BLAZE BAYLEY Says His 'Voice And Confidence Level' Has 'Gone Up So Much' After He Stopped Doing Meet-And-Greets At His Concerts

In a new interview with Dales Rock Interviews and Metalliville-zine online magazine, British heavy metal vocalist Blaze Bayley, who fronted IRON MAIDEN more than 25 years ago, explained his recent announcement that he will stop doing "meet-and-greets and signing" sessions at his solo concerts. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "The first thing is my health, because I've got bigger and more popular, and so it's gone from meeting 30, 40, even 50 fans to a hundred fans each time. So what happens is I can't talk. I can't use my voice, so I can't get into conversations. Especially if we've got two or three, four, five, six gigs in a row, I can't talk, so then I've gotta sign on this 'I can't talk'. Whereas in the old days, I could say hello to everybody and meet them properly. But now I can't talk before the gig. Then it takes so long to do the meet-and-greet, I don't get a chance to warm up before the show and check in, like, is my heart okay? I've got diabetes as well. I didn't put that in the press release. But I've found out, at the time of my heart attack, they tested me. I'm diabetic. I didn't know that before, so I've gotta watch that as well."

Blaze continued: "The thing is, normally I would want 45 minutes to warm up to prepare from nothing to going on stage and singing. Well, I wasn't getting that. I wasn't hardly getting any time to warm up. I wasn't getting the time to warm up. I can't check in with myself. Is my diabetes okay? Is my heart okay? And, of course, I'm much more tired now. It's a normal thing with people who have a quadruple or triple bypass operation, heart surgery. You're just more tired. You don't have the energy levels. So all of that was, 'Okay, this has gotta stop.'

"It was a huge effort to do it," Bayley added. "I loved meeting my fans and [hearing] a lot of the wonderful stories about when they first got into music. And then to see I've given up my warmup time, really put myself out to see that it's been abused by someone with a picture of me signing the thing that's [being sold] on [eBay] for two hundred quid or three hundred quid. That's really wrong. And this is a problem that didn't exist when I started. Hardly anybody did that. So it was all people who were keeping things for their own memorabilia. It's a thing that's happened over the last five years, and a lot more, I think, over the last three years."

Blaze noted that he isn't the only rock or metal artist who has opted out of giving autographs to fans. "[There are a lot of] people that don't sign," he said. "So it's not like, oh, suddenly I am this unusual thing. No, it's more common not to sign. Alice Cooper doesn't sign anything, and he's been around a lot longer than me. He's a much bigger artist than I am. Dave Grohl doesn't sign anything. There's lots of people. Paul McCartney, he's an icon of British music. He doesn't sign anything. So I just thought, 'You know what I'm going to do then? If my signature is so valuable, I'm gonna save it for charity, for the causes that I support.' So you will see signed stuff by me, but you'll see it where all the proceeds go to charity."

Circling back to why he no longer holds meet-and-greets and signing sessions at his solo concerts, Bayley added: "The meet-and-greet was never really free. It was always included. 'Cause it's inside the venue, and you've bought your ticket. So it's been included. So I'm stopping the meet-and-greet. That's it. I'm not going, 'Oh, I'm stopping the free meet-and-greet.' I'm stopping the meet-and-greet, so I can look after my health. And you know what? It's been really difficult, because I miss my fans and meeting my fans, but my performance and my voice and my confidence level has just gone up so much. 'Cause, again, my warmup time, which I haven't had for quite a few years — unless you're on a festival or something, where you don't have a normal meet-and-greet. So, that's it. So, my performance has improved so much because I've got the proper time to warm up, get ready for the show and everything. That's it. So I think it is time. I've been doing it for over 25 years."

Last spring Blaze embarked on a European tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of his first post-MAIDEN release, "Silicon Messiah". On this tour, Blaze played songs from "Silicon Messiah", previously unperformed songs from his most recent album "Circle Of Stone" and classic IRON MAIDEN songs from his era with the band. Blaze gave free meet-and-greets at the merchandise stand before the shows began for all ticket holders.

Bayley fronted IRON MAIDEN from 1994 until 1999. The two MAIDEN albums he appeared on, "The X Factor" and "Virtual XI", sold considerably less than the band's prior releases and were their lowest-charting titles in the group's home country since 1981's "Killers".

Since leaving IRON MAIDEN in 1999, Bayley has released a number of albums, including several under the moniker BLAZE and more than a handful under his own name. He also appeared on 2012's "Wolfsbane Saves The World", the first album of new material by WOLFSBANE since the group's self-titled 1994 effort, and a follow-up LP, 2022's "Genius".

Last year WOLFSBANE released "Live Faster", a full-throttle reinvention of the band's iconic debut, "Live Fast, Die Fast", which was originally produced by Rick Rubin and released on Def American Recordings in 1989.

Bayley's latest solo album, "Circle Of Stone", came out in February 2024.