Dubai group works with Iron Maiden front man

Vin Sinners are living out every heavy metal band’s dream. The UAE-based group, formed in 2010, will have none other than former Iron Maiden front man Blaze Baley on their upcoming album.

It might seem an unlikely collaboration, but Baley is no stranger to Dubai’s underground music scene. Before making waves with Iron Maiden, the vocalist fronted Wolfsbane, a group who, believe it or not, got their first gig as a house band in a hotel in the city.

“I love it when I can be part of a project run by a hard-working band,” said Baley of the collaboration.

tabloid! spoke to Vin Sinners’ front man Vin Nair about the experience so far.

How did Blaze get involved in the album?

Well, I spoke to my friend Rodi who runs Metal Asylum, one of the event companies that promote local music over here in Dubai, about possible collaborations and he had done a show with Blaze in May, 2013, and suggested we check if he [Blaze] was available. We did and Blaze seemed very interested and it went from there.

Why is this exciting for you?

Blaze was frontman of what is one of the world’s greatest heavy metal bands, Iron Maiden, and many of us have followed his career even after. I remember travelling all the way from Chennai to Bangalore [India] to buy the new Iron Maiden record he debuted on called X Factor back in 1996, because back then it was difficult to get the absolute latest music. So it is really a great honour to have him feature on a track that we’ve produced.

Which song does he appear on, and why that one?

We had a track called Open The Box which is a song that was initially meant to be the opening track on the album as our new album is called A Mighty Black Box. When the opportunity came around, we felt that the tune, the treatment and the general feel of the song seemed apt for a voice like Blaze’s. We sent it to him and he loved it!

What was the process of recording — did he come with lyrics?

It was very interesting. We sent him the track with my reference voice on it and we also sent him a track with blank spaces that indicated where he’d have to sing. The lyrics for the song were written by me and he didn’t feel the need to change them around. We’re pretty sure the fans will love the end result.

You’ve got a number of collaborations/guests — tell us about why you chose those people and how it came about.

As a band, we’ve always believed in a spirit of collaboration. We’ve made this clear to fellow musicians all along. Collaborations are a springboard for great creativity! When we performed in India, we had a few artists that jumped in and we tried a few interesting things with them.

Joseph Vijay was guitarist with me when we were both in college back in the early 90s. He’s been pro all his life. He recorded guitar parts for a track called Make Me Feel Real which I had actually written back in 1993! His solos will absolutely blow you away!

Worlds of a Difference is a song about people from different cultures coming together and it isn’t meant to be a romantic song but more a song about tolerance, acceptance. This song was supposed to be on our first album but we never found the right voice. Layla [Ansari] had recorded her solo album at Atif’s studio, The Playback Lounge. We were introduced, chemistry happened and she produced a great piece of work to make the track one of the favourites on the record.

Neil D’Cruz of Nikotin and I had spoken about a collaboration ages ago and in fact he joined us on stage at our first album launch. Elvis Garagic from Echoes with Laughter is an accomplished producer and singer and I’ve been a big fan of his for sometime now. He’s producing the new Nikotin album. Youmni and I did a cameo in a friend’s project and I felt this motley bunch would be very interesting for a song called Uglier Side of Me. The band discussed it and we made it happen. The song just oozes attitude. It was so much fun!