Blaze Bayley

A summary from the chapter covering this in the Run to the Hills Biography:
1. The band decided that they needed to get a new singer.
2. Rod wanted Bruce back but Steve was not into the idea - Rod had to convince him.
3. Blaze was fired (in january of 1999) before Bruce had officially agreed to rejoin.
4. It is possible that the band would have started to search for a completely new singer if the meeting between with Bruce would not have worked out.

According to Dave Ling, Bruce was considering the idea a month before:
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Blaze said that the rest band walked to the dressing room without him and didn't do an encore at the Rio show in december- so he felt that something was wrong, but no one told him anything.
 
Anyone know of any other relevant sources?
"By the final three dates of the tour, in South America at the end of 1998, Blaze says that he began to notice "an atmosphere kind of developing. There were some funny vibes at the end of the tour. When we got to Brazil, we did what I thought was a great show in Rio, but for some reason we didn't do an encore. I was standing by the side of the stage while the rest of lads went to the dressing room. It all felt a bit...contentious. It didn't feel right."
- Blaze in the Run to the Hills Biography.
 
"the songs that I was working on at the time, the ideas for what I thought would be [my] third Iron Maiden album, I really thought that that would be it, that third album would really show fans that we were serious and that this lineup would work. But I didn't get the chance to make that third album."

Well, he did release Silicon Messiah - and it was damn good. Great, even. But Brave New World was better.
 
Yea, I'm not convinced by that statement. It's the classic "this one wasn't great but we'll prove ourselves next time!" line. Which is really unnecessary to begin with because I thought they did a fine job proving that they could function without Bruce already. Naysayers were going to dismiss it no matter what. Blaze could've turned in his greatest performance on the greatest Maiden album (I know some on this forum would say he did) and he'd still be in the shadow of Bruce for a large portion of the audience.
 
Oh, I agree, but whether Blaze was working on those songs prior to his booting or he wrote them to prove something - Silicon Messiah is amazing. He could certainly make the argument that he was planning on using them for the next Maiden album.
 
Realistically it'd probably be a hybrid of Silicon Messiah and Brave New World which could actually be the greatest Maiden album as long as Nicko shows up and they hire a real producer. Definitely one of the more interesting Maiden "what ifs".
 
It seems like Blaze wrote the lyrics and the vocal melodies (with some help from Andy Sneap) on Silicon Messiah, but that the rest was written by Wray, Slater, Naylor and Singer with Sneap. The ideas he had would therefore have sounded very different if they had ended up on an Maiden album, that's my opinion.

Great album though. Stare At the Sun together with Ghost in the Machine belong to my favourite songs.
 
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I was just gonna ask if Blaze wrote/writes music or just lyrics and/or melodies.
Also, is it possible that some of his musical ideas ended up uncredited on BNW?
 
Also, is it possible that some of his musical ideas ended up uncredited on BNW?
Yes. Blaze has stated that he co-wrote Dream of Mirrors:
7:19.
The interviewer mentions something about a second song too.

In "At the end of the Day - The Story of the Blaze Bayley Band" which was released in 2009, he said that he was paid for his work, but he didn't want to say which material it was back then.

Edit: Here is the last song from the Rio show in 1998 and there is nothing wrong with the audience reaction:
 
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It seems like Blaze wrote the lyrics and the vocal melodies (with some help from Andy Sneap) on Silicon Messiah, but that the rest was written by Wray, Slater, Naylor and Singer with Sneap. The ideas he had would therefore have sounded very different if they had ended up on an Maiden album, that's my opinion.

Great album though. Stare At the Sun together with Ghost in the Machine belong to my favourite songs.

I only got Silicon Messiah (and Infinite Entanglement) last month. My first Blaze solo stuff .... both great :)

Whenever I see the cd cover for Silicon Messiah, I always think of the PC game System Shock from 1999. Someone somewhere was clearly influenced by the artwork!
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I only got Silicon Messiah (and Infinite Entanglement) last month. My first Blaze solo stuff .... both great :)
I recommend you to have a look at As Live As It Gets from 2003, which was recorded during the last couple of shows with the original lineup. The set was a mix between Silicon Messiah and Tenth Dimension with some Maiden, Wolfsbane etc. One of the best live albums I have heard, it has a very powerful sound.
 
