BRUCE DICKINSON
interviewsofrecordingartists.com
interviewsofrecordingartists.com
Long time Iron Maiden vocalist / songwriter Bruce Dickinson has a new solo compilation album titled, "The Best Of Bruce Dickinson". The forty-three year old British heavy metal rock star has released an album which features new studio recordings by Dickinson as well as "classic", metal songs from his extensive career as a solo recording artist. The album contains previously unreleased material from Dickinson's private vaults, which archive rare Iron Maiden songs that, for the most part, have been highly sought after by Maiden fans. Yet, for the majority of Dickinson's fans worldwide, the primary focus is on his relationship with his band mates in Iron Maiden. Being one of the most popular heavy metal bands in the world, the past five years Maiden's band members and Dickinson have had several feuds which lead to a split up, as well as subsequent reconciliation between the two camps. Now Dickinson has what he believes to be an optimal situation for himself and Maiden. "I'm still with (Iron) Maiden," Dickinson said during a recent interview. "And, I'm working on various solo projects as well. So, I am looking forward to the upcoming project with Maiden as well as my own solo album." Things always haven't been so smooth for Dickinson. His departure from Maiden and the pursuit of a solo career has had it moments. "While in the past," Dickinson said." it has been strange to look back at the various reincarnations of bands, albums and musical changes. Currently the situation is the best it has been for me in years. I'm recording another solo album which will begin work on recording in the studio in 2002. Then it will be back into the studio to record an Iron Maiden with the current lineup of the band. It will certainly be an active time for me." In the following interview, Bruce Dickinson looks back on his career and personal life, with Maiden and as a solo artist and songwriter. He discusses his latest release and provides firsthand, insider's information, on what he and Iron Maiden will be doing over the next two years.
(Q)-Please state your name and the subject of this conversation as well as your age.
Bruce Dickinson- I'm Bruce Dickinson and I'm doing the interview about "The Best of Bruce Dickinson" solo album. I am forty three years of age.
(Q)- Do you have any plans to go back with Iron Maiden for another new studio album and tour?
Bruce Dickinson- I'm still in Iron Maiden! It's an actual fact. I've never left. I mean, obviously I rejoined the band for the last album and the tour. But the band is actually taking a twelve month break at the moment. (September 2001.) Which doesn't mean we spilt up. We're actually going into the studio to record a new album next summer (2002). And in 2003 we're going to be doing a tour, which will be a lineup including myself and the same guys who did the previous tour.
(Q)- How are you getting along with your Iron Maiden partner, Steve Harris? Things have been difficult between the two of you from time to time.
Bruce Dickinson- Steve Harris and I are getting along fine. In fact Steve Harris and I were playing football (soccer) the other day. Things are wonderful they couldn't be better.
(Q)- What are your feelings seeing all that you have achieved as the lead vocalist and songwriter for Iron Maiden as well as solo artist, now that you've released your own "Best Of" album?
Bruce Dickinson- It's been really brilliant! In fact, I'm really proud of every album I've made. I've worked with really special people all the way through. I've had an incredible relationship with fans who have come with me and sort of lived my journey by seeing my shows with Maiden and as a solo artist and they've been with me through all of these solo records. Now, I'm back with Maiden. It's equally good, but I'm planing next year to do another solo record but also another Maiden as well. It's really rewarding and it gives me a chance as well to get out and experiment in some different musical areas aside from what I'd be doing with Maiden.
(Q)- Is the central theme of your music and songwriting, both with Iron Maiden and as a solo recording artist, more about storytelling then anything else?
Bruce Dickinson- Yes. I agree. I think that's a great angle actually. I love storytelling through the songs that I write. It took me I guess a while to realize that that is actually what I've been doing and why when I did songs that were kind of rock and roll based, there was something missing for me. You know singing songs about girls and partying and stuff like that, Eighties music they call it now, that wasn't always as fulfilling to me as was the more complex, storyteller style of songwriting. Now they call that kind of music rap music.
(Q)- Why do you want to be a storyteller with your music?
Bruce Dickinson- As a kid I was on stage and I did a lot of acting and stuff like that, before getting into a rock band. So, I always wanted to tell a story in that way from the stage. And, I liked rock songwriters when I was growing up who were storytellers. Like Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) and Ozzy Osborne of Black Sabbath. The more straight ahead story telling. I mean Ian Gillian of Deep Purple used to write some great stories with his music. When I later on got to know him, later on when we supported his band with Iron Maiden, I would go to the bar after a show and listen to Ian Gillian tell amazing stories. One on one in a bar, he's a fantastic storyteller. I'd ask him about the art of songwriting and his songs within Deep Purple and out of Ian would come this tremendous story of which the song was based. And I thought what a great story. Wow! The reason the song was fascinating was, at the back of it was an amazing story. Now for myself and me using storytelling techniques, if there's is some truth to the song lyrics, if there's some meaning behind it, then that's probably why it's interesting. Subconsciously you realize there's a bit more to it then the words. It's only recently come into the mainstream in rock music. Now not necessarily in just music, but overall in Western culture, storytelling is starting to come back in popularity.
(Q)- Can you provide me with some pop stars who are currently globally popular and who are storytellers?
