album: "Balls To Picasso" (1994)

1. Cyclops
2. Hell No
3. Gods Of War
4. 1000 Points Of Light
5. Laughting In The Hiding Bush
6. Change Of Heart
7. Shoot All The Clowns
8. Fire
9. Sacred Cowboys
10. Tears Of The Dragon

album "Balls To Picasso" (1994)

Balls to Picasso is a Hard rock album released in 1994 and is the second effort in Bruce Dickinson's solo career and the first released after he had officially left Iron Maiden.

This record marked the beginning of Dickinson's collaborations with Roy Z, who would work on many of Dickinson's later albums including Accident of Birth, The Chemical Wedding and Tyranny of Souls.

Stylistically it departs from Tattooed Millionaire but is still more traditional-sounding than the follow-up album Skunkworks released in 1996. Later, Dickinson said that he and Roy Z were talked into making the album less heavy than it should have been.

Dickinson started working on his second solo album while still in Iron Maiden. For the very first recording sessions he recruited the british band Skin. Not satisfied with the style of the effort, Dickinson aborted the recording. His next attempt at a second solo album was a collaboration with producer Keith Olsen.

Dickinson decided to scrap this project as well and teamed up with guitarist Roy Z and his band Tribe Of Gypsies to write and record Balls To Picasso. Songs from the previous recording sessions later resurfaced as b-sides on singles from Balls To Picasso and subsequently also as bonus tracks on the album's 2005 extended edition (see below).

In the Bruce Dickinson: Anthology DVD, Dickinson said he regrets not naming the album "Laughing in the Hiding Bush", after one of the songs on the album.

info :

Bruce Dickinson  –  vocals

Studio album by Bruce Dickinson
Released 1994
Genre Heavy metal, hard rock
Label Mercury (US original)
Sanctuary  (US re-release)
Producer Shay Baby

Tribe of Gypsies

• Roy Z     –     Guitar

Birth name : Roy Ramirez

Also known as : Roy Zerimar

Born                : February 1968

Genres         : Heavy metal, hard rock, power metal, latin rock

Occupations : Musician, songwriter, producer

Instruments : Guitar, bass, piano, keyboard, percussion, vocals

Associated acts : Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Warrior, Rob Rock, Tribe of Gypsies, Glenn Hughes

Roy Z is a guitarist, songwriter and producer known for his work with Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Rob Halford and Judas Priest. He also is the founder of Tribe of Gypsies, a hard rock band with Latin influences.

• Eddie Cassillas          –   Bass guitar

• David Ingraham         –   Drums

• Doug Van Booven    – percussion

Additional musicians

• Mario Aguilar ("Shoot all the Clowns")
• Dean Ortega ("Shoot all the Clowns")
• Dickie Fliszar – Drums ("Tears of the Dragon")