Xero-Oh baby (1983)

On a limited number of the band Xero's first single "Oh baby" there is an extra track called "Lone wolf", featuring Bruce Dickinson on vocals. The story of how that song ended up there is a rather strange one...

In the late Seventies Bruce used to sing in a band called Shots. For a while, a guy called Bill Leisegang was the guitarplayer with them. He then went on to form his own band, Xero. When they were about to release their first single their manager had an idea of how to sell some more copies of the single. If they put out "Lone wolf" as an extra track on a limited edition of it, and put Bruce Dickinson's name on the cover it would be sure to attract more buyers. Bruce and Maiden had just had a big top ten hit with "Run to the hills" so his name was in the spotlight.

Needless to say, the only ones who bought any copies of the single were collectors of Iron Maiden related items. However, at the time, this was the earliest recording of Bruce that had been released. Bruce describes it as a kind of a "portastudio-recording-kind of vibe" and the singing is not one of Bruce's better performances, to put it nicely.

Bill Leisegang then went on to work together with Nina Hagen(!).