Interview: Blaze Bayley (February 2024)

Ahead of the release of Circle of Stone on 23rd February 2024, Hotel Hobbies spent some time with Blaze Bayley discussing his career, his life, his health and the stories behind his latest album. Read a review of Circle of Stone here: https://www.hotelhobbies.com/post/album-review-blaze-bayley-circle-of-stone-2024

Hotel Hobbies: Firstly, and most importantly, how are you and how is your recovery going?

Blaze Bayley: Good, a bit more tiredness but that’s normal. It’s about a year generally speaking, to get your strength back. My voice more or less came back straight away, which was very lucky and I was breathing well. But you're not allowed to lift anything for seven weeks at least. And after that you mustn't lift anything heavy. So that's still building up because they basically cut you in half. So yeah, but apart from that, I'm doing well. All the two updates that we've done in Spain and Ireland have gone well. My solo shows and my Wolfsbane shows, they all went very well. My singing was strong. I think it was more a problem for other people, for the crew and everything. I'm not allowed to lift anything so I couldn't quite share in emptying the van and someone had to carry my bag a lot at the time. So that was an unexpected benefit!

HH: The last year has simply reinforced how determined you are. It is now 40 years since the formation of Wolfsbane. Did you ever think at the time that you would still be releasing new music 40 years later?

BB: No, I didn't think we'd be. I didn't think we'd still be going. It's mad, really, what we've done in that time. We've done a few new albums as well. We had a little bit of a catalogue before, but with the newest album Genius, the four of us agree that as a whole album, it’s probably the strongest thing that we've done. It feels great and we brought out the vinyl in a limited-edition red with a great cover and it's done really, really well for us. We are completely in control and we are independent. We own all the rights to everything and we can do what we want. So, it feels good. I suppose the other side of it is we produce our own records, so Jason Edwards takes on the role of producer. He’s so talented and he's been doing that for a long time and put his own little studio together and he could just get great results. When the four of us are in the room together, which we were for the last album, there's a special kind of chaos. And somehow that comes together to be those songs. It feels good, and we don't overthink things.

HH: You are one of the most likeable characters on the heavy metal scene, giving generously of your time to fans and establishing a connection with them that many artists fail to achieve. You have long had the ethos of every moment of life, singing whether live or in the studio and making the most of every opportunity. Is that what inspires you to keep writing and releasing new music after all this time?

BB: Well, I think the big thing was, when I started my solo career, I thought back to how we started in Wolfsbane. You booked a room. You paid the hire money and you sold your own tickets to your friends and family and stuff like that. And that was your gig. If you wanted to play somewhere else, you put your gear in the van or borrowed somebody's gear and you went and played your gig and you met everybody, because the gigs weren't that big. When I started my solo career, I thought, there was something, really genuine, honest and authentic about that. There's a massive music business and a way of doing things that they like. That's all changing and I thought, what I really want is for it to be real, but also have this satisfaction. I had wonderful times in Iron Maiden with great big gigs and big crowds. The downside of that is you couldn't meet anybody. You couldn't do a signing because there were so many people. It's literally impossible to sign for everybody. One of the things I enjoyed was meeting my fans and also taking on board comments such as, “I really like this” or “I like that thing about you.” That helps you understand your own identity. The perception of me from the point of view of the person that enjoys my music and my singing. And it can be not how I look at myself, so maybe there's an adjustment to make and that's been so useful to me - that's been a real tool. It's kept me going really and constantly pursuing the best song, the best that we can do.

I’m learning to be a producer myself so I can take that next step creatively and engage my listener on the next level. It’s not just, I’ve written this song, I hope you like the melody and hope you like the instrumental part. If I'm mixing this song with my co-producer, Chris Appleton, I'm saying I want you to listen to this. I want to direct the attention of you as a listener. And so, then that adds another level. You're going to be drawn into my spell that I'm casting over those first three or four listens, and then after that you're going to start thinking about what else you can do here. Initially I can get your attention to the place I want it and take you on the journey that I want to. When I started out, certainly, we needed help on production, but it's learning another part of the process. I’ve had to learn and my fans have stuck with me. I'm very, very lucky. And with the new album, Circle of Stone, we've had great compliments about the production, which is very, very satisfying. It's not what we expected because we battle our way through, Chris and myself all the time. Sometimes it's an ordeal to get through because you're both pushing so hard for what you think is the absolute best, and whose version of anything is right. That's up for grabs sometimes, and we compromise and sometimes we argue.

With the Circle of Stone album, and the inclusion of Luke Appleton writing with me on some of the songs as well, there's a whole feeling about it, some kind of mystery, which I don't like to analyse too much. I finished the album on a Friday last March. I agreed the final mix and final master. We can go with that. That's it. That was the Friday. On the Saturday, I had a heart attack. I was in hospital. We were supposed to go on tour on the Monday and we needed to meet that deadline. What's very weird is so many of the lyrics on the Stone album could have been written after my heart attack, but they were written before. That's really spooky.

