{"id":31003,"date":"2026-05-07T05:30:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T09:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=31003"},"modified":"2026-03-17T16:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:33:07","slug":"armageddons-first-and-last-stand-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/armageddons-first-and-last-stand-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Armageddon’s First and Last Stand (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

The first time I heard \u201cSilver Tightrope,\u201d I thought, \u201cThis sounds a little bit like Yes\u2026\u201d I felt like it shared some of the progressive qualities of that band. Were you specifically aiming to try to come up with ambitious, progressive arrangements? <\/b><\/p>\n

Martin Pugh:<\/b> I think it just happened naturally. It\u2019s just one of those things that came up. And then of course, Keith put those great lyrics to it. For the middle part, I was slightly inspired by Erik Satie. I was a great fan of him. I didn\u2019t copy anything, but it\u2019s got that vibe. I wanted it to mellow out in the middle, then Bobby comes in with the drums, and then we take it on out.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t think \u201cSilver Tightrope\u201d was inspired by those type of bands, though. It\u2019s hard to say; we played with Yes quite a few times in Germany, so who knows what enters your head?<\/p>\n

Was \u201cBasking in the White of the Midnight Sun\u201d \u2013 the epic tune on <\/b>Armageddon<\/b><\/i> \u2013 written as a multi-suite piece, or was it a series of pieces that you decided to stitch together?<\/b><\/p>\n

I think it was written as a piece. The last part [\u201cBasking in the White of the Midnight Sun (Reprise)\u201d] was a vehicle for Keith\u2019s harmonica and my guitar to interact. We might have come up with that part after we had been practicing at A&M, when we went to England to record at Olympic. We went to Clearwell Castle for a couple of weeks; we all lived there, and we had a basement set up with all the gear.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Regarding the mix on the album, Keith\u2019s vocals are \u2013 to put it diplomatically \u2013 not as out front as I might have expected. Why did it happen that way? <\/b><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s probably a mistake [that occurred] when we were mixing the album. We elected not to have a producer, which in hindsight may have been a problem. But we were bullheaded and strong; it was like, \u201cWe\u2019re not having anybody come in here and tell us.\u201d From my point of view now, if you\u2019ve got the right producer, he can tell you, \u201cThat is not working; what you just did is not working.\u201d It\u2019s maybe harder to tell yourself that.<\/p>\n

We mixed it at Olympic. When you\u2019re mixing, you try to listen through various speaker combinations, and at some point you\u2019ve got to say, \u201cLet\u2019s go with that.\u201d But yeah, I agree with you. I\u2019ve always wished that some of the vocals were a little [louder]. I think that for the newer release that they\u2019ve just done, the vocals are a little bit more recognizable.<\/p>\n

Did they have access to the multi-track masters for this release? <\/b><\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t think so. But I think they did put it through some kind of mastering program.<\/p>\n

Was Armageddon\u2019s deal with A&M a one-album contract from the get-go, or was it a case of, \u201cDo one and see how it goes\u201d?<\/b><\/p>\n

It was a one-album deal, but open-ended.<\/p>\n

Also, when the album was just peaking \u2013 \u201cSilver Tightrope\u201d was definitely in the charts in the Midwest and doing really well \u2013 we were due to go out and open up for Eric Clapton on his 461 Ocean Boulevard<\/i> tour. It was set up initially by Jerry Weintraub, who was a big manager at the time. He put us on that tour; we were rehearsed and ready to go. And then at the last minute, we were told we weren\u2019t<\/i> going to be on that tour. Nobody ever told us why.<\/p>\n

In the end we only played two nights in Los Angeles at the Starwood Club. They were the only live gigs that Armageddon ever played.<\/p>\n

Only two total!? I understand that the tour didn\u2019t happen, but why were there no other gigs beyond those two?<\/b><\/p>\n

Because the tour was planned. When a tour falls through, then you\u2019ve got to recalibrate. It just didn\u2019t ever happen; that was the time we should have gone out and started touring the States like everybody else. And I think it could have been a much bigger album. [A&M] made it quite clear that they were behind us for the long haul. Unfortunately, Keith\u2019s demise didn\u2019t allow that to happen.<\/p>\n

There are multiple guitar parts on the album; interesting things are going on all over the songs. Even though you only did the two gigs, how did you pull that off live with just you on guitar? I would have thought that if you were going to do it live and have the music sound anything like the record, you\u2019d have to bring along another guitarist. <\/b><\/p>\n

Right. For one song, we had put together a backing track playing the arpeggiated riff, syncing it up. That\u2019s easy these days. One night, it worked a charm. The second night it got a little bit backward, but we ended up finding our way with it. The other songs were heavy enough where we could get away with one guitar.<\/p>\n

How did this new reissue come about after all these years? <\/b><\/p>\n

The story is that my wife Linda and I had been talking about it all year: \u201cIt\u2019s the 50th anniversary. All these other bands are putting things out. I wish we could do an Armageddon<\/i> [reissue].\u201d And then about three months ago, I found out that Deko Entertainment had applied to Universal [Music Group] at the beginning of the year. Louis had said something to Linda on Facebook, and then I inquired about it and they were like, \u201cOh, yeah, this is coming out.\u201d It had taken quite a long time for them to put all the ducks in line.<\/p>\n

I got in touch with Deko, and they sent me 100 copies to sign. It was amazing; it\u2019s like a dream come true. I couldn\u2019t ask for more. I told Charlie [Calv] at Deko, \u201cThank you so much for doing that. We\u2019ve been under the radar with that album, so for some people to suddenly think it was worthwhile to do that, it\u2019s just great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two\u2026 The first time I heard \u201cSilver Tightrope,\u201d I thought, \u201cThis sounds a little bit like Yes\u2026\u201d I felt like it shared some of the progressive qualities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31009,"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-31003","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\/31003","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=31003"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31014,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31003\/revisions\/31014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}