Wikipedia Entry on Blaze (Does Blaze work in Halfords?)

Hi guys, was perusing that well known bastion of trivial errors wikipedia this morning (wehn I should have been working!) and decided to look up our old friend Blaze Bayely.  Interestingly it had this to say about him:

'In February 1999, when Iron Maiden announced that vocalist Bruce Dickinson was returning to the band, Bayley departed. The following year, Bayley released his first album with his new band, called Blaze Bayley. With this band he has so far created three studio albums, Silicon Messiah (2000), Tenth Dimension (2002), and Blood & Belief (2004), and one live album, As Live as It Gets (2003). During this time, and to fund his ongoing musical endeavours, Blaze held down a 'proper' job working at a well-known UK car accessories retailer.'

Does anyone know anything about this?  On the one habd it wouldn't really surprise me as Blaze has seemed to slip from the up-and-coming (Wolfsbane), to the hitting the big time (Maiden of course), to the tough break kid but you can still do good (first two solo albums), to the bordering on Paul Dianno desperation of recent times.  Admittedly I've only been a casual observer of him as of late, but it seems everytime I read about him he's slipiing from a record company, manager, band mates or cancelling gigs.  It would seem the future does not look bright, so it would not be the biggest shock in the world to see Blaze selling alloy wheels to 17 year old mk3 Golf owners in Halfords.

On the other hand, sureley the royalties from the two Maiden records he made should keep him financially sound.  I know X-Factor and Virtual XI didn;t and don;t sell as well as the Bruce era stuff, but Man on the Edge, which he had a writing credit for charted in the UK top ten etc.  He must make some cash from all of that?

Do you guys know anything about any of this?
 
I don't think that the royalties (especially now, 10+ years since TXF and VXI were released) are bringing a lot of money to him.

But, since he gave up on having "professional" managers and let his wife do that work, the band's been very busy, just look at the tourdates on the official page, I believe he'll play more than a 100 shows this year, that's what brings the most money to any musician or band, not the album royalties.

I also believe that it was Bruce who said in an interview that even the guys from Maiden (excluding Steve Harris who owns most of the rights to merchandise and other stuff) wouldn't be able to retire just from the royalties.
 
So this means, even for a band which sells as many records as Maiden, the income from touring is still the main one? Anyway, for such a great live band as Maiden, it is well deserved ...
 
I think the Maiden boys are all fairly sound finance wise, I seem to remember in the early 2000's  reading the had floated the trademark and properties of Iron Maiden on the stock market which had made them all a few million overnight sort of thing.

Blaze however, probably won't gain that much from royalties, plus being mostly independant these days, I can;t see him making a fortune from touring or album sales as he will have to cover most of his own overheads.  Which brings me back to the above wikipedia claim, is Blaze working in Halfords to supplement his income?
 
We see him authoritative a affluence from touring or anthology sales as he will accept to awning a lot of of his own overheads.



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Pooh18 said:
We see him authoritative a affluence from touring or anthology sales as he will accept to awning a lot of of his own overheads.



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Quite.
 
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