"Bruce had begun those initial writing sessions while still in Iron Maiden alongside producer Keith Olsen, whose credits stretched throughout the hard rock and soft rock bands across a decade or more. While expanding on these at Olsen’s LA studio, Bruce heard another band recording, and was so impressed he actually took the band to Rod Smallwood (who was still acting as Bruce’s manager), who signed them up. Eventually Bruce decided to scrap the project with Keith Olsen, and instead found a collaborating partner by the name of Roy Z, a partnership that was to end up being the most productive of Bruce’s solo career. Roy had his own band called the Tribe of Gypsies – the same band Bruce had heard in those same studios – who became the recording and touring band for Bruce as well. From these fortuitous circumstances, Bruce had started down the path that would eventually lead him back to the top of metal music... though it was to be a circling and more winding path than Bruce perhaps initially imagined".

On this episode we are going to talk about “Balls to Picasso” by Bruce Dickinson, his 2nd studio album released 30 years ago this week, on today’s ‘the misty ghosts of childhood fears’ episode of Music from a Lifetime.