Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson recently spoke about the band’s ethos of independence and integrity and refused to follow trends or bow to commercial pressures.
Bruce Dickinson opens up on the matter
During a new appearance on the Rich Roll podcast, he said:
“We are outsiders in terms of the music industry in a lot of senses. There are bands, and there are bands, and there are bands, and they’re just bands. I mean, you might like them, you might not like them, they might be successful or not successful. But Maiden is somehow more than that. Maiden is part of the core existence for a massive number of people, an unlikely number of people from all kinds of walks of life and avenues, from CEOs to special needs people — I mean, the whole gamut — and everybody seems to get something out of the band. And I don’t analyze it or question it. It just is. And it’s a product of who we are when we get together.”
He continued: “It’s a strange chemistry, because it’s manufactured — as in, I would never have met Steve Harris and Dave Murray in the normal course of my life, ever, if they hadn’t gone, ‘Hey, we want a singer for Iron Maiden.’ And now, what we have in common is Iron Maiden, is that music. And, of course, we all got to know each other. And one of the reasons I think the band has survived is because we have grown into each other over the years as people, but at the same time the music is always sacrosanct.”
He also spoke about the importance of retaining the integrity and authenticity in Maiden’s music, Bruce said: “When I had throat cancer [a decade ago], the last thing on my mind was, would I ever sing again? The first thing on my mind is, am I gonna get through this and be alive? And the last thing on my mind was would I ever sing again? And I thought, ‘Well, we’ll get to that stage when I’m done and we start trying to sing.’ And I was quite prepared to accept that I might not be able to sing with Iron Maiden again. I might be able to sing, I might be able to vocalize, I might be able to sing in a different way, but if I couldn’t sing the way I have to sing with Iron Maiden, I’ll help them find a great replacement. Because the music is sacrosanct.”
Bruce Dickinson further explained what he meant by saying that the chemistry in Maiden was “manufactured.” Bruce said: “The manufacture bit comes from only in the sense that we didn’t all grow up on the same street. And in actual fact, bands that all grow up in the same street together, or families that play together, that could be a recipe for implosion. I mean, I know Oasis have just gotten back together and doing it, but my God, how difficult was that? The two brothers and… So we all get together, but the music is the single point of contact that is the most important thing for all of us. If I couldn’t do it, if I couldn’t do what I do now effectively, I would be the first one to say, ‘You know what? It’s time I retired from singing for Iron Maiden and did something else.’ Stack shelves or something. Because I have too much pride on the line to go out there…”
He added: “I was speaking to a fan the other day, and they said, ‘Oh, it’s great you guys are all still back together.’ I said, yeah, we’re all still back together because we’re fierce and the music is still as good, if not better in some respects, than we played it 20 or 30 years ago.”
