Balls to Picasso is the second solo album by Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson, released in 1994. It is the first album in Dickinson's solo career that was released after he had officially left Iron Maiden (although he rejoined again in 1999).
This record marked the beginning of Dickinson's collaborations with guitarist 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.
Overview
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. "Over and Out", "Tibet", "Tears of the Dragon (First Bit, Long Bit, Last Bit)", "Cadillac Gas Mask", and "No Way Out...Continued" are all songs recorded with Olsen and set for inclusion on the second, aborted version of Balls to Picasso, also referred to by insiders as "The Peter Gabriel Album". Other songs from these sessions that have yet to surface on any Dickinson release include "Man of Sorrows" (re-recorded for Accident of Birth; an older demo version from 1990 appears on The Best of Bruce Dickinson), "Original Sin" and "Thank Heaven".
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.
Thorgerson later did the artwork for Bruce's Skunkworks album.
Track listing
Personnel
- Bruce Dickinson – vocals
;Tribe of Gypsies
- Dean Ortega – vocals
- Roy Z – guitars
- Eddie Casillas – bass
- David Ingraham – drums
- Doug Van Booven – percussion
- Mario Aguilar – percussion on "Shoot All the Clowns"
;Additional personnel
- Dickie Fliszar – drums on "Tears of the Dragon"
- Richard Baker – keyboards and programming
;Technical personnel
- Shay Baby – production, mixing
- Spencer May – additional engineering
- Sean De Feo – engineering at Townhouse 3
- Andy Baker – engineering at Westside Studios
- Bjorn Thorsrud – engineering on "Shoot All the Clowns"
- Greg Fulginiti & Andy Van Dette – mastering at Masterdisk, New York
Charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
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! Chart (1994)
! Peak<br/>position
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! scope="row"| Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)
| align="center"| 6
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!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)
| align="center"| 25
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