SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
There is also this old Wolfsbane VHS home video that was recently put up. Some cool live and behind the scenes stuff here!
There is also this old Wolfsbane VHS home video that was recently put up. Some cool live and behind the scenes stuff here!
Cat Milk Supreme
Ancient Mariner
I don't doubt your premise but only Blaze can really speak to it's truth and what he says in the press may differ wildly from the reality that only he knows.
But those musicians you mentioned had/have decades under their belt at a high level that many fans appreciate. I can't imagine any one of them being fucked for 3yrs of touring because of a slow start. If they were that susceptible to such things then they wouldn't have lasted so long, I don't think. A good start would have faultered eventually for lesser performers.
And sure Newstead had his bass turned down on Justice and was basically bullied from the get go and yet he still more than held his own live, motherfucker owned that stage at times. Because he was big enough for the job.
Having watched that Wolfbane video I think that the only world in which Blaze succeeds emphatically in Maiden is immediately after Di'Anno or in place of Di'Anno. Wolfsbane Blaze could easily front Early Days Maiden and be adored.
A top lever performer would not be ruined by the roll of the dice, they would transcend it. Maybe a good, quick start in the live arena would have allowed him to grow accordingly, it's entirely possible but I doubt it. If someone is of a level to front Iron Maiden then nothing will prevent them from showing it. Bruce fought nightly with the band leader on his first tour. On his first tour he went against the leader of the biggest band he'd ever been in, surely a man with a reputation already and yet he did his thing regardless of the circumstances and he thrived. That's elite level. And no shame on anyone not being at that level but the levels are clear for me to see all the same.
Or I could have just said "yip, agree to disagree" but where's the fun in that?
Helmuth Von Moltke
Ancient Mariner
Interesting and I agree to many of these points. Especially not being a high level performer (though Jason wasn’t especially high level either in his realm).I don't doubt your premise but only Blaze can really speak to it's truth and what he says in the press may differ wildly from the reality that only he knows.
But those musicians you mentioned had/have decades under their belt at a high level that many fans appreciate. I can't imagine any one of them being fucked for 3yrs of touring because of a slow start. If they were that susceptible to such things then they wouldn't have lasted so long, I don't think. A good start would have faultered eventually for lesser performers.
And sure Newstead had his bass turned down on Justice and was basically bullied from the get go and yet he still more than held his own live, motherfucker owned that stage at times. Because he was big enough for the job.
Having watched that Wolfbane video I think that the only world in which Blaze succeeds emphatically in Maiden is immediately after Di'Anno or in place of Di'Anno. Wolfsbane Blaze could easily front Early Days Maiden and be adored.
A top lever performer would not be ruined by the roll of the dice, they would transcend it. Maybe a good, quick start in the live arena would have allowed him to grow accordingly, it's entirely possible but I doubt it. If someone is of a level to front Iron Maiden then nothing will prevent them from showing it. Bruce fought nightly with the band leader on his first tour. On his first tour he went against the leader of the biggest band he'd ever been in, surely a man with a reputation already and yet he did his thing regardless of the circumstances and he thrived. That's elite level. And no shame on anyone not being at that level but the levels are clear for me to see all the same.
Or I could have just said "yip, agree to disagree" but where's the fun in that?
Blaze of the early 1990s strikes me as an exuberant young man, and Maiden were in a place that neutered a lot of his natural tendencies. Spending over a year making a dark and poorly produced album, with a needlessly long wait to ever perform live. And the catastrophe of the Murray-Bayley global promo tour which
“The pair criss-crossed the globe to talk to journalists in 30 cities about their new music, their first with the new singer.
Bayley later said that he found himself wholly unprepared and completely out of his depth in this situation. The job of showing the world what Maiden was with their new singer, before they had released the album or even performed a concert together, ultimately shut the vocalist down.
By the end of the promo tour, in Japan, Bayley was in tatters.”
They put Blaze through that in mid 1995 rather than debuting him live???
I still stand by my observation: rarely in the field of modern rock and metal has a major band position been filled with a new member who isn’t given a chance to make their live debut for nearly two years!
Seriously, has that even happened before for any major band…?
Final evidence from Janick:
He had so much enthusiasm for the music we were doing. When he was offered the job it was not just about the voice. There were others who could probably have hit Bruce’s parts more accurately, but they didn’t necessarily have the belief that Blaze showed.”
Janick Gers
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Cat Milk Supreme
Ancient Mariner
That does sound shit about the promo tour and I do agree that it was a difficult and unusual start for the chap but Janicks quote kinda cements what I already think. Blaze had the bluster to get the gig but not the moxy to follow it through and even the perfect start would be unlikely to make him a long term frontman for a band like Maiden.
We're 2 sides of the same coin here, I reckon. I agree with your assessment the difficulties of Blaze start, it was a sink or swim scenario and the right kind of character would have swam better than Blaze. Maybe I'm being harsh but that's rock n roll, baby, it's a cut throat business.
Re Newstead, I dunno, I've seen shows where he prowled the stage like he owned it, seemingly more than happy in front of 70k people.
dickinson1978
Ancient Mariner
I saw Newstead in a festival cant remember what. Maybe around 2010 or 2012? And was A BLAST. Like he was a good local band trying to beat the great ones in the festival.
Edit 2013
And a show from that year extended showm and did he play with another band echobrain or something like that. Very heavy.
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Kalata
Out of the Silent Planet
^I guess that was really important to Steve (I understand him about that, it makes a lot of sense from this point of view; every band needs such members), he needed that especially at that time, so that's probably one of the main reasons (probably THE one), along with his different voice, for hiring Blaze. I also remember Steve saying in an interview from 1996 that he thinks Blaze understands Maiden better than Bruce.
Good call.
CA Bryers
Ancient Mariner
That, I think is the key here. I think the days of Blaze being brutally honest the way he was when interviewed for the At the End of the Day book are probably over. I've listened to many, many recent interviews, and his answers are largely canned answers: he was treated well by Maiden, he holds no ill-will, it was record label reunion fever that forced his firing, etc. At this stage, I can't really say I blame him. There's nothing to gain by rocking the Maiden boat, and plenty to lose, like appearances at future EddFests if they become a thing, and so on.
I was gearing up for a while to write a book specifically on Maiden in the '90s and thought I'd have a good shot at getting a lengthy interview out of him. Wrote up loads of questions, some softball, some a little more uncomfortable. Then I started looking into the process of getting a publisher behind an unofficial biography. I wanted a publisher behind me instead of my usual self-publishing thing because I figured they'd be better versed in what I could safely write, interview excerpts I could use, etc., just to cover my butt legally. Then I found out the hoops a lot of these publishers make you jump through, journalistic credential requirements, social media following, blah blah blah. Threw in the towel figuring it wasn't worth it, though it would've been a great passion project.
In the end, I kind of doubt I'd have gotten a lot out of him beyond what's been said so far. What was done to set him up for failure or if it was his own self-confidence that shot himself in the foot when it came to being up for the job, we'll probably never know at this point. Or at least that's what I tell myself, hehe.
Cat Milk Supreme
Ancient Mariner
Yah, I think you're right about rockin the Maiden boat.
Good book idea but yeah, sounds like a shit show