I proposed to my partner. I tricked her into going to Stonehenge. I told her I was taking her out for her lunch and she said, “It's a long way, isn't it?” I said, “Yes, it's actually Salisbury and it's Stonehenge.” And when I got her to the heel stone, I proposed. John, Chris and I are looking at each other a couple of weeks later thinking about what we should we call the album and I'm looking at a photo of Stonehenge that I bought back on a postcard. We had the song Circle of Stone and we've got a there's hundreds of stone circles around the UK and Europe. I said, “I think it's Circle of Stone.” I think that's the album title and everything seemed to tie up together in a very spooky way.

Side Two of the album is a story about ancestors, a forgotten tribe and the dispossessed. It is about the righteous man having to find the strength and conviction to follow his true path to unite the lost forgotten tribe and go and take back the homeland as his ancestors call to him in dreams. My fiancée has Scottish heritage. Her ancestors fought the English at Bannockburn with Robert the Bruce to keep Scotland free. I didn't even know that when we started the album; I had no clue until afterwards. It’s very, very spooky and mad that all of these things have happened. One of the heaviest songs, but the simplest lyric is on a song called Absence and it says From my chest / My heart is torn. That's exactly what they do in open heart surgery, I had a quadruple bypass. They cut you open. They stop your heart with chemicals. They put you on a machine and they rip out your heart and they plug it all back together. I'm listening to it afterwards and I'm going, how has all this been written before? It really feels like it's after I've had a heart attack. It's very spooky and in some way mysterious and not the least bit, I know it sounds cheesy, magical in a way.

HH: I completely agree. When I read the press release that said the album was complete just before your heart attack, it felt so strange reading the lyrics in tandem with that statement. The first half of the albums is very introspective. You mentioned Absence being heavy but another one that stands out to me is a much quieter one; The Broken Man has a raw honesty that shows through the haunting quality of your voice.

BB: Thank you! I’ve had my ups and downs. I'm not trying to be cool. I'm just trying to do the best work. It’s so apparent when I look back and that's how the lyric came about. Looking back, this is a lot of luck. There's been a lot of support and people that believed in me. When I gave up on myself sometimes and when I thought, well, maybe that's it, people still said no it's not it. You can do it. I had so much support over the years and loyal, loyal fans that bought everything, no matter what. When I asked people to pre-order Infinite Entanglement with nothing, not a song done. It meant asking people to send me the money for something that doesn't exist right now, and people did. They made sure that I was able to record that album, go on that tour with merchandise. I just thought about that when I looked back and that was the start of the lyric. I do think about the person I was and the opportunities that I missed because I was angry, self absorbed, narcissistic or just bloody miserable and selfish. I think about the things I missed out on and the wonderful places that I've been. I was always looking forward, ambitious and not appreciating what was around me. That’s different now, I stopped drinking and I had mental health struggles. I never shy away from that; I talk about it openly in my lyrics too.

COVID is one of the worst things that's happened to humanity but one of the best things about it, at least in the Western world, is people were saying about mental health on the main news programmes, whereas before, mental health was someone who was a nut case. Yeah, well, I'm that nut case. I don't mind saying it. With my job it doesn't matter. People expect an artist to have some kind of mental struggle but everybody is vulnerable and at some point goes through struggles. It’s not the luxury of an artist to be indulged in their mental health. Everybody goes through it. And that was a really good thing. When we did the War Within Me album, I said okay, let's talk about it. This is what's happening. It's a war within me. Everybody has these same decisions to make, right? Am I going to get up and try and accomplish one thing, or am I just going to stay in bed? That's what happened to all of us. When we did War Within Me, we said, you know what? This has to be positive, man. We've got to be so careful. We have to be note for note. Make sure that this is an uplifting. Encouraging. Feeling that we're giving something to people after two years without a Blaze Bayley album. We were meticulous with it and it worked.

When we came to the Stone album, we want people to think that we're moving, trying something. We're moving in a slightly different direction every album, and I think a lot of people say this. It's kind of a reaction to the last album. So this album, the Stone album, has more very simple lyrics. Sometimes I do crazy things with my lyrics, especially on the trilogy. I want this one to be simple so you can identify with it, it's an open thing, and if English isn't your first language, I want the melody and the music to really portray the most it can.

HH: On this album, each song seems perfectly structured. There are some shorter songs and each song is never longer than it needs to be. Thinking of the two opening songs, Mind Reader and Tears In Rain, for example, the listener is drawn straight into the songs.

BB: Thanks for saying that. I wanted the songs to be conversations. I know a few of my fans on first name terms and they come and see me four, five or more times on a tour and we do talk. Sometimes it's like Tears In Rain. It's the story of that character from Blade Runner, Roy, who is so desperate and so perfect. Other ones like Mind Reader, its hey, don’t you feel this too? Isn’t this what’s happening to you as well? There are some people in the world making decisions that keep people in abject poverty. There are people in the world starving to death, while there's enough food for everybody, but that's not our decision. Somebody else made that so we shouldn't carry that guilt. But also, we should try. I think each of us must try to be honest and try do good things for each other.

HH: You deal with a wide variety of human emotions during the first half of the album. Thinking of Rage, what made you decide to use the Welsh folk tale about Prince Llewyn and Gelert and make it into a song?

