Bruce Dickinson Fiddled With ‘Balls To Picasso’, ‘Revisited’ Edition Coming July

Back before he rejoined the iconic heavy metal band Iron Maiden, vocalist, pilot, and cannabis hater Bruce Dickinson was busy with his solo career. Having released Tattooed Millionaire in 1990 while the band was taking a break, he returned to his solo work and released his follow up Balls to Picasso in 1994. And while it wasn’t necessarily a critical hit, it’s obviously something very near to his heart, as he announced earlier today that he’s decided to revisit the release.

Apparently, the album as it stands today “never quite captured Dickinson’s original vision which was even more expansive in scope and ambition.” With that in mind, having released The Mandrake Project last year, he’s decided to re-record some bits and both remaster and remix the album, now creatively calling it More Balls to Picasso.

Set for release on July 25, More Balls to Picasso is being described as a “fresh and contemporary release; a roaringly full-throttle and ambitious collection of supremely crafted and realized songs.” Speaking of the project, Dickinson said he’d wanted to give the album this treatment for a while.

“While mixing all my catalogue into Dolby Atmos, I had a nagging desire to revisit and reinvent the record. So putting more balls into Balls… was a labour of love. Of course, we beefed up the guitars – courtesy of our ‘Swedish shredder’ Philip Naslund and we added some really beautiful work by Adassi Addasi on ‘Tears…’ as well. Fellow Brazilian composer Antonio Teoli added some stunning orchestral arrangements, and in a unique contribution, added indigenous instruments from the Amazon (recorded by himself when he lived there!) at the beginning of ‘Gods Of War’.

“‘Shoot All The Clowns’ gets the benefit of a horn section fronted by the Berklee College of Music, and all of the record gets the benefit of the mix by Brendan Duffey, (who worked on The Mandrake Project), with notes along the way from Shay Baby, the original father of the album.”

Admittedly, it sounds like a pretty ambitious undertaking — but I wouldn’t dream of expecting Dickinson to half ass something.

In addition to the original set of songs found on Balls to Picasso, this new version will include unreleased, live-in-the-studio version of “Gods of War” and “Shoot All the Clowns.” You can hear that new version of the former below.

More Balls to Picasso will be available on July 25, but you can preorder your copy today. You can also catch him live at his first solo U.S. tour in 30 years. The list of dates can be found below.

Bruce Dickinson tour dates

8/22 Anaheim, CA House of Blues [Tickets]
8/23 Las Vegas, NV House of Blues [Tickets]
8/25 Phoenix, AZ Marquee Theatre [Tickets]
8/26 Albuquerque, NM Revel [Tickets]
8/28 Houston, TX House of Blues [Tickets]
8/29 Dallas, TX House of Blues [Tickets]
8/31 Pryor, OK Rocklahoma [Tickets]
9/2 New Orleans, LA House of Blues [Tickets]
9/4 Fort Lauderdale, FL Revolution [Tickets]
9/7 Sao Paulo, Brazil The Town [Tickets]
9/10 Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Paramount [Tickets]
9/11 Boston, MA House of Blues [Tickets]
9/13 Pittsburgh, PA Stage AE [Tickets]
9/14 Silver Spring, MD Fillmore Silver Spring [Tickets]
9/16 Toronto, ON HISTORY [Tickets]
9/18 Montreal, QC MTELUS [Tickets]
9/21 Louisville, KY Louder Than Life [Tickets]
9/23 Philadelphia, PA The Fillmore [Tickets]
9/25 Detroit, MI The Fillmore [Tickets]
9/27 Chicago, IL Riviera Theatre [Tickets]
9/28 Minneapolis, MN Uptown [Tickets]
9/30 Denver, CO Summit Music Hall [Tickets]
10/3 Sacramento, CA Aftershock [Tickets]
10/5 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern [Tickets]

The post Bruce Dickinson Fiddled With ‘Balls To Picasso’, ‘Revisited’ Edition Coming July appeared first on MetalSucks.