This interview had little chances to happen. First of all, it appeared
possible only a week before actual date. Then, there wasn’t a call at the time
appointed, as someone in Bruce’s office misspelt the phone number. Still, deep
in the other commitments, there’s a call and voice coming through: “Hello,
Dmitry! It’s Bruce Dickinson.” Mister Siren had scrapped his plans for a good
lunch to share his thoughts and views in the wake of his first solo “Best Of”
compilation release.
–
First of all, thanks for your new album!
– Thank you!
–
Why did you decide to release a “Best Of” now, at this moment?
– Well, it’s a nice
quiet time for IRON MAIDEN, and I’ll be releasing a new solo album next year,
so this is a really good time for the managing out my solo career, which is
quite well. And I had a whole lot of new potential fans after the last IRON
MAIDEN record, it was a success, so this is a good chance to give my material
out to them, and also to keep existing fans happy with some unreleased and some
rare material and also some brand new material.
–
About these new songs. There is one called “Broken”. While you sing that you’re
not broken, why did you decide to drop this “not”?
– Because it’s more
interesting. (Laughing.) And if there’s a song called “Broken”,
people think, “Why broken?”, and they find it’s “Not broken”.
–
But it has something to do with a current situation, these new fans. All this
keeps you strong, doesn’t it?
– Precisely, yes. I
mean, there’s an expression in England: “Never let the bastards grind you
down”.
–
How to put it?.. You seem to be a very lyrical singer, with a kind of pop vibe
in your approach. So why do you do such heavy albums?
– Because I like it –
as simple as that! (Burst of laughter.) I’m trying to put in the lyrical
things so that they can help the album as well. I’m quite happy with the
success of the last album, “Chemical Wedding”, so whatever I’ll end up doing on
my next solo album is what I’ll end up doing. And after that one, I guess, I’ll
be making another one.
–
Could you give any details of your next album?
– No! (Laughing.)
–
It’s because you don’t know or because you don’t want?
– Both, actually.
First of all, I don’t see any point in giving details of something which is not
going to be released for another year, and secondly, I’m not even sure what
direction it’s going to go in at the moment. I’ve got three of four songs but,
apart of that, I’m not sure what direction the other half of the album is going
to go in right now.
–
And what is the “Catacombs” story?
– The “Catacombs”… CD
two off “The Best Of” set was going to be called “Catacombs”, and it’s going to
be a collection of unreleased songs and rarities. It got back and turned into
“The Best Of” album by adding another CD which has two new songs on it and a
lot of remastered tracks from the previous studio albums. So this “The Best Of”
album includes what would have been called “Catacombs”.
–
Are you going to tour this new album or “The Best Of” collection?
– No, I’m not going
to do any more solo touring, the next tour I do will be with IRON MAIDEN in
2003.
–
Let’s talk a bit about your influences. I think, you were influenced mostly by
Gillan and Dio, or were there others?
– A guy called Arthur
Brown, who did the song “Fire” from the late Sixties, was a big influence of
mine. Peter Hammill from a band called VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR. And also Ian Anderson from
JETHRO TULL, particularly, his lyrics. Very different influences. As of Gillan,
in the early days it was very much so, but it changed a little bit when I’ve
been with MAIDEN, it became much more kind of operatic than the Gillan thing.
–
And now you became an influence yourself. Who of your soundalikes you rate the
best?
– Well, I don’t think
he’s a soundalike, but the best rock voice… best two rock voices I’ve heard in
a last few years both have been from grunge bands: it’s Eddie Vedder and the
other one is Chris Cornell from SOUNDGARDEN.
–
Those guys and many others are involved in this tribute album mania. And you
took a part in the Alice Cooper tribute too. Was he an influence as well?
– I was pumping gas
at a gas station, aged sixteen years old, when “School’s Out” came on the
radio. Alice was not so much in the singing stakes, more of just whole attitude
thing at the time when you’re fifteen-sixteen years old. Alice is much a
focused rebellion, he’s a fantastic cartoon character almost, if you like, and
therefore he’s still successful today – my kid, eleven years old, loves Alice
Cooper. (Laughs.) And Alice’s character – you see him in
the Marylin Manson thing, and all the things related.
–
Do you like Marylin Manson?
– Yeah, I do like
Marylin Manson, actually. I think, he’s very talented and he did make some
great music.
–
The song from Alice Cooper tribute, “Black Widow”, who chose it for you to
sing?
– I think, it was the
only one left. Actually, it surprised me, because I didn’t know how it was
going to sound, but I think it’s done OK in the end. And certainly people who
bought the record seem to like my version. And there obviously Adrian [Smith]
was on the record but everybody else – all thing was put together by Bob
Kulick, and the backing tracks were already done.
