Bruce Dickinson - What Does This Button Do?

Bashing Samson and Thunderstick was sad, wrong, uncorrect, unnecessary and ridiculous all rolled into one. Paul Samson and Barry Graham Purkis were the ones to discover him when he was a history student playing for an obscure and terrible pub band going nowhere, and they put him on the map --- totally.

Barry always confirmed that SAMSON were hard workers at the time, and not just a bunch of crazies drinking & smoking and living in the Chaos. They used to drink and smoke long time after the concerts or during the spare time outside rehearsals, and they were DAMN serious about the music and the band.

I don't understand why Mr. Dickinson keeps bashing the band, especially if Paul Samson and Chris Aylmer are not around to defend themselves. They are dead and nobody can hear their version of the facts.

What's the problem anyway? Bruce Bruce is rich and famous, he should not be so angered or grumpy. Thank God, there's the genius and the mastermind Steve Harris always giving him the "reality check" from time to time. NO Steve Harris, NO Iron Maiden, everyone in the world knows that.

C'mon Bruce, I like you. Act as an adult.
 
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The remarks about doing drugs while rehearsing/songwriting came far, far before Samson died. Thunderstick got booted from Maiden because he wasn't able to perform. Should I blindly believe his "confirmation" that Samson weren't involved in drugs, except for the spare, personal time off?

Dickinson did say very dumb things in interviews sometimes, but they weren't lies. I'm not comfortable saying this but Clive Burr's "confirmation" that he wasn't booted from Maiden 'cause of the lifestyle came out a bit false.
 
Of course. First of all, Dickinson does have a bit of a stupid attitude - calling people in the crowd because of the joint while they're good 20m from you and their smoke doesn't affect lungs. Second, Maiden is really the only band from the 1980s that just barely tolerated individual usage of stuff by certain members as long as it doesn't affect schedule or performance in any way. Everyone else was more lenient to drugs so Samson was probably just "normal" in the sense while Maiden wasn't, but Bruce favoured that. Yes, calling out someone for something that obviously 80% of the peers did is an asshole move but we never said Bruce didn't come out as asshole sometimes in the 1980s press relations...
 
Oh completely agreed! My point was that everyone has an opinion and should be taken with a pinch of salt - as we know stories can be embellished and mis-construed and opinion does not equal fact :)

In this business its apparant that ego's are needed and sometimes attitudes and personalities are inevitably going to clash!
 
Zare said:
The remarks about doing drugs while rehearsing/songwriting came far, far before Samson died. Thunderstick got booted from Maiden because he wasn't able to perform. Should I blindly believe his "confirmation" that Samson weren't involved in drugs, except for the spare, personal time off?
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The infamous "Barry Purkis Incident" in the Iron Maiden history had connotations different to the ones you're thinking. Barry described the incident in MANY recent interviews. I just can't find the right interview at the moment.

I found this anyway:

http://teamrock.com/feature/2017-08...-werent-just-out-to-take-drugs-and-find-women


Black Abyss Babe said:
I agree Bruce has a big mouth sometimes, but when he talks about drug use in Samson (in "Run to the Hills" as well as WDTBD?) it seems to be in the context of it having been a culture shock for him, rather than him suggesting they were unusually bad that way.
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In WDTBD he doesn't just talk about the "drugs issue", he bashes SAMSON in many other ways.
It's like he is still trying to rewrite or erase history and disrespect the wonderful and terrific band (SAMSON) which put him on the map...

So funny, he was going to join SAMSON in 1999 for a reunion, and at the time he told Paul Samson that he would not have joined Iron Maiden anymore, no matter what, even for all the money in the world... oh well.
 
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Which reminds me of

B: Well it's like when Bruce was gonna rejoin us when we reformed [in 1999]. We were talking genuinely and regularly to Bruce on the phone and he was getting a bit disillusioned with his own solo project and we'd written some new material, in fact the material that's around now that hasn't been released [yet]. Paul sent it to him and he said "Yeah, I love it, I've got some ideas for it" and all that kind of thing. And he did a gig at the Astoria, we went up and saw him and we were sitting talking to him and it was actually getting really quite serious. We said "look, we've got this gig in New Jersey coming up, how about if you do it with us?" and he said "Yeah, alright, ok". And about two weeks later it was in the papers that he'd rejoined Iron Maiden, and you just say "you two-faced fuckin' bastard..."

An old interview which I'm pretty sure was somewhere else initially but I found it here:
http://www.bookofhours.net/samson/barry.htm

And yeah, Barry was so bad that Steve wanted him back in Dec 1979 when Doug Sampson left.
 
I did not know this! Strange to think Bruce could have ended up back in Samson... But I think Maiden would have trumped it and he would have gone back regardless
 
Navigators Ghost said:
I did not know this! Strange to think Bruce could have ended up back in Samson... But I think Maiden would have trumped it and he would have gone back regardless
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We only have their word for this though, as far as I am aware no-one from the Maiden camp has ever said anything about this (NB if anyone here knows differently, please post a link).

Here can be found Samson's collective thoughts on this and may other subjects (it sounds like they were more on sour grapes than anything else at this point):

http://www.ironmaidencommentary.com...s0_soundhouse&lang=eng&link=albums#interview2

Meanwhile, here are Steve's thoughts on Thunderstick, as recounted in "Run to the Hills" (only slightly censored for language, because I like being on this forum) -
"So we tried Thunderstick for one gig. He was great in rehearsals, but when we played the Bridgehouse, he was completely out of it. He said he'd had a row with his missus or something. That was his excuse afterwards, anyway. He'd dropped a couple of downers or something like that and he was just terrible, all over the fucking place, and he did a drum-solo thing, and it was that bad. There was people talking all the way through it at the bar, 'cause the bar was literally right in front of him, and he stopped in the middle of the drum solo and he yelled, "Stop talking, you c*nts, and listen to the maestro!" We were so embarrassed. It was just a nightmare! I used to say Thunderstick did two gigs in one for us that night: his first and his last."
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This seems pretty unequivocal to me, and consequently I would be interested to know if anyone can quote a Maiden-related source on the idea that Steve was considering inviting him back ...
:S
 
Kill Devil Hill said:
- I got the distinct impression he prefers aviation to music.
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However in one of his interviews in 2015 when asked what he thinks he is first and foremost given all his passions, and he said "an entertainer", and then added that rather a performer than an entertainer. The truth is out there :D


2.49

I choose to trust Bruce's words.
 
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Black Abyss Babe said:
We only have their word for this though, as far as I am aware no-one from the Maiden camp has ever said anything about this (NB if anyone here knows differently, please post a link).

Here can be found Samson's collective thoughts on this and may other subjects (it sounds like they were more on sour grapes than anything else at this point):

http://www.ironmaidencommentary.com...s0_soundhouse&lang=eng&link=albums#interview2

Meanwhile, here are Steve's thoughts on Thunderstick, as recounted in "Run to the Hills" (only slightly censored for language, because I like being on this forum) -

This seems pretty unequivocal to me, and consequently I would be interested to know if anyone can quote a Maiden-related source on the idea that Steve was considering inviting him back ...
:S
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Steve has mentioned this quite a lot, sometimes he's a bit more diplomatic and names no names about who he is talking about, but that seems pretty clear.

Also, Doug Sampson was a good mate of Steve's and I've seen Steve mention before about being heart broken about having to give Doug the boot, so I'd find it very hard to believe that he'd want to replace him with the guy described in the above quote.
 
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