SW: Do you ever put the old clothes on just for fun?
JB: [laughs] That was one of the questions [on the DVD], do we ever put it on just for a smile. Mine's in a frame so I didn't take it out, but I guess Joey and his wife were "having a little fun" trying it on the night before the interview. [laughs] The whole thing with the armor, the explanation that we give, is that back in the day we were looking for something that would separate us. When we first started, we dressed like just about anybody else with the leather and spandex. We said to ourselves, we got this cool name, why don't we incorporate it into our look? We were totally into Excalibur and Road Warrior at the time, so we did it, albeit something that we can look back on with a laugh and a smile. Sometimes we did feel that after a while it became an albatross because people might have thought that the image was the primary concern of the band and it never was. We just wanted it to embellish us. But as far as we were concerned it was always about the music. After a while we shedded it and said, "Enough of this." We didn't want it to become the thing that people thought about the most. People still do to some degree, but whatever, it's not like we're embarrassed about it. We just had fun with it.

SW: A buddy of mine saw Armored Saint play in San Francisco back in the day, and he said you were wearing a vest with a bunch of huge spikes on it. Someone in the crowd swung at you and hit your vest, and all of the spikes fell off. The whole room was cracking up.
JB: [laughs] That's hilarious. I remember playing in San Francisco, we were pretty popular there. It was the beginning of the scene there where Metallica were the hometown heroes.

SW: Who?
JB: Exactly. We got a review in one magazine, and in retrospect we can laugh about it, but they said we looked like the Planet of the Apes - which is actually a compliment because I love the Planet of the Apes. [laughs] But at the time he was saying it in a negative fashion, so we were like, "f**k that!" The breastplate that I actually wore was from The Beastmaster. Like I said, it was something that at the time we thought was cool. Putting on the old leather armor shit that had never dried from the evening before on the tour, especially in the winter, it was freezing, yet wet - it was gross. Eventually we said we were done with it.

SW: What's in your CD player right now?
JB: I'm into the Queens of the Stone Age. They're awesome. I think they're a great band, they're one of the cooler things going on in rock right now. It's cool because it's heavy but there's a lot of melody and awesome vocals. They're just a good band. The sound is poised for a change and it's happening, but I don't know if bands like the Vines are the answer.

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