BLAZE BAYLEY Says Pandemic Concert Industry Shutdown Has Given Him More Time To Work On New Studio Album

British heavy metal vocalist Blaze Bayley, who fronted IRON MAIDEN more than 20 years ago, spoke to the "Brutally Delicious" podcast about the progress of the recording sessions for his new solo LP.

"We had the plan, two years ago, we said, 'Right, this is when we're going to do the next studio album,'" he said (hear audio below). "And in March, I did my last show — I didn't know it was my last show — in London, a sold-out show, my 'X Factor' [25th-]anniversary concert," referring to the 1995 IRON MAIDEN LP he appeared on. "[It was] absolutely fantastic. And since then, it's, 'Oh, this festival is postponed,' 'That gig is postponed.' Well, what happened is, because we were scheduled already to do our album, it meant every time something got postponed or canceled, well, that's another three days we've got for the album, which we didn't think that we would have. Something else has happened — oh, that's another week that we've got that we didn't think we would have. And so we've had a lot more of the time, which you rarely get, and it's this cooking time, where you walk away from the songs, you leave them, you come back a couple of weeks later and go, 'Now, with a fresh perspective, how do I feel? Does it still make sense to me? Or is that riff really only there because it reminds me of something METALLICA did 30 years ago?' And that's it."

Blaze went on to say that he has been writing and recording the new album with the help of his guitarist Chris Appleton.

"It's a weird way of working, because the drummer has to record himself and send the bits," he said. "We have the bass player here in the home studio, socially distanced, and then we've got our work stations, set apart, socially distanced. We've been recording, and we've made what we think is a good album that goes to mastering, and it should be out next March."

In April, Blaze released "Live In Czech", a live album and DVD recorded last fall at the Melodka venue in Brno, Czech Republic. The theme of the tour followed on from Blaze's "Infinite Entanglement" trilogy of albums and the setlist particularly featured some of the more epic songs from the trilogy which hadn't previously been included in concert setlists. The set also contained a selection of songs from his albums with IRON MAIDEN during the 1990s.

Blaze recently reissued his 2002 album "Tenth Dimension" with new packaging and upgraded artwork. There was also a vinyl version for the first time.

Bayley fronted IRON MAIDEN from 1994 until 1999. The two MAIDEN albums he appeared on, "The X Factor" and "Virtual XI", sold considerably less than the band's prior releases and were their lowest-charting titles in the group's home country since 1981's "Killers".

Since leaving IRON MAIDEN in 1999, Bayley has released a number of albums, including three under the moniker BLAZE and six under his own name. He also appeared on 2012's "Wolfsbane Saves The World", the first album of new material by WOLFSBANE since the group's self-titled 1994 effort.