Blaze Bayley (WOLFSBANE): with sincerity and simplicity about metal

 

Metalfan: Hi, Blaze, and welcome to Metalfan.ro! How are you these days, preparing for the holidays, right?
Blaze Bayley: Yes, I’m going on holidays to Slovakia to see some friends and go to a castle over there that I like. I’m doing festivals over the summertime as well...

Metalfan: So it’s a working holiday, haha?
Blaze Bayley: Yes,, haha, this summer in three weeks I’m doing a couple of festivals: Bloodstock Festival with Wolfsbane, and also the Machete Festival in Italy.

Metalfan: That’s great! So... Alive in Poland – again? After 2005, here comes 2013. What’s the special connection between you and Poland?
Blaze Bayley: I have a lot of fans in Poland and when I first joined Iron Maiden and we did the X-Factor tour I had a lot of support from the fans and I really enjoyed it and a lots of Polish fans have stayed with me since the Iron Maiden days. So I really like going there and being treated very well by the Polish fans.

Metalfan: Talking about countries where guys like you... Before the interview we talked to the guys from Trooper – the Romanian band that recorded a song with you, you most likely remember them, haha.
Blaze Bayley: Yes, they’re very nice people, I would love to work with them again, and yes, I remember them in the most pleasant way.  A very nice experience!

Metalfan: People probably ask you about your professional plans. But for a change, at the beginning of the interview, I’d like to ask you more about your holiday plans. What would you like to do apart from singing?
Blaze Bayley: I like a lot to ride my motorcycle – I have an old one, haha, and when I get tired I like to ride that. It’s an old Yamaha V2.

 

Metalfan: How about kids? When you were in Romania, if I’m not mistaken, you had a 4-month old daughter.
Blaze Bayley: She’s two years old now, she’s grown up. It’s very difficult to be away from home...

Metalfan: Is she taking a lot of energy from you, draining you out?
Blaze Bayley: Well, a bit... She’s playing the piano now.

Metalfan: Are you training her to be a future keyboard player, haha?
Blaze Bayley: No, I just want her to be happy, haha. But I think everybody should learn a musical instrument, just for their own sake. It’s very healthy; it’s good for your mental health.

Metalfan: How do you deal with three bands in the same time: Blaze Bayley, Wolfsbane and The Foundry?
Blaze Bayley: Well, we don’t do much with Wolfsbane, because it’s difficult to get all the people together at the same time, we just enjoy it when we can get together, when we have time to. It’s the same with The Foundry, it’s something that I started in Texas with Rick Plester, who did the mastering on my recent albums. And it’s the same – we said that when we have the time to work together, we do it.

Metalfan: About The Foundry my curiosity is: what do you want to express with this band that you haven’t already expressed with your other two groups?
Blaze Bayley: Well, for the moment it’s very new, and that’s the excitement. It’s something new, me and Rick getting some people to enjoy playing music. So we’ll see what happens in the future, it’s too early to tell.

Metalfan: A thing that we like about you is the fact that you’re not afraid to put a lot of very personal stuff into the lyrics. Is this taking energy from you or, on the contrary, it’s giving you more of it? I personally sometimes laugh about what I call “the dragon bands” – people who sing about Lord Of The Rings, faraway lands, fairy tales and so on. Lyrically I think you are the opposite of them – you write about how you live and about your real-life feelings in that particular moment.
Blaze Bayley: Well, it’s true, I write what I feel. So sometimes I write about the various stages in my life, but not only that. I sometimes write about some subjects that impact me and my life, and I always try to make the lyrics as good as I can, I always want them to make sense and tell a story.

Metalfan: The guys in Trooper described you as a very, very professional guy. And very focused, very determined: once you get to work, you are 100 percent there. Is there a playful and more easygoing side of you, haha?
Blaze Bayley: Well, I have friends away from music and I have a lot of fun when I’m writing, a lot of times, and I’m not always serious, cause life is very very short. I do try and connect with my fans and try to live my life and make the most of it, because it could be my last moment. I don’t want to be dead having a crap day, haha.

Metalfan: Our friends also told us they talked a lot with you about the philosophy behind The King of Metal. Namely that the king is the fan: the guy who comes to the concert, buy and CD and a T-shirt eventually. Do you think this still holds these days?
Blaze Bayley: Yes, the fans are the kings of metal, because heavy metal is a different kind of music. The big record companies, when heavy metal was popular in the ‘80s, didn’t realise what it was about. But without the fans, we couldn’t still exist. So I thank all my Romanian fans for all the incredible support they’ve given me all these years, it was great to see everybody at The Silver Church last time and I hope to see the Romanian kings of metal as soon as I can.

Metalfan: King of Metal I get, but why Wolfsbane Save The World? What’s behind this title, is it ironic?
Blaze Bayley: Well, I didn’t come up with that title... But the idea behind it was that somehow after 18 years  [when we re-formed – ed.note] we had to come back because the world was too dark and to miserable and we had to make people happy.

Metalfan: We are approaching the end of your available minutes, so I would like to approach a sensitive, though funny subject. You might remember that when you were here with Iron Maiden you made a slight mistake by saying Budapest instead of Bucharest. Can I appeal to your humorous side to tell me something funny about this confusion?
Blaze Bayley: Hahahaha, yeah, yeah, I remember it, of course! Well, it’s because every night what I try and do is meet somebody local and I try and pronounce the people’s city in the correct way. So I write it down myself phonetically and ask them to put it on stage. And they [probably crew members – ed. note] left the one from the night before on stage [previous concert was in Budapest – ed. note]. So, while I was trying to say Bucharest, I said Budapest. So it’s a big mistake and I’m very sorry for it, but I blame the roadies, because backstage I was trying to learn a tiny bit of Romanian to say “Thank you!” correctly and to say the name of the city correctly. But they put the things that I wrote down on the night before on the monitor!!
 

 

Metalfan: Not to worry, Blaze, really... When you put so much effort into the concerts, it happens.
Blaze Bayley:  Anyway, sorry to all the fans for the mispronunciation.

Metalfan: Ok, now it’s the time to talk about future professional plans. What next?
Blaze Bayley: Now I’m making a new album, it’s a best of containing a lot of the songs from my catalogue after Iron Maiden and it’s very special, as it will include notes, I’m making special notes explaining the lyrics and explaining where my ideas came from and what the current stage was when I was recording. I’m hoping the people will like it, it will be a 28-page booklet and the pre-orders will start in August. I’m also hoping it does well and I will have the opportunity to come to promote it to Romania on tour. It also has two brand new songs on it and I hope the fans will like that, too.

Metalfan: Well, Blaze, thanks a lot, your proved to be the same very nice guy!
Blaze Bayley: Thanks a lot as well, bye-bye!