Yeah, I think his best singing was in the BLAZE and the early Blaze Bayley years. While his singing is more comfortable and sustainable for him nowadays when he's dropping the key, something is lost.
The BLAZE years were a revelation for how he could sound on a record with a top-notch producer. On
TXF and
VXI, he's given few favors when it comes to dressing up his performance the way Andy Sneap was able to, which gave a good-but-limited singer an aura of power. On the Maiden records--though he sounded better and more confident on
VXI, his voice was left pretty bare and exposed. I was skeptical of how things would turn out when he announced his solo career, even though I loved his Maiden records. It just looked like a bad situation that couldn't turn out well. But those first three, he just sounded completely worthy of commanding a solo record, and a lot was down to the production (and vocal layering).
Nowadays he do it for fun i think.
With the financial struggles he's had over the 20+ years he's had since leaving Maiden, I imagine he still has to work unless he's been smart enough to pack some money away. That said, it's hard to imagine he was making enough post the early 2010s when he said he was broke to do that. Probably an apples and oranges comparison, but Devin Townsend said a while back he made about $60,000 a year as a solo artist after expenses. With Devin's crowds vs Blaze's crowds, I imagine Blaze is doing well enough to get by and have a little fun money.
The strange thing about how it's worked for him is that it took him until he was almost in his sixties before show attendance really turned around. Even in the BLAZE days, there were stories from others in the band that there might be 25 people there to see the show. Just listened to an interview where Blaze himself said he had 7 show up one night. Nowadays, he's regularly selling out clubs, which is great and I'm happy for him. I hope he gets an additional boost with the Eddfest visibility.
{EDITED to add a few more thoughts in first paragraph}
