned up, I was like, \u201cOh!\u201d He was such a genuine, loving person to have done all that in the past and to turn up in that way. I was very impressed and quickly became very good friends with him.<\/p>\n

How did Bobby Caldwell end up getting involved? <\/b><\/p>\n

Keith had some contacts, especially with A&M Records. Bob Garcia was in artist relations there; he and Keith hit it off really well on some Yardbirds tours. So we decided one day we would just jump and see if the net appeared. Keith and Louis and myself got plane tickets and went to the States. Back then, you could just get a ticket, fly over and not worry about anything!<\/p>\n

We landed in Hollywood. We went to A&M Records, and Bob Garcia greeted us with open arms. He gave us the Charlie Chaplin soundstage, a great-sounding room. We started to play, and the drummer that we had \u2013 an American drummer \u2013 started having problems. I think he started to feel the pressure of a possible record deal on the horizon, and he decided he couldn\u2019t hang with it.<\/p>\n

To be continued\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(A shorter, edited version of this feature appeared previously in The Tonearm.) Armageddon was one of those groups that could have only come together in the 1970s. Formed in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62,64,73],"tags":[5891,5895,5892,5893,5894],"class_list":["post-31001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-vinyl","tag-armageddon","tag-bobby-caldwell","tag-keith-relf","tag-louis-cennamo","tag-martin-pugh","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31010,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31001\/revisions\/31010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}