In the new issue of Metal Hammer we jetted off to Spain to sit down with the Iron Maiden legend that is Bruce Dickinson to talk about their upcoming Sonisphere performance and the aerial dogfight. Here are some of the things we learned...
Bruce’s love of flying comes from comics
“It started with Biggles and then Commando comics for me,” he says, with a wide smile. “I got very good at shouting, ‘Achtung! Spitfire!’ The thing was, they were all caricatures of people. I mean, old W.E. Johns who wrote all those stories really was a pilot but he got shot down and spent most of his time in a war camp. I suppose that fed his fertile imagination, but when you read what actually went on, it’s heads and shoulders above in terms of drama and heroism and courage. How these people coped with these unreliable, eccentric, difficult-to- control machines with no weather capability, no navigational ability and inadequate defensive weaponry is difficult to imagine. I mean, they were some evil fucking machines, but honestly, when I was a boy, it was all about the attitude – the attitude.”
They only ever wanted to play pubs
“From the beginning, we were never really thinking of world-domination, that was Rod [Maiden’s legendary manager]. We were always just thinking about the next pub gig, which always felt like a big step forward for us. That’s still true; we haven’t really thought much about what’s past this tour. You have to go away and do something completely different, or else you’d just end up in the funny farm. I mean, on the back of a really long tour, you just have to stop for a while.”
Even popstars are Maiden fans
“You’ll be on these mixed festivals and you get these equally big acts like the Black Eyed Peas, or Lady Gaga, who come down and act like kids… there’s just this buzz and excitement when they are on the same bill as Iron Maiden because they all want to come and hang out with the band. There’s this genuine reverence for the Iron Maiden legacy and what they are that cuts across everyone.”
Planes and metal go hand in hand”
“It was a devil-may-care attitude that pilots have, that they all have, that drew me to it in the first place. It’s all so very metal, the romance of it all. Bravery, derring-do, heroism – the two just go hand in hand. There’s such an affinity and resonance between metal and aviation, the sense of adventure and thrill of it all. Both groups of people are after the same thing.”
Read the whole feature in the new issue of Metal Hammer now. Available here.
