Bruce Dickinson

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Kalata said:
Roy Z - long video interview about the new album

The interview appears to have been taken shortly after the release of the 2nd single. He says he's excited to play live. The most curious bits:

- most of the album was written in 2012.
- Maiden were going to take a break back then, but after a short while they decided against that. He knew this because Dave Murray approached him about his first solo album! Wow. What a surprise, Maiden taking a break back then too. Roy said they had talked about it and that he would love to do an album with Dave.
- he said his job as a producer is to make the vision of the artist a reality.
- he and Bruce work so easily together. He deal with the music side and try to create a canvas for Bruce for the rest. He wants Bruce to be happy.
- he wrote the music for Afterglow Of Ragnarok and Many Doors To Hell in about an hour.
- he's most proud of Bruce's vocals on the album and his bass playing, which he plays without a pick.
- he likes the middle part of Resurrection Men.
- Fingers In The Wounds almost didn't make the album. Roy said it's mostly a Bruce song (he came with the middle part) and he really liked it and told Bruce to add it. I'm really glad.
- they add on to their demos.
- they wanted a proggy middle part for Mistress Of Mercy.
- he and Bruce like to create catchy songs.
- he kind of insisted Bruce to play a solo in Face In The Mirror.
- Roy wrote the music and came up with the title for Shadow Of The Gods. The middle part was written for both Bruce and Rob to sing.
- he thinks Sonata was written around 2001. The song is a jam for him and a favorite of both him and Bruce. They used a drum machine for it!
- the setlist is up to Bruce.
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Thanks for sharing the interview!
 
Maybe you can actually learn something about how not to promote an album from all this?
E.g. Sonata: If Bruce hadn't raved about how incredibly moved everyone was by this song, I wouldn't have listened to it with such high expectations and wouldn't have been so disappointed that it was musically rather generic and not very emotive in my opinion and maybe wouldn't have been so annoyed afterwards about every little detail that needed to be worked on in my opinion. (has nothing to do with whether it's metal or not, by the way)
 
Melony said:
Maybe you can actually learn something about how not to promote an album from all this?
E.g. Sonata: If Bruce hadn't raved about how incredibly moved everyone was by this song, I wouldn't have listened to it with such high expectations and wouldn't have been so disappointed that it was musically rather generic and not very emotive in my opinion and maybe wouldn't have been so annoyed afterwards about every little detail that needed to be worked on in my opinion. (has nothing to do with whether it's metal or not, by the way)
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But his girlfriend loved it!
 
Vaenyr said:
Are you sure? From what I've read Bruce wanted a specific sound but Roy played it. Do you remember in which interview that was stated?
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Bruce plays the twangy surf guitar bit. Roy Z mentions it here (around the 23 minute mark):


He also mentions Bruce playing the acoustic guitar solo on Face in the Mirror (around the 30 minute mark). Roy Z mentions being a recovering alcoholic and how he thought Bruce wrote the song about him.
 
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Vaenyr said:
Funnily enough, since I grew up with Maiden, it never occurred to me that people might dislike his voice or that he could be divisive. A good friend of mine appreciates Maiden but doesn't like Bruce's vocals, which blew my mind when he first told me lol
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I became a fan in 2009. And actually, the thing that prevented me from being a fan earlier than that was Bruce's voice. Especially because before 2009 all the stuff I saw from Maiden was their early stuff, mainly The Number of the Beast / Piece of Mind / Powerslave. To this day, I still don't like Bruce's voice on these 3 albums, including Live After Death and Beast Over Hammersmith, with a few tracks as exceptions, such as The Prisoner on BOH. In 2009, though, I watched Rock In Rio live for the first time, was impressed and then became a fan.

His teenager/young adult voice isn't for me. I'm not sure how to explain it, but for me the voice isn't mature enough. And that's the case with many people I know, including my wife.

From Somewhere In Time on, though, with a more mature voice, things get better for me and the peak is reached in 1997-2009.
 
GhostofCain said:
Bruce plays the twangy surf guitar bit. Roy Z mentions it here (around the 23 minute mark):


He also mentions Bruce playing the acoustic guitar solo on Face in the Mirror (around the 30 minute mark). Roy Z mentions being a recovering alcoholic and how he thought Bruce wrote the song about him.
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out of the lonely planet? Interview ended for me right there :D:D:D
 
Bruce on the album:

acoustic guitar: Resurrection Men, Face In The Mirror.
guitar solo: Face In The Mirror.
percussion: Resurrection Men, Eternity Has Failed.
additional keyboards: Eternity Has Failed, Mistress Of Mercy.
 
Melony said:
Maybe you can actually learn something about how not to promote an album from all this?
E.g. Sonata: If Bruce hadn't raved about how incredibly moved everyone was by this song, I wouldn't have listened to it with such high expectations and wouldn't have been so disappointed that it was musically rather generic and not very emotive in my opinion and maybe wouldn't have been so annoyed afterwards about every little detail that needed to be worked on in my opinion. (has nothing to do with whether it's metal or not, by the way)
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Maybe, but the album has gotten a lot of media attention and fan buzz. I doubt Bruce cares that much what a bunch of fans on here think.
 
Shavasku said:
I became a fan in 2009. And actually, the thing that prevented me from being a fan earlier than that was Bruce's voice. Especially because before 2009 all the stuff I saw from Maiden was their early stuff, mainly The Number of the Beast / Piece of Mind / Powerslave. To this day, I still don't like Bruce's voice on these 3 albums, including Live After Death and Beast Over Hammersmith, with a few tracks as exceptions, such as The Prisoner on BOH. In 2009, though, I watched Rock In Rio live for the first time, was impressed and then became a fan.

His teenager/young adult voice isn't for me. I'm not sure how to explain it, but for me the voice isn't mature enough. And that's the case with many people I know, including my wife.

From Somewhere In Time on, though, with a more mature voice, things get better for me and the peak is reached in 1997-2009.
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I can definitely relate to that. Personally I've always been a Maiden fan due to growing up with them and their music constantly playing at home thanks to my oldest brother. After a while I noticed that I'm actually not a big fan of Bruce's early 80's voice. Piece Of Mind is mostly quite good, but Powerslave in particular, as well as The Number Of The Beast, have some truly obnoxious vocal lines.

Perfect example being the end of Total Eclipse, which single-handedly ruined the song for me and made it one of the worst songs they've ever recorded in my opinion. The pitches he hits are incredibly impressive but also sound utterly atrocious and unmusical to me. Pure howling. Also, something heard very clearly on Beast Over Hammersmith, during that time Bruce barely has control over his high range where he constantly missed notes by going over them and sliding around the actual intended note.

SIT onwards (or rather after the grueling Powerslave tour which almost destroyed his voice) forced him to change his approach to vocals and that's where I started enjoying his higher range more. The 90's saw him experiment quite a bit and from Skunkworks up to The Final Frontier he sounded amazing to me.

Since last decade he strains like there's no tomorrow in his highest range and there are plenty of performances that are unlistenable to me because of that. Bruce is one of my favorite singers for his work from 86 to 2010, not for what came before or after.
 
daan said:
and the short repetition of the title at the end is probably the most epic little moment on the whole album for me.
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For me are:
  • heavy part and ending of Shadow.
  • instrumental section and chorus/final chorus of Eternity.
  • outro vocals of Ragnarok.
  • chorus of Wounds.
  • solo section with the vocals for Many Doors.
  • ending of Sonata.
I also have a soft spot for the outro of Mistress.
 
Bruce's album is at 2, by far his highest place in the UK album charts. So if this isn't a way to promote an album, just think how successful he would be if he promoted it properly?
 
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