Blaze Bayley

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Blaze Bayley
Background information
Birth name	Bayley Alexander Cooke
Born	29 May 1963 (1963-05-29) (age 46) Birmingham, England
Genres	Heavy metal Hard rock
Occupations	Singer, Songwriter
Years active	1984-present
Labels	SPV
Associated acts	Blaze Bayley, Wolfsbane, Iron Maiden
Website	Official band website

Blaze Bayley (born Bayley Alexander Cooke^[1], 29 May 1963, Birmingham, England) is an English heavy metal singer and songwriter. He is currently the lead vocalist of his self-titled band, Blaze Bayley, who formed 1999. The band has released 4 studio albums (3 of them under the original band name of simply "Blaze") and 1 live album, their latest being The Man Who Would Not Die. He was also the lead singer of Wolfsbane from 1984 to 1994 and Iron Maiden from 1994 to 1999.

Career

Wolfsbane and Iron Maiden (1984-1999)

Blaze Bayley started his musical career as the lead vocalist of Tamworth heavy metal/hard rock band Wolfsbane, upon their formation in 1984. When Bruce Dickinson departed fellow English heavy metal band Iron Maiden in 1993, Bayley was chosen as his replacement in 1994 after hundreds of auditions. His depature from Wolfsbane lead to their disbandment later on that year. After a bad motorcycle accident caused by losing control and clipping his knee on a catseye in the road, which put him out of action for a year, his first album with Maiden was The X Factor, released in 1995. Bayley went on to tour with the band in support of the album. Still being Iron Maiden's vocalist, the album Virtual XI was released in 1998.

The two Iron Maiden albums released during Bayley's time in the band did not chart as well as that to which the band were accustomed. The X Factor peaked at #8 on the UK Albums Chart and Virtual XI hit only #16, both being the lowest charting Maiden studio albums since Killers was released in 1981, which peaked at #12. Some of this comparative commercial failure could be attributed to fans disliking Blaze's singing style and tours being cut short due to Bayley's frequent sickness.^{[citation needed]}

In February 1999, when Iron Maiden announced that vocalist Bruce Dickinson was returning to the band, Bayley departed by mutual consent, and he remains on good terms with his former bandmates. Iron Maiden occasionally performs songs from the two Maiden albums featuring Bayley until 2003, including "Man on the Edge" and "Futureal", both of which he co-wrote. Likewise, Bayley has performed Iron Maiden songs originally recorded by the Dickinson and Paul Di'Anno led line-ups at some concerts.

In 2007, Wolfsbane reformed for a one-off performance, with Bayley again taking up vocal and frontman duties. They supported The Wildhearts on a short UK tour in December 2007.

Self Titled Band (1999-present)

Following Blaze Bayley's departure from Iron Maiden in 1999, he formed his own band, Blaze, in March that year. Bayley recruited guitarist Steve Wray, guitarist John Slater, bassist Rob Naylor, and drummer Jeff Singer, and signed a deal with German label SPV, releasing the band's debut studio album in 2000, Silicon Messiah. The album was followed up by Tenth Dimension in 2002 and the band's first live album in 2003, As Live As It Gets.

After recording the live album, Jeff Singer announced he was leaving the band. Three months later, Rob Naylor was also leaving. Session drummer Phil Greenhouse and bassist Wayne Banks were hired for the rest of the Tenth Dimension tour until permanent replacements could be found.^{[citation needed]} Guitarist Jason Banks was drafted in for a few gigs at the end of 2003 to cover for John Slater.

At the end of 2003, Blaze began writing material for their third studio album, Blood & Belief. Phil Greenhouse was replaced on drums by Jason Bowld for recording and Dave Knight for touring. The band began to tour for the album shortly after it was released in 2004, but were set back again by the news that John Slater could not perform a large section of the tour. Despite rejoining the band later in the year, Slater eventually left the band in September with Steve Wray to form the band Rise To Addiction. Bassist Wayne Banks and drummer Dave Knight left the band to join the Robin Gibb band in September 2004.

Blaze performed a number of shows in 2004 and 2005 with the lineup of Bayley, guitarist Oliver Palotai, guitarist Luca Princiotta, bassist Nick Douglas, and drummer Daniel Löble. The two guitarists were eventually kept on as full members. The band's lineup shifted once again when Löble quit to join German power metal band Helloween early in 2005 and when Douglas returned to another German heavy metal band, Doro. The two were replaced by unknown German musicians Daniel Schild and Christian Ammann respectively. With the new line up, Blaze began to work on a fourth studio album for a release in 2007, but in January that year it was announced the entire line-up parted ways with Bayley. Following the lineup change, Bayley opted to rename the band under his name, Blaze Bayley.

