Hello Blaze, thank you for your time for doing this interview. How are you coping with the Lockdown? Staying home and writing new songs?

Well I was supposed to stay at home writing new songs and my “Infinite Entanglement” book anyway! Then the government said: “You have to stay at home and work from home.” I was already doing that! It is really frustrating and irritating to be told, what to do when I was already doing it! It is bad for the exercises though, because I had started again at the gym. I had a program worked out to do, but all of the gyms are closed and that is frustrating! So I started biking again using my mountain bike, which I didn’t use for a long time. That worked out well, but it is frustrating not to be able to go to the shop and be normal. With this distance everyone has to have! At my concerts, that was what I enjoyed the most. I love to be really close to my audience, to touch them, to shake hands. We cannot have that now.

I am really lucky where I live, because I have a back garden so I can go out there! These restrictions must be intensely difficult for people who live in flats and apartments and don’t have yard or a garden.

Like me For example!

My heart really goes out for those people!

As you said you are really close with your fans. I remember an acoustic show in Sofia years ago. After the show, you personally thanked every single one in the audience for coming to the concert. It’s rare to see this nowadays with most of the artists. How important you think this is for the artists and fans?

I do not think it is important at all! I think it is something I want to do! Because I am independent and supported directly by my fans. It is important to me to say “Thank you!” to my fans. However, many artists don’t do meet and greets or they charge for the meet and greet. For me the meet and greet so far had been always free! The only change that I made was, that I started to do the meet and greets before the concert. So after the concert I wouldn’t meet drunk and abusive people! I don’t think that it is important except for me. I want to say “Thank you!” to my fans because they support me individually! When they go to www.blazebayley.net and buy a CD, T-shirt, or when they buy them on the merch, or buy concert tickets. That is what makes it possible for me to live my dream of being a professional heavy metal singer.

Respect to that Blaze! Congratulations on your great new live album! It was filmed and recorded in Brno – Chech Republic! It is a decent ending of even greater trilogy of albums! Nowadays it’s hard for bands to come with 1 decent concept album. You had three in a roll all connected with each other. How did you come with this idea!

When it was, a time to write new studio album, I got together with one of my co-writers Michelle and we started going through ideas. We didn’t have any lyrics, but I had all these notes from the book that I had started - A Science fiction story. So I tried some of my notes with some of the ideas that Michelle came up. Then it was the same when I was writing with Chris Appleton. Soon it was obvious that it would be a concept album. Then we had too many songs to fit on one album. And when I looked at it, I realized it is one story with three parts. The beginning, the Journey and The arrival and redemption. That’s when I could see that it is going to be three albums and I had to say to my manager at that time. Part one will be „Infinite Entanglement“.

A lot of my fans pre-ordered part one. I didn’t know if we would going to sell enough copies of Part I to keep going, or people would like the concept. But the fans pre-ordered the album , I was able to make it with the support of Robannas Studio, my team and great manager. So we said alright, we will make three albums. We didn’t know if we will make album two, but album one went really well and we had our schedule: Three albums, three years, three tours each spring.

And it worked, we were able to do it. This is huge amount of work and the greatest achievement for me. Three albums of that standard in three years. It is impossible but we managed to do it. I’m very proud of what we accomplished with the story and the live album.

I wanted to have a live recording of this set list so the fans that were there on the Eagle Spirit Tour, would have a great memory of that tour. And fans that couldn’t make it, will have something with the energy and feeling of what it was when we were there and performing.

I am very lucky that I have manager that supports my artistic vision. I have a great team of people with me, that are prepared to work very hard. But the thing that makes me more lucky, are my wonderful fans that support me.

What are you planning after this trilogy?

The next release will be “The Tenth Dimension”! It is the anniversary re-release of the album. We will have a special booklet that it is with this limited edition vinyl and CD. We hope there will be a Tenth Dimension Tour in August-September-October. With the Virus restrictions we don’t know if that will go ahead, but we hope for the best. And next year there will be a new studio album!

That’s great! Can you share more info about that?

It will be a new studio album with new songs, that I am working on right now with Chris Appleton! We hope the album to be out on March 2021 and make a tour with it, depending on the restrictions at that time.

That sounds great and I wish you luck! You mentioned Chris Appleton, interesting fact is that, your live and studio band is actually the entire line-up of the band ABSOLVA (or ex Fury-UK). How do you guys mange to write and record together, make tons of good music, and still keep it as two different things?

Well the ABSOLVA band is Chris Appleton, and Luke Appleton. They are the main songwriters in that band, and they have very definite direction for their music. They are best of what they do. When I make music with Chris, it comes from different direction. I say here are the stories I want to tell with my voice! How do we make this music come to live with my lyrics and my voice to give my fans this feeling and the message I’m trying to show them? So we have a different approach, and it’s good to be able to do that!