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I recommend you to have a look at As Live As It Gets from 2003, which was recorded during the last couple of shows with the original lineup. The set was a mix between Silicon Messiah and Tenth Dimension with some Maiden, Wolfsbane etc. One of the beast live albums I have heard, it has a very powerful sound.
Thanks. I will probably get them all in order from here on in :)
 
@Warhurst Since a few years I think Blaze's best album is his third. Blood and Belief from 2004. Get it and you won't regret it. Same guitar tandem as on previous releases.
 
As Live As It Gets is my favorite Blaze album. One of the best live recordings out there.
 
I think it's just Sneap who produced it that way. He replaced a big percentage of the drum sound with triggers, did some pitch correction on the vocals, propably edited the timing in some places and used lots of compression etc.
Otherwise it's not that far off from this live radio recording if you compare how the band performs:

And also on"The Brave" on that album, Blaze sounds very tired in the second half of the song and his voice cracks a bit, at 2:45. They could easily have fixed that with overdubs if they had wanted to.
 
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Blaze announced tour dates for next year.

FEBRUARY
11TH MT, Gzira, The Orpheum
18TH UK, Ballymena, Diamond Rock
25th (afternoon) UK, Wolverhampton, Vinyl & Vintage (acoustic)
25th UK, Bewdley, Cock & Magpie (acoustic)
MARCH
1st UK, Glasgow, Ivory Blacks
2nd UK, Newcastle, Trillians
3rd UK, Grimsby, Yardbirds Rock Club
4th UK, Manchester, Sound Control
5th UK, Birmingham, Roadhouse
9th UK, Cardiff, Fuel
10th BE, Verviers, Spirit of 66
11th FR, Paris, Le Petit Bain
12th BE, Deinze, Café Elpee
18th FR, Luynes, Le Korigan
22nd ES, Madrid, Club Moby Dick
23rd ES, Lleida, Café Del Teatre
24th ES, Valencia, Sala Fussion
25th ES, Irun, Tunk
26th ES, Zaragoza, King Kong
30th IT, Vercelli, Officine Sonore
31st CH, Saint-Maurice, Manoir Pub
APRIL
1st FR, Nancy (Pagney D - B, Chez Paulette
7th FR, Grenoble, L’Amperage
8th FR, Clermont-Ferrand (Mozac), Salle De L’Arlequin
13th DE, Krefeld, Kulturampe
14th NL, Leiden, Gebr De Nobel
15th DE, Grossefehn, Schlappohr Rockkneipe
16th NL, Helmond, Muziekcafe
20th DE, Hamburg, Bambi Galore
21st DE, Siegen, Vortex
22nd DE, Balingen, Sonnenkeller
23rd DE, Konstanz Rockbar
26th SI, Ljublijana, Orto Bar
27th AT, Vienna, Viper Room
28th SK, Bratislava, Rock Café
29th CZ, Brno, Melodka
30th Czech, Pilsen, Cerokovka
MAY
4th PL, Wroclaw, Liverpool Klub
5th PL, Tychy, Underground
6th PL, Stalowa Wola, Labirynt Club
7th PL, Olsztyn, Nowy Andergrant
9th LT, Kaunas, Klubas Lemmy
10th LV, Riga, Nabaklab
11th EE, Tallinn, The Tapper
12th FI, Helsinki, On The Rocks
13th FI, Mikkeli, Kulttuuritalo Tempo
19th FI, Lappeenranta, Mobar
20th FI, Mantyharju, Bar Krouvi
21st FI, Mantyharju, Bar Krouvi (acoustic)
26th NO, Fosser, Oak Metal Club
27th SE, Falkenberg, Downtown
JULY
27th HU, Budapest, venue to be advised
28th RS, Belgrade, Club Fest
29th BA, Sarajevo, Cinemas Sloga
AUGUST
5th UK, Oxford, Oxrox Alive
 
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