Bruce Dickinson- I really believe that many rap stars are so successful because they're storytellers. While all too often, they tell sad but true stories, I really believe that is why some of the songs that are the most successful around the world really are. Because they tell stories and they animate people's inner imagination. They connect with people emotionally and the music sweeps them up emotionally but the lyrics connect with the listener's active imagination. And they can imagine themselves within that story. So there are different amounts of story and or music that you can emphasize at different times, with different styles of music and lyrics. But it's always important to have an element of storytelling in there.
(Q)- How does that relate to the music you have written and the stories you've told with your songs?
Bruce Dickinson- Metal has always had an emphasis on the dark side. The kind of musical sounds that metal makes, is very good at creating a big melodramatic dark side kind of story with the lyrics. And it is absolutely vital that that element of people's personalities and their souls comes to light. And that they can take it out for a walk and exercise it and not be afraid of it. Because when you bury it, it festers and can eventually turn your life into mess. But when you recognize that the dark side exists and that it is a part of everything, after all the sun comes up and everyday the sun goes down. It's fifty per cent dark and fifty per cent light.
(Q)- How well can a fan of Iron Maiden get to know the real Bruce Dickinson through his songs and the song lyrics?
Bruce Dickinson- I don't think they can necessarily get to know the whole person, but you can certainly maybe get an idea of what is gong on with myself. Certainly at different times in a person's life there are different song lyrics and different styles of music. For myself, whenever I've gone through really tough times in terms of emotional stuff or career choices, that's when I've written songs about how to escape from that, or how to avoid from getting sucked into this horrible black hole. And, I've always ended up looking at my own childhood and my relationship between my father and myself comes up a lot.
(Q)- What is your father's name?
Bruce Dickinson- My father's name was Bruce.
(Q)- Where were you born?
Bruce Dickinson- I was born and for the first five years of my life, I grew up with my grandfather, in a mining town called Worksop, which is up in North England.
(Q)- What (soccer) football team do you support whenever the colors come out for an important British match?
Bruce Dickinson- Actually football (soccer) crowds, scare me. I don't get involved in all of that. I can watch them on TV, but if I actually get very near one (a soccer crowd for a major British event.), I get very scared.
(Q)- So you had a blue collar background in your childhood?
Bruce Dickinson- Yes.
(Q)- What about storytelling in metal music and Iron Maiden? Metal has never went away in popularity in many countries around the world and that combination of storytelling with strong theatrics, made Iron Maiden a favorite with metal fans around the world. Agree?
Bruce Dickinson- Yes.
(Q)- Back to storytelling then. Is there one rap artist you are referring to who tells great stories' with his or her songs?
Bruce Dickinson- Yes. Eminem. Some of his rap songs kind of have the teenage love songs like the Fifties love songs. It's kind of like domestic drama set to music. He's really good storyteller. I believe that is part of the reason he has done so well. When I made a record called "Accident Of Birth", one of the points people made on my team while we were making the record said was that nobody made recordings like that one anymore. I didn't believe that until I thought about it and then I realized that not a whole lot of people make rock records like that anymore. Because it is about wanting to tell a story with interesting lyrics a while at the same time, really playing without huge banks of drums machines.
(Q)- By that comment you mean?
Bruce Dickinson- Well, just basic, blue collar band ethics. Just playing good music. Not getting on the MTV Awards and having a big limo and being seen with the hot girl of the moment. 'Success' is a very subjective term, although in the brutal world of the music industry, it is easily and sometimes mistakenly, equated with record sales. I'm so not interested in getting into the fame thing as any kind of measure of success. It's not. It's only a measure of success if fame is in your dictionary as in you are successful because you are famous. I mean I can go and jump off a bridge and get famous for five seconds. And it seems that nowadays, people will do just about the performing equivalent of that. They'll do anything just to get famous. It just strikes me as.... that just doesn't appeal to me at all.
(Q)- Yet fifteen years ago, Iron Maiden seemed decadent as possible for a rock band. Looking back the band seems almost mild compared to what is going on in entertainment currently.
Bruce Dickinson- If you look at horror movies from the beginning of the Eighties, all of them, there was a very moralistic. It was only until the late Seventies and the horror movie "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", when pure evil for it's own sake, happened with no explanation and no comeback on the perpetrators. No attack against the evil itself. No idea that the evil was vanquished or conquered or put away somewhere or that there was any solution to it. Now that is a point of view, it's just one point of view, but unfortunately, I'm afraid that it has become the point of view for all too many horror movies currently.
(Q)- What about with your music and song lyrics?
Bruce Dickinson- I don't think you'll find a single song in Maiden or with my solo stuff in which there are no consequences. There's always consequences. In the old vampire there was always consequences. You couldn't be a vampire without getting stake through the heart.
(Q)- You often sing of personal victory, of good overcoming evil.
Bruce Dickinson- Yeah. There's a lot of stuff like that. When I was a kid I used to find it always uplifting. I mean there's a lot of different ways you can communicate a message to people. One of them sadly is, 'Hey watch me, I'm going to go and do something really stupid and hurt myself.' Right? And the other is, 'Hey there's nothing that you can do to squish me. I'm just going to still be me no matter what.' I love the latter message. The person who won't let themselves get squished, is a person who will see any problems through and not give up. I've never been about destroying something unless it's fun. Unfortunately for boys explosions is fun. But doing it to be hurtful is not cool.
End.