More Balls To Picasso and Bruce Dickinson’s birthday cake!

Members of the UK Rock press gathered at the Dolby theatre this afternoon to listen to the newly spruced up ‘More Balls To Picasso’ in glorious surround sound and celebrate Bruce Dickinson’s birthday (he is 67 at midnight tonight).

You only had to listen to a few seconds of the first track ‘Cyclops’ to realise that the record has been enhanced, made heavier with extra instrumentation and all around given more oomph. It’s the perfect combination of old school melodic metal and the modern punching power afforded by new technologies. If only modern metal were pitched at this level, all would be right with the world!

Bruce began by saying he had always wanted ‘Balls To Picasso’ to be heavier. When making the record the dilemma posed was – should it be heavier or more like ‘Tears Of The Dragon’? and in his view it ended up falling between two stools. “Cyclops should have been bone crushingly heavy and the edge got taken off it. The record company were expecting Tattooed Millionaire II and they weren’t going to get that.” But Tattooed Millionaire was a bit of fun written in two weeks and if Bruce had thought about it being the foundation for a long and considered solo career he probably wouldn’t have done it. ‘Balls..’ on the other hand was heavy with dark references and some references to Peter Gabriel and Van Der Graaf Generator. The Producer maintained the view that they should not be too aggressive with the production of the record.

Bruce had had several attempts at ‘Balls’ the first one with Myke Gray was just lacking something, so it was decided the project should be reappraised. He did some work with session musicians, but again it wasn’t right. Only when he discovered Roy and the Tribe of Gypsies did he realise that he should have started it with them and he started all over again and finished the project with a real band rather than hired hands.

There will be Dolby versions of all Bruce’s solo albums, but some benefit more than others from going through this process. ‘Balls To Picasso’ has benefited hugely. While the original vocal and guitar performances are still there, extra harmonised/backing guitars have been added and the drums have been given a lot more “crunch”. They even added some Amazonian tribal rhythms on ‘Gods Of War’, an orchestra on ‘Tears Of The Dragon’, horns on ‘Shoot all The Clowns’ and strings on ‘Change Of Heart’ – the strings on that track have lifted it in Bruce’s view from being melancholy to being a song of victory. Bruce said ‘Sacred Cowboys’ is a monster track which has now been totally beefed up. Asked if ‘Shoot All the Clowns’ reflected his mood when recording the album Bruce said that track never dates, because everyone, indeed society itself always has its clowns.

Bruce said now was a good time to do the update of ‘Balls..’. Now he is safely back with Maiden for good, everyone can judge the record without all the emotional baggage that surrounded the album when it came out because he was just fresh out of Maiden.

Brendan Duffy was brought in originally to do the Dolby version of ‘Mandrake..’, but he ended up doing all the Dolby versions of Bruce’s solo albums. Due to this collaboration there will be a new solo album that will be recorded ‘live’ in January 2026 to be out/toured in 2027. They already have 18 tracks written and done as demos.

Bruce commented he is now very comfortable doing both Maiden and his solo work, Maiden blows the doors off live, but he also has his own identity and songs. Despite the fact that they had now redone ‘Balls..’ he wouldn’t change anything in the past. If he hadn’t done the album the way it was he wouldn’t be here today talking to us about the new version.

The event ended with Bruce receiving a very cool cake with the numbers ‘67’ and an icing effigy of himself in stripey red, white and black pants and emblazoned with the slogan “More Balls To Birthdays!”

There’s no doubt that ‘Balls To Picasso’ is much better in its new form ‘More Balls To Picasso’. Sometimes you may buy re-done albums and think, well that’s not much different. Trust TotalRock and Bruce the differences to this one will smack you between the eyes from the very off.

Dawn Osborne