Blaze Bayley, nicknamed 'The Dark Lord', was born as Bayley Cook on 29th May 1963 in Birmingham, but went to school in Tamworth. He started life in a band called 'Childsplay' in 1983. He left the band shortly after hearing about a band called "Wolfsbane" who were desperately seeking a vocalist.
Wolfsbane signed to the Def American label after their two demos (Dancin' Dirty in 1987, and 'Wasted But Dangerous' in 1988) and released 3 albums produced by Rick Rubin: Live Fast, Die Fast (1989), All Hell's Breaking Loose At Little Kathy Wilson's Place (1990) & Down Fall The Good Guys (1991).
Wolfsbane would release a further two records, this time under the "Bronze" label; Massive Voice Injection (live) (1993) & Wolfsbane (1994), the latter being released after Blaze had joined Iron Maiden.
Wolfsbane played in USA and England mostly as a supporting act. In 1990 they supported Iron Maiden. Steve Harris, bass guitarist for Iron Maiden, saw Blaze warming up before the gigs and as he said... "I was truly impressed by the quality of his voice". When Bruce Dickinson left Iron Maiden, the hunt was on for a new front man and out of thousands of audition tapes, Blazes stood out the most.
Wolfsbane, which didn't have another record deal at this time, didn't have a real future anymore, and the other members started to take another musical direction. Blaze went to Steve Harris' and sang a couple of songs. On the second audition, the chemistry was definitely there and Blaze was now vocalist for the greatest British rock band of all time.
Blaze and the rest of Maiden began work on their first album with Blaze fronting , "The X Factor". Before production began, however, Blaze had a close shave after a motorcycle accident and was out of action for some time due to a leg injury.
Maiden released two singles, "Man On The Edge", and "Lord Of The Flies". The band toured extensively, even filming the video for "Man On The Edge" in the Middle East and making two live appearances on Top of the Pops in the UK (the first time for many years). The US leg, however, was cut short as Blaze was taken ill.
In 1996, the band released "Best Of The Beast", a 2 CD compilation album with the best songs of the Beast, including Blaze era songs like "Sign Of The Cross", "Man On The Edge" and "Virus", a song they wrote during the X Factour. After this, a new album came up, "Virtual XI".
The band released their eleventh studio album, "Virtual XI". The album featured three tracks that co-written by Blaze: the opening track, "Futureal"; "When Two Worlds Collide" with Harris and Murray; and the closing track "Como Estais Amigos" with Janick Gers. The band toured well in the UK and Europe, but again had to cancel gigs near the end of the US leg due to continuing health problems on Blaze's part.
Rumours were spreading quickly that there were problems with Blaze. Some saying Steve Harris was not on speaking terms with Blaze and that Blaze was traveling in a separate coach. After the South American tour that was besieged with problems, the rumours were definitely not dying down! In fact some were now saying that Bruce Dickinson was set to rejoin the fold.
The rumours proved true. In February 1999, Maiden announced that Bruce and guitarist Adrian Smith, who had left the band just before the recording of 1990's "No Prayer For The Dying", had rejoined the band. Janick Gers was staying in the band, forming a three-guitar assault with Smith and Murray, but there was no word on what happened to Blaze. The band claimed that they didn't want to comment on the situation until Blaze had released a statement himself.
The statement was a friendly one, saying that he had left the band on good terms and understood that there was nothing more he could do for Maiden but had enjoyed his time there. He set about rebuilding his solo career by asking for audition tapes on the Iron Maiden website as he would not go back to Wolfsbane.
The new bands first release, Silicon Messiah, proves that Blaze has learned a lot since leaving Maiden. Lyrically, the songs are more powerful and capture your imagination more. The guitars and the music in general is a lot more heavy than we've heard from any Blaze album so far. It's classic heavy metal but with a very modern feel to it. It's certainly an album all Maiden fans will like but many will decide not to buy because of the work he did in Maiden and that's sad because it really is a completely different album and they're missing out completely.
Blaze is set for a big tour, promising to tour for as long as possible and to get to as many places as he can until they return to the studio to work on a follow up album.
Blaze, be(a)st wishes and good luck!