You joined Iron Maiden in 1994. The times for music and metal in general ware also not the best. Having in mind the Seattle grunge scene and the downfall of metal music in general. In the same time, many emblematic metal bands had a major lineup change. In the same time, you are joining one of the titans in metal as a front man. The stakes were high, and the press and fans were giving you a hard time. How did you felt and cope with this pressure?

The worst part of the whole thing was that the Grunge was so negative in many ways. The lyrics and the attitude were very nihilistic and it wasn’t fun. Even if there was good music, the attitude of grunge was so horrible. The shitty press was so fashion orientated, that they thought grunge would be the next big thing, because in their hearts they were not really “metal”. Whereas the fans in Britain who had metal in their hearts, stayed metal. The same goes for the fans in Bulgaria, Spain, Greece and all around the world. In some places was very tough, not just because of grunge but CD’s were not selling well, because everything was changing to online and Mp3 as iPod was popular. Iron Maiden at that point and most metal bands were selling their music on CD and Vinyl, and it was difficult transition to everybody.

As for me, I was on the job that I have dreamed of. It was wonderful experience. Most fans were very kind and gave me a chance to show what I could do. For some fans it was horrible, because they never wanted Bruce Dickinson to leave Iron Maiden. Therefore, for them it was difficult to accept somebody new. Their favorite singer left their favorite band. And that was a horrible situation for millions of fans around the world. For me it is understandable, that some people would never like me or accept me. Even now, there are still fans of Iron Maiden that hate me and I am OK with that. However, there are a lot of fans of my music and fans of Maiden that really enjoy the work that I do.

Like me. The X factor and Virtual XI for me mark a significant era in Maiden’s history. Because those were the times, I discovered and saw the band live for the first time. Most of the hardcore fans don’t appreciate this era as much as it deserves. Is there anything that you regret about the time you spent being in Iron Maiden? And if there is something that you can change back then what it will be?

I would definitely change my hair. I would definitely take more care of it! After Maiden, I had many problems, so I think if I could go back I would certainly change my hair.

I think was a wonderful time, but most of the time I was stressed and very serious. If I could go back, I would relax more. Because in the end it is about music and the standards are very high. I think as so many things in life, if you can relax and not have stress and tension, you can release your positive energy a lot better. I think I would be a lot more relaxed if I went back because I would know how great the fans were.
We had such a wonderful support from fans. The X Factor and Virtual Xi were very important in some countries. And Iron Maiden actually become bigger in some countries with me as a singer. That was great and there were some countries on The X Factor tour, which Maiden played in for the first time.

There are not much things, which I would change. It was a wonderful time in my life. It was a break for Bruce Dickinson. The band needed this change at that point. It marked the beginning of the progressive era of Iron Maiden

When you joined Maiden there were some tensions in the Wolfsbane camp, but you guys still released an album afterwards. In 2012 Any plans of getting a new Wolfsbane record anytime soon?

It is about finding the time to get everyone, together because we all have different things to do. The horrible thing about the lockdown is that there is more time but you cannot travel or have any social interactions. But yes we have a plan to do one. There is some new music, its about getting together in the old fashion way and finish the songs

You will be visiting Bulgaria again in September for headline show at the Enigma Rock Festival in Dulovo. What should the fans expect from the show! As it seems it will be one of the first events after the lockdown so the fans will be hungry!

I am very excited about it and I really hope it will go ahead. It will be my anniversary set list with songs from the X-Factor and Virtual XI, which I did at festivals. It is a celebration of my joining to Iron Maiden and the wonderful experience of working with Steve Harris and the rest of the guys. Many fans come to me and say; “The last time I saw you live was with Iron Maiden”. They don’t even know that I am alive and making music of my own. I have 11 studio albums of my own and toured since Iron Maiden, but many people do not know about that. So It is a nice way to do both things. To celebrate this wonderful time 25 years ago and to show the people that I’m still making albums and touring. I hope that the fans in Bulgaria will enjoy it and some of them remember the Iron Maiden gig there in 1995. I think it will be a lot of fun to meet people.

It will be great certainly. I will look forward to that. So finally, can I ask you to leave a message to the people that will read this interview and will be looking forward to see you?

It’s me Blaze Bayley! Thank you to all my wonderful fans in Bulgaria for the incredible support that you give me. I am really looking forward to 6 September and I am hoping to meet you all. Until then please stay safe and stay metal!

Official website: https://blazebayley.net/
Online Shop: https://blazebayley.co.uk/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/officialblazebayley/
Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/blazebayleyofficial

Author: Nikola Petras