IRON MAIDEN
Singer. Pilot. Fencer. legend. With his book about to hit shelves, metal’s polymath Bruce Dickinson reveals he’s got this far flying by the seat of his pants
Why did Bruce become a pilot? How did he chip his teeth? And who threw a trifle at him? We quiz the frontman on his new autobiography.
“i’m famous for running arounD like a raving lunatic!”
BRUCE HAS ALWAYS BEEN SWEPT UP BY THE POWER OF MUSIC
If you only read one book this year, you need to read more books. But if you do only read one, it absolutely must be Bruce Dickinson’s new autobiography, What Does This Button Do? arguably the only figure in our world who can lay claim to being a metal megastar, airline pilot, fencing champ, cancer survivor and all-round Duracell-powered force of nature, Bruce has more and better stories to tell than most. Unsurprisingly, the book is every bit as entertaining and bursting with energy as you might expect.
Speaking to Hammer during a rare moment when the Dickinson backside is planted in a chair and not whizzing off to do something spectacular or dangerous, maiden’s seemingly indestructible vocalist is as ebullient as ever, as he lays out his approach to sharing his life and times.
“Well, first off, I’m not sitting on a couch with a therapist, saying ‘Poor me, I’ve always wanted to get this off my chest…’,” he chuckles. “I didn’t want it to be that. one of the most fun autobiographies I’ve read, [legendary hollywood actor] David Niven’s The Moon’s A Balloon, has nothing desperately horrible in it; it was just a really good romp through his life. That was the sort of thing I wanted to do. It certainly didn’t want to be [mötley crüe bio] The Dirt, because that’s not who I am. I just think that all the mad things I’ve done are more entertaining and interesting than an endless tale of drug abuse and shagging!”
While it goes without saying that maiden fans will be all over Bruce’s book like a dose of shingles, there is far more to What Does This Button Do? than a cosy trawl through the history of the world’s best-loved metal band. Stretching from his birth in 1958 to the brink of maiden’s recent Book of Souls tour, it’s a fascinating and endearingly rambunctious account of a life lived at full pelt, with Bruce’s many obsessions – music and flying planes the most significant among them, of course –looming large throughout. the early chapters are particularly revealing, as he recounts being raised by his grandparents for the first five years of his life, while his parents toured the nation’s nightclubs with, um, “a performing dog
act”. In their absence, it becomes plain that other family members had the biggest impact on the young boy’s development, not least his grandfather austin and, in particular, his “uncle” John (Bruce’s godfather), a former raF electrical engineer whose tales of aircraft and airborne derring-do would spark Bruce’s lifelong interest in aviation. and we all know how that turned out.
What comes across strongly in those early tales is that, despite its slight air of unconventionality, Bruce remembers his upbringing with fondness.
“Families are a very strange mix of duties, responsibility, ‘blood is thicker than water’ and all the rest of it,” he says. “I’m not going to be judgmental about my parents and say, ‘Quick, lie me down on the therapist’s couch!’ You get dealt the hand you get and it wasn’t so bad. as I say in the book, it could’ve been a whole lot worse. there’s no reason why some of your family should be more inspirational than others, simply because they were more involved in your creation. other people in your family can be equally inspirational and that’s absolutely fine.”
Despite being fascinated by aircraft, engineering and any kind of machine from a very early age, it was music that would prove to be the defining love of Bruce’s life. there are several moments in the book that stand out as pivotal events that would shape the journey ahead, but one in particular leaps from the page like an exuberant heavy metal frontman hurling himself from a drum riser.
“Yeah, I talk about having compulsory singing practice at private school, in church, with this half-deaf reverend who comes up to me and says, ‘You’ve got a good voice!’” Bruce notes. “I thought, ‘oh… have I?’ and that was it, down the slippery slope! that comment was the moment when the boat started going down the slipway, and it’s those tiny things, the beating of the butterfly wings on the other side of the world, that change the course of people’s lives.”
that brief encounter with the clergy set wheels in motion, but the clincher came when he began to attend rock and prog gigs at boarding school. From then on, music became Bruce’s chief hobby and, more importantly, something he clearly felt he could participate and excel in. But even after digging up those early memories of discovering thunderous hard rock for the first time, he insists he still doesn’t really understand why music consumed him with such intensity.
“I don’t know why it happened,” he laughs. “I think it’s a question of going into the emotions that music produced for me, which were so deep down that I felt nothing else could come close. I suppose that figuring out that I could sing opened up an almost intellectual side to doing it. I thought, ‘If I can sing, I can tell stories, and if I’m telling stories I can paint pictures…’ Singing, of course, eventually became incredibly physical. I’m famous for running around like a raving lunatic onstage, and that’s part of it. I can’t just stand there and not move my body, it’s just part of me. So, for me, music is that strange mix of the emotional, the intellectual and the physical.”
Perhaps the one factor that’s made Bruce such an unstoppable force over the last few decades is his supreme confidence and self-belief. What Does This Button Do? is by no means an exercise in braggadocio and Bruce is never any less than self-effacing and happy to acknowledge mistakes and self-inflicted calamities, but that fiery commitment to achieving his goals has seen him through the best and worst of times and has had an undeniably profound effect on his unquestionable brilliance as a frontman. “It’s very strange, because I had this self-belief which was completely irrational!” he laughs. “I think anybody that becomes successful has got to have that self-belief, and it’s not based on any logic. If you sat down and looked at it and said, ‘What are the chances?’, you’d go, ‘No, give up, you’re never gonna make it as a rock star…’ People do fall by the wayside, but I always admire people who have a dream. If the passion and belief are there, you just know they’ll do it. also, part of believing that you can do it is not giving up. that’s equally important. of course, you can end up in a situation where you’re broke, living in a hovel and being a daydreaming waster. that’s the dark side of it, but that’s the chance you take when you roll the dice and decide to throw yourself into something.”
one of the most intriguing parts of Bruce’s book is his account of his early days with maiden and the friction that swiftly developed between him and
Steve harris. those two strong personalities clashed noisily and often as maiden rocketed towards global glory, with a few physical altercations and some extremely robust arguments along the way, but it’s obvious that despite their obvious differences as people, Bruce always recognised Steve as a kindred spirit; someone whose passion and indefatigability mirrored his own.
“Steve is extremely determined and for a mild-mannered, shy sort of chap offstage, he’s got quite a ruthless streak in him,” Bruce grins. “Not in a bad way or an exploitative way, but he’ll go, ‘this is not working and there’s no way round it…’ he can be very, very stubborn and, of course, so can I! ha ha ha!”
“my self-Belief was completely irrational” THE ROCK STAR DREAM SEEMED ACHIEVABLE TO A YOUNG BRUCE