–
And yet with MAIDEN you covered a couple of things too – LED ZEPPELIN, FREE…
Were their influential too? I mean, Paul Rodgers, Robert Plant.
– Oh yes, completely!
We’re all from the same era, we were all brought up on basically all those
classic rock bands from the Seventies.
–
You mentioned Ian Anderson’s lyrics. What are the sources for your lyrics?
You’re deep into poetry, and your own lyrics are very different from many of
other metal guys.
– Yes, it’s possibly
true but it’s just the way it is – I’ve always enjoyed reading lyrics, trying
to do them more than just lyrics, trying to have some more meaning in them. I
know a lot of people are just happy to have a kind of broken word lyrics. I
just wonder why, there’s no reason why they can’t at least attempt to do
something a bit better.
–
Why you went for Blake for “Chemical Wedding”?
– Oh, Blake’s
fantastic, Blake was such a genius. He was so misunderstood during his time
period. I mean, he has been an inspiration to generations of artists of all
types, he was one of the very first multimedia artists.
–
You talked about Arthur Brown’s “Fire”, that with Carl Palmer on it.
– Yeah, Vincent Crane
and Carl Palmer were in the band. Vincent Crane was…
–
In ATOMIC ROOSTER.
– …was the organ and
bass player – yes, he used to do bass as well on his keyboard for ATOMIC
ROOSTER. And the album was actually executively produced by Pete Townshend.
–
How did you get in touch with Brown?
– I know him, he’s a
friend of mine, and I have a beer with him now and again. That’s why I asked
him to read the sections of Blake on the album.
–
Interesting, there’s Blake, all this mystical thing, and you have a song called
“King In Crimson”. I read the explanation as of who was the King Crimson, but
is there any connection with the band?
– King in Crimson is
actually an alchemical term. King Crimson is a metaphor for Devil or Satan, but
at the same time it’s also a metaphor for one of the statures in the
purification of man and the purification of mankind soul towards union with God
and with Infinite, which is the philosophical aim of alchemists. Blake was also
very into alchemy and alchemical symbolism, and that’s where to be a reference
to King in Crimson. But knowing the background of the band, I’m sure than KING
CRIMSON had a definite grounding in it.(Laughs.)
–
Another song of yours is “Killing Floor”, and the first association comes with
blues tradition. You know, this old blues, “Killing Floor”.
– Yes, but no-o-o,
that song has no blues in it, whatsoever. (Laughs.) The title for it is an old blues song
title, and that’s one of the reasons I picked it – just in case people thought
it was no blues song and they would get such a surprise. (Laughing.)
–
A kind of wordplay is always interesting. So there’s an album “Scream For Me,
Brazil” – was it wordplay on “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina”?
– No! (Burst
of laughter.) No! The
title “Scream For Me, Brazil” is simply because of this expression “scream for
me”, it just became a kind of a personal catchphrase that I ended up saying
on-stage a lot with IRON MAIDEN. It’s like Ozzy
Osbourne says, “Let’s go crazy!” I would
say, “Scream for me, Milan” or “Scream for me, London”, so “Scream For Me,
Brazil” just struck me as being a good title. There’s no reference to “Don’t
Cry For Me, Argentina”.
–
Ah MAIDEN. What’s curious is that many singers, who break up with their bands
and then get back, never sing songs recorded with their replacements – as, say,
Gillan never sings songs from the Coverdale-period PURPLE. However you dared
and sang the Blaze Bailey material. Was it hard?
– (Laughing.) No! I’m a
singer! When I left the band, what the band did is really their own business.
And their career – they got on with it, and I got on with my career. Everybody
in that band, including Blaze, tries to offer the best of their abilities, I
know that – and that’s all you can ask. I’m not the kind of guy who turns
around and says, “Because I wasn’t in the band therefore it must be inferior”.
That’s nonsense.
–
The most successful MAIDEN song was “Bring Your Daughter… …To The Slaughter”,
and it was taken off your solo album. How did it come about?
– They’ve heard it –
I mean, Steve [Harris] heard the song and just loved the song so much that he
said I had to record it with MAIDEN. So I said, “Oh OK, fine”, and of course it
ended up breaking number one as a single, so that was pretty good. But at the
same time the original version was still sitting around, so I thought it was
about time that people heard it.
–
But at this moment, when you’re in the band, where is the division between
MAIDEN and your solo career?
– The division… I’m
going to be working with Roy Z to do the next solo album early next year, and
then I’ll go straight into making the new IRON MAIDEN album.
