British metal vocalist Blaze Bayley was recently Interviewed by Belfast Metal. When asked about state of heavy metal, he said (via Blabbermouth):
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Blaze: “There are no big [new] heavy metal bands. There are million-pound deals anymore. Heavy metal isn’t the most popular music in the world anymore. It’s not like the ’80s, when it was on TV in the daytime. That’s the difference. [But] we do have a core; we’re not disappearing. Heavy metal isn’t disappearing, and it is a genre, and when it’s done well, it is this incredibly powerful thing that really takes you out of yourself, and that’s what I like about it. We are full of clichés and we are full of cheesiness, and I admit that, but what we do, when we do it right, we take these bits of cheesiness, we take these clichés, and we go, ‘Do you know what? We’ll just put that in there,’ and that’s the thing where everybody, they won’t go, ‘Oh, it’s cheesy.’ They’ll go, ‘Oh, I love it!’ We love that, and that’s part of it which I hope will never, ever change from metal.
There’s bits where you get interested. There are some bands that have intelligent lyrics that want to make you think a bit, and there are some bands who are a bit more, ‘It’s all a big party, and that’s what we’re doing, so if you come to see us, it’s party time.’ I think we all have those different parts, and metal is vast in that — rock and metal, and I’m very glad to be a small part of it.”
On not offering meet-and-greet VIP packages:
Blaze: “Every Blaze Bayley show, there is a free meet-and-greet after the show, sometimes before, unless I’m ill or have to catch a plane or something like that, or the promoter messes up, because I think, for me personally, I just want to be able to say the smallest thank you to the people that make it possible for me to live my dream.”