Life as a rock star is at best a precipitous one, todays shining light
is tomorrows long forgotten history. A couple of years ago I set out on
a quest, for no better reason than I could. My mission was to track
down as many of my music favorites from the 70’s and 80’s as I could,
and find out what they were doing today. I had taken a hiatus from the
music world for about two decades so my knowledge was limited. What
started as a harmless internet search turned into a huge series of
reviews and interviews. A surprising amount of superstars from the 70’s
and 80’s are still actively performing. Many with grueling schedules,
playing between 150-250 gigs a year!
Gone are the 50,000 seat
arenas, in are the smaller more intimate venues. Gone are the private
jets, in are coach seats on cheap airlines. Gone are the extravagant 5
star lifestyles, in are Motel 6 and Travelodge.
Blaze Bayley for
the latter half of the 1990’s was at the very pinnacle of his career,
if you were a Metal fan, Blaze was The Man! Iron Maiden were the band
that led the Metal pack. Music fans though are fickle creatures, genres
of music rise and fall almost with the regularity of the tides. There
are some that ascribe Iron Maidens lack of album success in the late
90’s to bringing Blaze Bayley in as vocalist. I actually call BS on
that one. Just as punk had ousted the glam prog rock superbands in the
late 70’s, Metal was feeling the heat from other genres in the late
90’s.
Lawrence ‘Larry’ Paterson has done an absolutely wonderful
job in assembling At The End Of The Day. Yes it details Blaze Bayley’s
career, but it also does much more. Often a biography consists of a
life viewed through a single lens. Larry does not do that, he writes
through the eyes of various different people. As the saying goes, there
are three versions of every story, yours, mine, and the truth, which
lays somewhere in the middle.
At The End Of The Day follows
Blaze Bayley through is various incarnations. Without doubt the
significant springboard to success was Wolfsbane, although they
achieved great critical acclaim, and a hugely loyal fan base, they
could not seem to be able to claw their way to the upper echelon of the
metal market.
The big break came when Iron Maiden asked him to
audition. In many ways this was a double edged sword. It caused
Wolfsbane to implode like a super nova, and acrimonious statements
rattled around the music world. Why hadn’t Blaze had the courtesy to
tell his band mates, plans could have been made? The answer to that was
simple, Blaze had been tied up in a Non Disclosure Agreement by Iron
Maiden. One whiff of what was going on hits the press, and Blaze Bayley
is on the outs!
In 1999 Blaze once again found himself on the
outs. But Blaze does not give up easy. The band BLAZE hits the scene,
and is blazing its way to success. As Larry Paterson details, Blaze
Bayley made some major mistakes. After splitting with Iron Maiden he
opted to stay with the same management group. At the time it seemed to
make sense from a credibility standpoint, but it was a serious error in
judgment. One that would cost him dearly.
A much anticipated
album was mysteriously delayed, then released mere days before a new
Iron Maiden album hit the streets. As Larry Paterson so correctly
points out, the consumers of Metal are not generally rich folks, with
limited cash for CD’s, what are they going to buy?
I read this
part of the book in shock and horror. At best this was incredibly bad
marketing, and at worst, something much more sinister. Would a label
try to sabotage an artist?
Blaze Bayley has certainly had his
ups and downs, he went through a period of deep depression, he lost his
manager and love of his life to a brain aneurysm. Booze became a
dominant factor, but he has battled his demons, and now is back on
track.
With a new live double CD and a DVD (reviews coming very soon) he is BAAAACK! Watch out for Blaze Bayley!
I
may have painted a rather grim picture, I certainly do not want you to
think that At The End Of The Day is a sad read because it is not. It
for the most part is hugely entertaining and amusing. Larry Peterson
goes to some lengths to vilify the no frills airline Ryan Air. This
airline operates in Europe and is the equivalent of the US based
Southwest company. As Larry so aptly puts it, Darwin would be proud, it
is a case of survival of the fittest!
I also found much humor in
the references to Newcastle, a city in the North East of England. It is
the city of my birth, though you would never guess it from my accent.
As Larry points out people from Newcastle do not have an accent, they
have their own language! That I can attest to! They are known as
Geordies, and they do have the strangest dialect. How can we be
speaking English when someone says ‘They Are Gannin Yam’? In my
unofficial Geordie/English dictionary it loosely translates to ‘they
are going home’. Go figure!
There are also some fabulous tales
of ‘derring do’ while on the road, although I have never traveled with
Blaze or Larry, I suspect that we are kindred spirits. Destined to meet
one day in a hotel bar!
At The End Of The Day also paints a rich
picture of where Metal is today in Europe, and that I found very
illuminating, it adds proof to what I have been thinking for quite some
time. Blaze is mostly definitely an English ‘Bloke’. But England is not
where the real action is. Both Metal and Prog have found new homes. It
was with amusement that I read about the band heading for Katowice,
Poland, I even had a theory as to why they may have been playing there,
several chapters later my theory was confirmed. Katowice is the
European mecca for Metal and Prog, also the home of Metal Minds
Productions.
The initial printing of At The End Of The Day is
only 500 copies, and I have one of them! So you had better get your
orders in quick (because you can not have mine).
Review by Simon Barrett
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