Now we must go back to Bruce's history from the point in which we stopped: the moment when Bruce quit Maiden, that is, August 28, 1993. However, that is not precisely the point where Bruce's solo career began.
The first solo album Bruce has recorded is "Tattooed Millionaire," which was recorded when Bruce was still in Maiden. The album was released in 1990, the same year in which Iron Maiden released the album "No Prayer For The Dying," which turned out to be one of the last two studio albums Bruce recorded with Maiden.
The "Tattooed Millionaire" band line-up was:
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Do any of you recognize the guitar player above? Is he something like this?
Is he the guitar player who recorded "No Prayer For The Dying"? Is he the one who replaced Adrian Smith in Maiden? Yes! At the same time Janick Gers recorded with Bruce, he was replacing Adrian in Maiden. Janick was a friend of Bruce's so he was indicated to Maiden by Bruce himself.
Let's give a more complete background to the musicians who played with Bruce in "Tattooed..."
Janick Gers had played in a band called White Spirit from mid 1975 to June 1981. Then he played with Ian Gillan (Deep Purple) in his solo career up to December 82, when Gillan joined Black Sabbath. On January 1985, he joined former Maiden singer Paul Di'Anno in his solo band. On June 1985 Di'Anno formed another band, Gogmagog, then on January 1990 Janick finally joined Maiden and is still playing in this band nowadays.
Andy Carr was from a band called 3 Rivers and I don't have any other information on him, as well as I only know that Fabio Del Rio played in a band called Jagged Edge.
Bruce quit Maiden in 1993, and released a solo album in 1994, "Balls To Picasso."
Band line-up:
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There are some other musicians that participated in the album: Mario Aguilar, Dean Ortega and Dickie Fliszar. The latter was a drumer in a band called Skin and had played with Bruce during the "Tattooed Millionaire" tour. The first two musicians, Mario and Dean played in the band called Tribe of Gypsies, and their bandmates were Roy, Eddie, David and Doug.
Actually, "Balls to Picasso" was recorded three times. The first was recorded with the musicians from Skin (Myke Gray-guitar, Neville MacDonald-guitar, Andy Robbins-bass and Dickie Flitzar-drums) and the second was recorded with a band called Saga and then the final version of the album, with Tribe of Gypsies.
The musicians who played the Balls to Picasso tour were, however, different from the ones who had recorded the album. In 1995 a live album recorded during this tour was released, called "Alive in Studio A." The guys who recorded this album were the ones who recorded Bruce's next album, "Skunkworks" (released 1996). An important (???) detail is that for this album Bruce cut his long hair... Check the band line-up:
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Alex Dickson's first band was Midnight Blue. Then he joined a Scottish band called Gun. Chris Dale had played in many Welsh punk bands before joining Atom Seed in 1989. Chris joined Alessandro Elena to work on an American rap project, Machine.
As Bruce's musical ideas after "Skunkworks" tour were different from the others', - Bruce wanted to do a heavier album while the guys were more into pop stuff - they decided that each one should follow its own way. Thus Alex, Chris and Alessandro formed Fling.
Then Bruce went on to do what he really wanted to - a much heavier album than the ones he had done in his solo career so far. He cut his hair even more and got back the Tribe of Gypsies to play with, but there were some differences... Check it out:
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Well, we've already talked about the members of Tribe of Gypsies... But what about this Mr. Smith? That's a long story... He played with his later Maiden bandmate David Murray in a band called Evil Ways from 1972 to 1974. Then he joined another band, Urchin, in which he played up to the spring of 1980, when the band split up. Then he joined Broadway Brats in mid 1980 and played there up to October 1980, when he joined Iron Maiden. Released six studio albums and quit on January 1990, being replaced by Janick Gers as we've seen above. He played in bands like ASAP, Untouchables and Skeleton Crew, then in 1995 he formed Psycho Motel, band in which he still plays and with which he released two albums up to now.
This same line-up released "Accident Of Birth" in 1997 and played a worldwide tour. In 1998 they recorded another album, "The Chemical Wedding," which was released in September. The tour for this album goes up to April/May 1999.
Now we can say that Bruce's career is really like a cycle - he's back to Maiden! He says he's not gonna leave his solo career but we all know that he's not gonna have the time to dedicate himself to it as he did before. Let's wait and see.
© 1999 Carina Lucindo