Balls to Picasso (1994)

	Tracks Cyclops Hell no Gods of war 1000 points of light Laughing in the hiding bush Change of heart Shoot all the clowns Fire Sacred cowboys Tears of the dragon
Recording info Recorded at Metropolis Studio, London Produced by Shay Baby B-sides produced by Chris Tsangarides or Keith Olsen	Lineup Bruce Dickinson - Vocals Roy Z - Guitars Eddie Casillas - Bass Dave Ingraham - Drums Doug Van Booven - Percussion

Singles (releasedate, top chart position)

Tears of the Dragon (28/5-94) No.28 (2 weeks)

Shoot all the Clowns (8/10-94) No.37 (2 weeks)

Promo videos
Tears of the dragon, Shoot all the clowns

Before leaving Maiden in 1993 Bruce had started to work on a second solo album. The musicians he used in the studio were the members of the band Skin (who eventually supported him on the Balls to Picasso-tour in Europe). As he got to the end of the recordings he felt that the music was not what he wanted to do. He realised he was going on autopilot as the material just was the ordinary average hardrock he had made the last years in Maiden, and he also wanted to experiment a bit more with his voice. So when a whole albums worth of songs were recorded he decided to, instead of releasing this album, record another one.

Mercury promo poster for "Balls to Picasso"

This time Bruce called in producer Keith Olsen whom he had got to know when he did the remix of the Maiden-track "Wasting love" from their 1992 "Fear of the dark"-album. The material took a 180 turn and has been compared to Peter Gabriel's stuff. The songs are very synthesiser-orientated and show a different side of "the air-raid-siren". Myke Gray from Skin was brought over to play guitar on some of the tracks and the rest of the instruments were played by session-musicians. The bassplayer and keyboardist from the band Saga helped him out on a lot of programming, since the album was put together pretty much on computer.

During the Keith Olsen session he had met guitarist Roy Z who had introduced him to his band, The tribe of Gypsies. Bruce and Roy wrote some songs together and they turned out so well that Bruce wanted to add them to the Keith Olsen-record. But instead of getting an album with two totally different mucical styles on it, he made the artistic desicion to scrap the whole Keith Olsen-project and started all over again, recording a third album together with Roy Z and The Tribe of Gypsies at the Metropolis studio in London. One song, "Tears of the dragon", was kept from the previous session and that's probably why it has Dickie Fliszar (from Skin (who played drums on the "Tattooed Millionaire" tour in 1990)) on drums. On the rest of the album Bruce is backed by the Tribe of Gypsies which then were guitarist Roy Z, drummer Dave Ingraham, bassist Eddie Casillas and percussionist Doug van Booven.

The recording was produced by Shay Baby.

Interviews with Keith Olsen and Shay Baby on the topic of the recordings f this album can be found at Bruce Dickinson and then some page.

Click here for the lyrics

A 1994 promo shot for the American market.

Promo pic most likely from 1995.