Blaze Bayley is describing in graphic detail what it’s like to have major heart surgery.
“They stop your breathing, they transfer all of that to a machine, then they cut you in half and they replumb you,” he says. “Then they stick a couple of pipes in your chest to drain off all the goo and put you back together.”
The former Iron Maiden frontman has first-hand experience of this. He underwent quadruple bypass surgery after suffering a major heart attack at home in March. “Luckily, I live two minutes from an ambulance station and near four hospitals,” he says. “The paramedics said to my fiancée, ‘If it had been another 10 minutes, I don’t think he would have been here.’ I was very, very lucky.”
The title of Blaze’s 2008 solo album, The Man Who Would Not Die, seems prophetic today, but even back then its defiant title summed up the indefatigable spirit of the man born Bayley Alexander Cooke in Dudley in 1963. His life and career have been marked by epic highs and crushing lows. He was the swashbuckling frontman of Tamworth livewires Wolfsbane, a band whose exhilarating take-no-prisoners approach was mirrored by the name their rabid fanbase gave themselves: the Howling Mad Shitheads. Then came his five-year, two-album stint as the singer with Iron Maiden, carrying the thankless task of replacing Bruce Dickinson on his shoulders. More recently, there have been long periods of professional struggle and personal tragedy, capped with the heart attack that could have killed him.
Many other people would have given up the ghost long ago, but the Blaze Bayley talkingvia Zoom today has lost none of his lust for life. He talks in exclamation marks, his voice frequently rising in volume and excitement as he waves his arms around with more vigour than a man still recovering from major heart surgery should.
