Country of origin: United Kingdom Location: England Status: Active Formed in: 2007 Genre: Heavy Metal Lyrical themes: Personal struggles, Life, Society, Science fiction Current label: Blaze Bayley Recordings Years active: 1999-2007 (as Blaze), 2007-present Blaze was formed in 1999 by singer Blaze Bayley after his ejection from Iron Maiden. He recruited guitarists Steve Wray and John Slater, bass player Rob Naylor, and drummer Jeff Singer for the debut album Silicon Messiah. After the recording of the second album Tenth Dimension, Singer departed the band. Naylor also left soon afterward. The third studio album, Blood & Belief, was recorded with the help of session players Wayne Banks and Jason Bowlds. After the first leg of the Blood & Belief tour, both guitarists left the band, leaving Bayley to tour with various rotating temporary members. A new official line-up was confirmed on 17th September 2005, consisting of Blaze Bayley, Luca Princiotta, Oliver Palotai, Christian Ammann, and Daniel Schild. In January 2007, however, the rest of the band departed after a dispute with Bayley's new management, leaving him to start from scratch again. From that point on it was also announced that future releases and tours would be under the name Blaze Bayley. Lawrence Paterson published a biography of both Blaze Bayley himself and the Blaze Bayley band called "At the End of the Day". Paterson is already a published author and had previously released several non-fiction books about World War II U-Boats. Paterson left the band in 2010. The rest of the line-up were fired in 2011 so Bayley could continue the band as a solo project with rotating touring musicians. In 2014 Blaze introduced new musicians for this project. They were the Manchester-based band Absolva.