BB: The challenge I set myself there was I couldn’t say anything that was related to dog or hound. I know it sounds cheesy but I don’t care. When I was in a terrible mental state, my Jack Russell was by my side all of the time. I had suicidal thoughts. Every day that dog was with me. For many of us who are animal lovers, it can be your best friend. Man's best friend. It's a cliche some people think, but it can't be your best friend. I thought about my own anger, losing my temper, things I'm ashamed of. I thought of things that were spoilt because I was angry and short tempered and frustrated. It was all because I was looking at things in the wrong way. When I saw that tale…oh man, how must he have felt? Prince Llewellyn. Someone who will never, ever betray you at all will only stand by you with complete loyalty and you've destroyed that. And it's your own fault! The guilt must have been haunting. That’s where that lyric came from. Gelert's ghost. Not the dog's ghost. Gelert, not a person, but a personality, an entity, a soul for all of us that love animals. So that's where it came from. The guilt that I'm feeling in my own life. Making snap judgements. The things that you regret. Why on earth? What was I thinking? Well, you weren't thinking at all, were you? You weren't thinking, you fool. So that's where it came from. It was a struggle to get that song. We had so many bits that we liked but to get that in an order that made sense was a challenge. Chris said to me, we're getting right to the last half hour of the session, just do something so we've got something there to listen to on the demo. I didn't have any proper lyrics ready. I just picked some lyrics that I'd already got out of the song and just roughly did it in about ten minutes. When we listened back to it, we said that’s it! We can't redo that beginning. I don't know how we did it. Maybe because there was no pressure. Something happened to my voice. It felt bigger.

HH: I think it’s one of the highlights of the album. A really strong story. The second half of the album is a completely interconnected story. Was there a deliberate decision to set out to make a complete story or did that evolve as you were writing the album?

BB: We've got a big white board with lots of shorthand including the title we have. A small artist like me can have vinyl out at the same time as our CD which is a luxury. We had the song Circle of Stone and we thought that should be on Side Two and things started to go together from there. We thought about the album in two parts. We had The Path of the Righteous Man and then it became clear. Ah, the righteous man. He isn't the righteous man. He's someone that's being called in his dreams. He is a selfish, materialistic, shallow person that denies his true path, because that means he has to sacrifice himself for something that is bigger than him but he can't be selfish anymore. He’s pushing that away until its irresistible. He makes that contract with himself and with the ancestors. I've become a righteous man. I’ve become the man who tells the truth, who stands against his own fear and finds the courage somehow to take another step towards that place that I have to go.

To begin with, The Path of the Righteous Man was not on Side Two but looking at it in detail, we thought that's not for side one; it's the story! Then it just started to come together. At the end of the album, we have Until We Meet Again. It's the sorrow of everybody that has to be parted through circumstance. Whether you're in the armed forces, you work on oil rigs or you have any job that takes you away - that pain of being separated. The consolation is that we will meet again. I had that while we were on tour in Germany and things were going really well. It’s such a bittersweet feeling. The show goes really well. The music comes to life. People know the songs, you're meeting everybody, but you have to say goodbye. That concert can't just go on and on and on. It has to end and you have to go to do the next concert. To say goodbye. You don't want to end that experience. I don't. I think a lot of my fans are the same.

HH: Talking of playing live, you have done a lot of albums now across your career. You still play tracks from the Iron Maiden days and you have a substantial number of solo albums. How do you go about choosing a set from having such a vast catalogue?

BB: It's very difficult to choose the set because there are people that only know me for my albums with Maiden. That was just two albums over five years, thirty years ago and I’ve done fourteen albums of my own so it’s challenging. What I've tried to do, on this tour anyway, since my heart attack is to say I’m going make this easy on myself. Pick the songs that I'm just so familiar with that I don't really have to think about what I'm doing. Everything is about my attention on my audience and that's what we've done. We've had a quiet rehearsal. It's just like an acoustic thing. We look at four or five songs that we think that are going to work and then we've had a go at them. We've got a couple of rehearsals coming up and let's hope that we still feel the same. We don’t want too many big changes, but it is a challenge because every song is someone's favourite.

HH: Circle of Stone represents 10 years of working with the same musicians, developing an almost symbiotic relationship. That must make playing live easier.

BB: Exactly. The shorthand that we have cuts out a lot because you just know what is expected and what we expect of each other. Everybody is trying to do their absolute best and produce something musically magical in that show. It doesn't matter what we look like. When these five people are playing together and we're sensing each other, that’s when it's working, so there's just the music. If these songs don't work without lights and all of that or if they don't work acoustically, they don't work for us. It's building on that and my show is very, very simple. It's one vocal, which is me. It's the two guitars, the bass and the drums: everybody playing their part. Sometimes it's complex; sometimes it's simple and powerful. That fits together in a certain way, and when we play that right, it's irresistible.

HH: With the new album, you could play any of the songs live, they all have incredible character.

BB: Thank you. Yeah, it's a challenge. We've been going, oh this one and then oh, what about this one? So everyone in the band, the five of us and the management says what they’d like to play and we’ve already changed it twice. It feels good to have that choice.

See Blaze Bayley on tour throughout 2024: https://www.blazebayley.net/tour.htm