FearOfTheLark
Educated Fool
I pondered if Bruce didn't reunite with maiden where do you think he would have gone next in his solo stuff etc? Maybe he would have rejoined Samson? The what ifs of life
GhostofCain
Ancient Mariner
Bruce was indeed going to play some NWOBHM celebratory gigs with Samson in 1999. If I remember correctly, he had agreed to that but suddenly pulled the plug once he reunited with Maiden (angering the rest of Samson in the process).
Edit: found an interview about this:
FearOfTheLark
Educated Fool
Interesting! I think Castle/Sanctuary(I think?) were reissuing a lot of albums during the late 90s. Like a lot of record companies and it got me thinking. Sorry I'm not too up on the mega details of some of the specific history
Cheers for the link! I'll give that a looksee. I bet they were a bit miffed, would have loved to see that though. Got a lot of time for early Samson and NWOBM in general
GhostofCain
Ancient Mariner
FearOfTheLark
Educated Fool
I don't think it would have worked with Bruce having short hair harr harrNo need to apologise!
That is a bit of an understatement!
GhostofCain
Ancient Mariner
Kalata
Out of the Silent Planet
He would have continued to release solo albums with his steady and classic lineup. Probably in the same-ish style as AOB and TCW. How big and successful would have been? Dunno, but I guess enough to keep doing it. Playing Maiden songs too. Like Udo.
As for other solo projects, maybe more guest writing and vocals.
CA Bryers
Ancient Mariner
I remember seeing a sales chart somewhere that showed a small dip in sales from Accident of Birth to The Chemical Wedding. Bruce said something back then to corroborate that: generally that AoB and Chemical sold about the same, and that he put out the best album of his career and it didn't make a difference sales-wise.
I think had he ridden it out/if coming back to Maiden hadn't been an option, he might've seen some uptick due to grunge fading and metal coming back into fashion, but he wasn't going to be the next Ozzy. He didn't have the borderline folklore surrounding his story that Ozzy did. He'd have hung out in the middle of festival lineups, and maybe tried a few different things musically. He might've even hung it up and went all-in on piloting and aviation in general. I could see that as definitely plausible.
Kalata
Out of the Silent Planet
I saw it now, Bruce has reissued not long ago some solo albums shirts (AOB, TM, SW; back arts were the dragon and the hand for the latter two) and the one for TOS is not the album cover - but instead the art from the booklet (the background could have been the old painting of a city in the booklet, it's perfect). It's plain white, but I think it would have been a fitting cover, colorful ofc. Curious choice.
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FearOfTheLark
Educated Fool
That's beautiful
Kalata
Out of the Silent Planet
Bruce Dickinson: “What if you had the four bikers of the apocalypse? What if they were the four Eddie Bikers of the apocalypse?”
In our latest Cover Story, metal icon Bruce Dickinson invites us into the world of his new solo album 'The Mandrake Project'.
v13.net
I happened to come across an interview with Bruce from last year - and he said something curious that slipped under the radar.
''That, in a way, gave us a different lens with which to view the other songs. So, we looked at the other songs and started to think about where these were going to go sonically. Seven years ago, it might have been a very different world, Roy moved on, Roy had more guitar sounds, and more ideas and that’s the genesis of the whole thing and the comic ended up taking on a life of its own.''
As I suspected, it seems that the simplistic guitar approach in TMP is purely on Roy. He wasn't interested?
Blood On The World´s Hand
Educated Fool
I would hazard a guess, 4-6 solo albums released between 2000 and today with varied success, a few tours spanning for 4-5 months each and maybe trying something different like with Samson a couple of years etc. And yes, definitely a possibility taking a few years totally out of music. In late 1996 he was seriously considering working for British Railways until deciding to do one more album and it had to succeed. On a sidenote, curiously, his critics would come back a year later and tell that actually Skunkworks is a decent album. Too bad at the time of the release the opinions were different.
dickinson1978
Ancient Mariner
Balls to picasso and skunkworks are good albums,not a masterpiece but enjoyable. Very 90s both. I dont think skunkworks is that grunge that people used to say back in 90s. But yes was a big diference both albums to what he used to sing
Diesel 11
As you scream into the web of silence...
Railways??
Poto
Ancient Mariner
One thing I am sure is that he and Steve would have reunited at some point anyway.
CA Bryers
Ancient Mariner
I'd say all that's pretty realistic. I know it matters to him what critics and fans say about things (like Skunkworks), but the more critical thing I think was how well the albums sold, and none of them sold enough to give him a long, financially solvent career. Like Blaze, he blew through a lot of his financial cushion on his first post-Maiden album--mainly because he recorded three albums vs. just one. When even going back to metal and giving fans what they wanted from him (and then some) didn't change much, back to Maiden he went...though I conspiratorially think he was thinking along those lines as far back as AoB.
Skunkworks was more Alternative, less Grunge. He was competing more with the Collective Souls-type bands than Alice in Chains and Nirvana, though he brought the introspection of those bands into his lyrics more so than before.