Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has claimed the band have no plans to retire yet, even going as far as to suggest the heavy metal legends might be playing on stage right up until the point they, er, literally can't any more.
Discussing Maiden's longterm future on the Full Metal Jackie US radio show, (as transcribed by Blabbermouth) the singer insisted the band weren't looking to hang up their instruments any time soon, and that they remain as excited about being in Iron Maiden as ever.
"We're not planning to retire at all, really," Bruce notes. "I think we'll probably drop dead onstage. I can think of worse places to drop dead. But no, we're not planning on retiring. We're all still firing away [with] loads of energy and loads of enthusiasm, so I can't wait to get back together [with the other guys to start rehearsing for the upcoming tour]."
The long-delayed third leg of the Legacy Of The Beast tour is due to roll across Europe this summer, before picking up across the Americas in September.
"With respect to our fans, we've got generations of fans now,"Bruce continued. "Even at [my] spoken-word shows, I can crack jokes about the age of the audience only because half the audience is, like, my age, but the other half of the audience is often way, way younger. So it's brilliant. We've got this whole intergenerational thing going."
Last year, Iron Maiden released their 17th studio album Senjutsu, with Bruce revealing that the record had been hidden away in a vault for two years following its completion.
“At the ending of the recording, everybody else had fucked off home, so it was basically me, Steve [Harris] and Kevin in the studio,” Bruce told Metal Hammer. “We played it back a couple of times, said, ‘Yeah, that’s alright then!’ and then that was the last time I heard it or nearly two years. All of us! Nobody in the band had a copy! Steve in particular was so paranoid that someone would leak it onto the internet, and probably with some justification, it was locked up in a vault.”
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