[3] In 1989, while Iron Maiden were taking a year off,[4] Dickinson and former Gillan guitarist, Janick Gers, composed a song for a film soundtrack.
[5] His solo debut, Tattooed Millionaire (1990), was an effort that favoured a hard rock/pop metal approach, different from what fans assumed would be an aggressive, Iron Maiden-like album.
was a live video recorded from a concert in Los Angeles, California, in August 1990, and released in July 1991.
[7] After a farewell tour in 1993, Dickinson left Iron Maiden and started working on a second album with Tribe of Gypsies guitarist and band leader, Roy Z.
Allmusic deemed the album "somewhat of a disappointment" which failed to "come up with anything truly groundbreaking",[8] except for "Tears of the Dragon", which was released as a single, along with "Shoot All the Clowns".
[8] Roy Z departed to continue with his work and Dickinson recruited new members, with whom he released the double-disc live performance, Alive in Studio A.
Due to musical differences, the Skunkworks line-up split up, and Dickinson once again was joined by Roy Z, along with then ex-Iron Maiden guitarist, Adrian Smith.
The next year he released a semi-concept album on alchemy, The Chemical Wedding, which was described as a "modern metal aesthetic".
To commemorate this, all of his past releases were remastered, with his studio efforts containing bonus tracks, and the live recordings merged into a single box set, entitled Alive.