–
Will you have enough songs for both projects?
– Oh yeah,
absolutely! I mean, I keep the two things pretty separate. When I write with
MAIDEN then I write only with the guys in MAIDEN, we don’t do songs from
outside people.
–
OK, but “Daughter” was meant for your solo album. Are you sure there won’t be a
situation like this in the future?
– I doubt it, I doubt
it very much, and I’m not worried about that. If it is, I’ll be discussing with
everybody when it happens.
–
Is Roy Z very different from the guys in MAIDEN?
– Yes in some ways,
and in some ways not. He’s a musician like everybody else but he has immense
ability to get inside the head of the person who he’s working with and really
understand the world from their perspective, which is fantastic.
–
Where did you find him?
– I met Roy years ago
in Los Angeles with his own band TRIBE OF GYPSIES, they were very very good,
and I was interested in his album, because he made a “Roy” album, and that’s
how I met him. It turned out he was a fan of MAIDEN, and I said, maybe we
should do some writing, so we wrote two or three songs. I loved it and I
thought, the guy’s really great. Of course, now he’s a very successful producer
but he deserves all the success that he’s getting because he’s so talented.
–
Was it you who introduced him to Rob Halford?
– I was one of the
people who suggested they should work together, yes.
–
And that song you sang with Halford…
– “The One You Love
To Hate” was the song that Roy and I wrote for my solo album, and we went, “Ah,
that’s a cool song and for next solo album we must record that one”. Then Roy
got the job with Rob Halford, and I forget whether it was me or whether it was
him who said, “Why don’t we do “The One You Love To Hate” as a little duet,
that will be funny and ironic, everything, it will be cool.
–
Was it the same time that idea of the TRINITY project came about?
– Yes, for obvious
reasons, but the TRINITY project is not going to happen for some time because
nobody has any time to do this. (Laughs.) I mean, Rob [Halford] is busy and Geff
[Tate, of QUEENSRYCHE] is busy and I’m busy, so…
–
You were involved with AYREON project. What’s happened with that one?
– I’m not going to be
doing anything with Arjen [Lucassen]. I did one track with him [“Into The Black
Hole”], he’s a very talented guy. I was thinking to do some writing with him,
possibly doing an album project, but what happened was this all got out into
the Internet because he released details of it – either the e-mail or something
to his fan club. And all of a sudden it was all was released, that I was doing
an album with Arjen. So I asked him, I said this is not true, is it you who put
everything out, there’s no professionalism. And he mailed me back saying, “Oh
no-no-no, I’d never do anything like that”, but I found out that actually he
did it. So I don’t have any plans to do anything with Arjen. He’s talented, he
has his own career, and I wish him all the success.
–
His are concept albums, like yours.
– That’s right!
–
But are you going to do something concept with MAIDEN?
– I don’t know. We
have to wait and see.
–
Back to MAIDEN, this three guitars thing, does it work good?
– It works great,
yes. The more guitars we have on-stage the better, as I’m concerned. (Laughs.)
–
I mean, at the time of you coming back to MAIDEN I talked to Adrian and Dave
[Murray], and they were worried of all these cords and three guys running
across each other and falling.
– They run hand in
hand! (Burst of laughter.)
–
What about a guitarist called Stuart Smith?
– Well, Stuart Smith…
Good Lord, yes! I early was kicking around with him and some friends. I’m
afraid I’ve lost his number but somebody said he was around, he goes back from
a long long time ago.
– I’m afraid I don’t
have any information about Stuart Smith project, so I can’t help.
–
But if you knew, would you?
– Probably not,
because I’ve got enough stuff going on at the moment and I’d hate to add to the
confusion.
–
You took part in the “Rock Aid Armenia” project.
– It seemed a good
idea, and we could raise some money that would go to a lot of people who were
suffering.
–
So could you comment on the current situation in the world?
– (Slowly,
carefully choosing the words) What’s
going on in the world at the moment is very tragic, and that’s really the only
word for the situation. Nobody is being helped out by this at all. I think the
best thing that people can do at the moment here, in the West and,
particularly, in America, is to carry on living their lives as normal. And the
best way to fight the kind of seemingly invisible enemy is to fight it by
functioning as a democratic society, which is what they’re seeking to destroy.
That’s the best thing that people can do at the moment, and just leave the rest
of it up to security services.
–
You sang about the brand new world, so this is not the kind of the world you
wanted to see?
– “The Brave New
World” – ironic, my friend. I have to revisit the lyrics but I think the world
is still moving in that direction.
Credits: http://dmme.net/