In February 2007, Blaze Bayley added guitarists Nick Bermudez and Rich Newport, bassist Dave Bermudez, and drummer Rico Banderra to the band and recorded the live DVD album Alive in Poland, released later on that year. Bayley announced that Rich Newport had left the band to pursue a career as a guitar teacher later on that year, and Jay Walsh would replace him onstage for the remainder of the tour. Bayley also announced the addition of drummer Lawrence Paterson, formerly of British metal band Chokehold. In July 2008, Blaze Bayley released their fourth and latest studio album, The Man Who Would Not Die. The album also contained the band's first single, "Robot", despite only being available digitally. It is sometimes regarded as a mini-compilation as it includes many bonus tracks. Recently, the band recorded another DVD live at Z7, The Night That Will Not Die, which was released in March 2009. Blaze Bayley announced that the band started recording for their new album on September 28, 2009. It is scheduled to come out next year. A contest was taken place at the band's forum where the two first people who guessed the title of the new album will receive a free signed copy of it. The title was revealed to be Promise and Terror a few days later.

Singing style

It has been claimed that one of the reasons for Bayley's lukewarm reception from Iron Maiden fans was that he possessed a vocal range lower than either of his predecessors. This made it difficult for him to perform certain songs in the key in which they were originally written and Iron Maiden was used to playing them. "Run to the Hills," one of Iron Maiden's most popular tracks, was omitted from live shows as a result of this. On his albums with Blaze, Bayley's voice was noted for its improvement, which could be due, in part, to having musicians who more closely fit his singing style and the absence of Bayley's former respiratory allergy that caused him trouble during live performances.^{[citation needed]}

Blaze Bayley has a relatively low vocal range and is considered a Bass-Baritone (lower than that of Paul Di'anno). In songs such as "Stare at the Sun", "Sign of The Cross", or "Hallowed Be Thy Name" live, his voice would cover the range from F at the bottom of the bass clef to A above middle C, but only infrequently descends beyond the C below middle C.

Solo band members

Current line up

• Blaze Bayley - vocals (March 1999-present)
• Nick Bermudez - guitar (March 2007-present)
• Jay Walsh - guitar (November 2007-present)
• David Bermudez - bass (March 2007-present)
• Lawrence "Larry" Paterson - drums (November 2007-present)

Former members

• Steve Wray - guitars (March 1999-September 2004)
• John Slater - guitars (March 1999-September 2004)
• Rob Naylor - bass (March 1999-April 2003)
• Jeff Singer - drums (March 1999-January 2003)
• Jason Banks - guitars (October 2003-January 2004)
• Luca Princiotta - guitars (October 2004-January 2007)
• Oliver Palotai - guitars (October 2004-January 2007)
• Rich Newport - guitars (March-November 2007)
• Wayne Banks - bass (April 2003-September 2004) - touring/session musician
• Nick Douglas - bass (October 2004-December 2005) - touring musician
• Christian Ammann - bass (December 2005-January 2007)
• Phil Greenhouse - drums (January-December 2003) - touring musician
• Jason Bowld - drums (January-September 2004) - session musician
• Dave Knight - drums (December 2003-September 2004) touring musician
• Daniel Löble - drums (October 2004-December 2005) - touring musician
• Daniel Schild - drums (December 2005-January 2007)
• Rico Banderra - drums (November 2006-May 2007)

Discography

Wolfsbane

• Live Fast, Die Fast (1989)
• All Hell's Breaking Loose Down at Little Kathy Wilson's Place (1990)
• Down Fall The Good Guys (1991)
• Massive Noise Injection (1993)
• Wolfsbane (1994)
• Lifestyles of the Broke and Obscure (2001)

Iron Maiden

• The X Factor (1995)
• Virtual XI (1998)

Blaze Bayley

Studio albums

• Silicon Messiah (2000)
• Tenth Dimension (2002)
• Blood & Belief (2004)
• The Man Who Would Not Die (2008)
• Promise and Terror (2010)

Live albums

• As Live As It Gets (2003)
• The Night That Will Not Die (2009)

Compilation albums

• Best of (2008, available only through the band's official website)

Singles

• "Robot" (2008, available only through the band's official website)

Note: Promotional videos were released for the Blood and Belief song "Hollow Head" and the Silicon Messiah song "Ghost in the Machine", but these were originally only made available to fan club members. Later on, the video for "Silicon Messiah" was put on to the second disc of a limited edition of Tenth Dimension along with an EPK titled Inside the Tenth Dimension. The video of "Hollow Head" was only made available worldwide in 2007 and can be found on the Alive in Poland DVD under the "Extras" menu. The video of "Robot" was also released in February 2009.

DVDs

• Alive in Poland (2007)
• The Night That Will Not Die (2009)

Guest appearances

• Cerebral Fix - Bastards (1991, Vocals on "Smash it up")
• Armageddon over Wacken Live 2004 (CD, 2005, with Doro)

Audio samples

• "Sign of the Cross" Listen (help·info) - Blaze Bayley singing on the opening track from Iron Maiden's The X Factor album.

Personal

On 14 February 2007, Bayley married Debbie Hartland, his long-time girlfriend, on the island of Gran Canaria.^[2] On 6 July 2008, Hartland suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was hospitalised.^[3] She died on 27 September 2008, after having suffered a stroke two days before.^[4]

References

External links

• Official band website
• Official band MySpace page