It was a car parts store, it's called Halfords. Here's the story:
Edisson: Now there’s one question I gotta ask, myself and the vice president of the I.M.h.C. both work in the motor trade and we know what it’s like to deal with the public every day especially those annoying customers who seem like they only come in to get on you wick, but you actually worked in the motor trade after iron maiden and had to deal with this as well?
Blaze: That’s right I worked in Halfords, one of my fans was manager in Halfords and mentioned it to me that if ever I needed a job to just call him. I had no gigs coming in, id been dropped by the record label, I had absolutely nothing coming in at all. I had bills and bills piling up. I phoned Jerry, Jerry Flaherty his name is, I said Jerry I’m absolutely stuck is there anything you can do for me, he told me to come in and I didn’t even have to fill in a form, he says how many hours do you want? And I told him I’ll do whatever hours you can give me, I’m so stuck I really needed to get these bills down. He started me part time, letting me do as many hours as I wanted on the condition that I just let him know a week in advance if I needed time off for gigs if they came up. I could have as much time off for the band as I needed. So I started and whatever hours the shop was open I was there. I had to start learning how to make number plates, of course I knew my war around the car since I always had crap cars. But it was great that I could work so hard and then just say right I’m off for 3 weeks to do a tour or I’m off to work in the studio for a couple of days then come back and back into work again to keep me going. It was before me and Debbie got married that I lost my house because I spent so much money on trying to keep the band together, on equipment and recording, SPV hadn’t paid me the money they owed me in the contract so I went broke! Completely broke and because I spent the money before I got it I went completely broke, the bank called in the overdraft, they took my credit card machine off me so my fans couldn’t buy stuff over the internet, they killed me completely so I lost my house. I had to move out of my own house which I still blame SPV for taking. It was around then I was working in Halfords and one day it got on top of me really really bad. That was the day the police came and arrested me.
Edisson: Was it from hitting a customer?
Blaze: Yeah, you see the thing is, when a shop lifter would come in people would turn to me because I’m so confident, I’d just walk over to them and go “Come on fuck out of the shop!” and that would be that. Because of that people got nasty, I got threatened 3 or 4 times, I’m gonna get you, I’m gonna follow you home, of course they never do because there pricks! This day, it all got on top of me, I was losing my house I was the only full time member of my band, I had no record deal, and this bloke came into me and started slagging me off! Now I might be a fucking shop assistant but I’m a human being, I don’t say I’m famous and have been all around the world! I can go to any rock bar in the world and get a drink bought for me but that’s not important, that doesn’t make me special or a good person, what makes me special is the fact I phone up my step mum to see how she is! I take care of my friends, that whoever has the money in my band buys the fucking chips at the end of the night! That’s what’s important! So this prick comes in and starts all this shit. It was at this moment that I realised I had super powers!!!! (Everyone cracks up) Its true because witness’s of the event say I sprang like a cat straight over a five foot counter, it was like I became some x-man, I just grabbed him and BOOM! The bloke was really lucky to be honest because we had a full complement of staff that day and it took five of my mates to drag me off. I had bruises on me for a week from where they were grabbing me to drag me off. While there doing that this bloke says if this carries on I’m phoning the police, “Fucking phone em you’ll be dead when they get here” So he did and they took me down to the station. Debbie came to get me and she just laughed! When she asked what happened I said “I lost my temper!” She said “That’s the last day you ever work a day job, your BLAZE BAYLEY, you’re a singer, that’s it” and it was, that was the last time I ever worked a day job. She made me, she wouldn’t let me get a regular job again, she said no more day jobs, you’re a singer, you just can’t do it you have to get something in your industry. So I couldn’t get people to come over and play with me because I didn’t have any money so I went around and played about 15 shows unplugged and that really gave me my confidence back. Fans loved it and people stuck with me, so it became the start. We started to get a bit of money together, we got together enough to bring David over from Colombia, eventually start writing, we got more so we could organise a drummer who we got in Larry! So that moment which was probably one of the lowest points in my life ended up to be the massive turning point!
