Bruce Dickinson - What Does This Button Do?

The DOD statement is interesting.

One of my minor quibbles with Maiden has been their ridiculous hyperbole that surrounds every album release. I still remember when Steve said that NPFTD was 'hand on heart the best thing they've ever done':rolleyes: ....they say it every frickin' album. It's fascinating to me when one of them later reveals what they really think.
 
soundwave said:
One of my minor quibbles with Maiden has been their ridiculous hyperbole that surrounds every album release.
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All musicians do this. You never heard Metallica say "Yeah, Death Magnetic is pretty good, but it doesn't shine a candle on Ride the Lightning."
 
LooseCannon said:
All musicians do this. You never heard Metallica say "Yeah, Death Magnetic is pretty good, but it doesn't shine a candle on Ride the Lightning."
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Type O Negative was famous for not doing the PR spin (Peter Steele was bluntly honest to hilarious effect; I'm sure the record company was thrilled). Primus, Devin Townsend, and Tool also were also more coy/cryptic in their album assessments out of the gate. Maiden is very old school in their marketing methods.
 
soundwave said:
Type O Negative was famous for not doing the PR spin (Peter Steele was bluntly honest to hilarious effect; I'm sure the record company was thrilled). Primus, Devin Townsend, and Tool also were also more coy/cryptic in their album assessments out of the gate. Maiden is very old school in their marketing methods.
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Most musicians do this, then.
 
Maiden has control over the whole creative process, they can hire and fire staff as they wish, book studios as they please and therefore "the album didn't come up right" story would be bollocks. Why did you release it then? Why didn't you suspend the producer and get someone else? See, 99.9% of the bands have compromises here because the industry is involved in decision making. Not Maiden.

Dance of death is an underwhelming album, it has filler, bad art, bad production and some great songs. It didn't follow up with the BNW punch. Dickinson, in a hindsight, acknowledges that. We also had some talk before about Smith leaving a lot of material back then "for the next album". And the next album was stellar.
 
I agree with his statement on Dance of Death. It's Maidens weakest album as a six-piece. Several weak songs, and poor production.
 
I remember a quote along the lines of Harris being "drunk on his own beer" concerning 'To Tame A Land'. In other words, at the time, he thought (honsetly) that it was the best thing they had done. I think this would apply to any musician on their latest work. However, with the benefit of hindsight, a 'sober' opinion is then possible. Hence, Bruce's opinion (now) on DOD as an album (I don't think he meant the song).
 
Welsh Phantom said:
I remember a quote along the lines of Harris being "drunk on his own beer" concerning 'To Tame A Land'. In other words, at the time, he thought (honsetly) that it was the best thing they had done. I think this would apply to any musician on their latest work.
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He said that a lot of times during interviews in those days. To be fair, it might be the most complex song he had written up until then, especially considering that it involved some classical music arrangements. It would be interesting to hear his opinion on it today.
 
Welsh Phantom said:
I remember a quote along the lines of Harris being "drunk on his own beer" concerning 'To Tame A Land'. In other words, at the time, he thought (honsetly) that it was the best thing they had done. I think this would apply to any musician on their latest work. However, with the benefit of hindsight, a 'sober' opinion is then possible. Hence, Bruce's opinion (now) on DOD as an album (I don't think he meant the song).
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No, he didn't say anything about the song. That's what's surprising. He said the only DoD song that compares to the content on BNW is Paschendale, meaning he excluded the title track. It could then be extrapolated that the title track is, by Bruce's own comparison, not as good as, say, The Mercenary.
 
He just does not care much about being correct or not in his ultrashort Maiden music related comments. I bet he likes the song but admitting that would not be good for making his point about the album, in an as short way as possible.
 
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Bruce claims Paschendale is an Adrian solo penned track, I wonder if he means anything by that or is he just being his usual self by being inaccurate with details.

Some of the clunkier lyrics definitely seem Steve penned to me, i.e. german war propaganda machine etc.
 
srfc said:
Bruce claims Paschendale is an Adrian solo penned track, I wonder if he means anything by that or is he just being his usual self by being inaccurate with details.

Some of the clunkier lyrics definitely seem Steve penned to me, i.e. german war propaganda machine etc.
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Steve added lyrics and helped with the arrangement, but most of the song is from Adrian, who was apparently obsessed into researching on the topic of the tune, with several books about it lying around whenever Bruce went to his house to co-write material for DoD.
 
GhostofCain said:
Steve added lyrics and helped with the arrangement, but most of the song is from Adrian, who was apparently obsessed into researching on the topic of the tune, with several books about it lying around whenever Bruce went to his house to co-write material for DoD.
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I think I saw a documentary a while ago where it had some interviews and clips of them in the studio recording DOD where H said it was his brainchild and that Steve filled in the gaps (that's me paraphrasing)
 
Navigators Ghost said:
I think I saw a documentary a while ago where it had some interviews and clips of them in the studio recording DOD where H said it was his brainchild and that Steve filled in the gaps (that's me paraphrasing)
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He definitely talked about in in "Death on the Road" and I think he played it down even more than that - he basically said that he had "a riff" that the others thought was good so he went to the library and got "a book" about Pachendale and then went to Steve and said "this is what I think the song is about" (or something like that), and Steve then wrote the lyrics.

Not at all unlike H to downplay his own importance, is it? The song is credited to both Adrian and Steve on the album but I've seen a few examples of Bruce talking as though it was solely Adrian's work.
 
Black Abyss Babe said:
He definitely talked about in in "Death on the Road" and I think he played it down even more than that - he basically said that he had "a riff" that the others thought was good so he went to the library and got "a book" about Pachendale and then went to Steve and said "this is what I think the song is about" (or something like that), and Steve then wrote the lyrics.

Not at all unlike H to downplay his own importance, is it? The song is credited to both Adrian and Steve on the album but I've seen a few examples of Bruce talking as though it was solely Adrian's work.
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Ah maybe thats what I saw
 
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