BLAZE BAYLEY: 'We Have Done Everything On Our Own Terms'

Mark Wrigley of OneMetal.com recently conducted an interview with U.K. heavy metal vocalist Blaze Bayley (IRON MAIDEN, WOLFSBANE). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

OneMetal.com: We won't mention any other bands you may have been associated with… anyway, you are where you are. Looking back would you have done anything differently?

Blaze: Oooh, well, I mean, I wouldn't do anything differently to what I am doing right now, because I feel we have something really special. We kind of got our groove together with "The Man Who Would Not Die" with this lineup and now we have just taken a small break from the recording of the next album to do this and another couple of shows. There's certainly a real identity to our sound and a real strong chemistry between the people in the band, and I think that comes through. Hopefully people will see that when they hear the next album in February, "Promise And Terror".

I wouldn't really change anything. We have our WOLFSBANE reunions every couple of years and its great that it's still the original line up, that's a lot of fun and that's why we do it really.

A lot of the time in WOLFSBANE we ended up making ugly compromises with the record label and getting shafted by this that and the other, and the timing was never right… we never played abroad enough. So we just do it now for a laugh and a giggle, and to remember the good times. It's a lot of fun to do that but what I am really doing is getting my own band together, and the BLAZE BAYLEY band is something where we all share in the creativity and the triumphs and disasters.

We have played all over. We started the tour in January in Brazil and then gone all over. We have done a live album and our own DVD . We have done everything on our own terms and nobody outside our little organization has any say at all in that process. That's a really great situation to be in. The only other time I was in a situation like that was when I was in IRON MAIDEN. They fought tooth and nail so that no one within EMI could have any say in the artwork, the albums or the music. So when I got to a situation where I could put my own band together and get a new lineup I thought, well, that's the way I am going to do it. Everything on my own terms, and that's what we do as a band. It's a lot of sacrifice and effort, but it's really satisfying and it gives you a real edge over some of the bands that don't have that control.

OneMetal.com: "The Man Who Would Not Die", is that self fulfilling, because after the MAIDEN stint you dipped off the radar somewhat. Was the "Man Who Would Not Die" you saying here I am and I'm coming back?

Blaze: Yeah, I agree, and for the most part it's not through any fault of my own. I mean, I have had plenty of problems. The fact that I got "Silicon Messiah" album together and ready to release with artwork done and dusted to come out in January or February, and then through whatever reason it came out in the same week as [IRON MAIDEN's] "Brave New World"… I never recovered from that. The same thing happened to me with "Tenth Dimension". The next album I did I thought I would get this ready for February, you know there's no conflict with an IRON MAIDEN release, there's no conflict with anything else. But the management I had at the time said no, they wanted it for July, so I missed all the festivals that year, rushed things through, and when I did deliver it on time, on the budget, they said they're not going to put it out now until later on. I was stuffed twice, and I could never recover from that. So when we got this band together we were not going to listen to anybody else. We will decide when we do things…

Read the entire interview from OneMetal.com