Forostar
Ancient Mariner
From Steve Hoffman forum, someone translated this (roughly) from German Rocks magazine:
Bruce, are you doing well?
You can believe that. I was even in the gym earlier today to get fit. And now I am ready for you.
Outstanding. What kind of fitness exercises did you do?
I did a bit of work with dumbbells and weights.
Are you in top physical shape in time for Senjutsu to be released?
Oh man, I don't know. To be honest, I've seen people who are more athletic than me. At the moment it's enough for me if I don't become fatally obese (laughs loudly). But seriously: I almost only know people who have gained a lot of weight during Corona. I'm trying not to belong to that large group.
While we are on the phone, Jeff Bezos is flying into space with his rocket. As an experienced pilot, would you also be interested in such an excursion?
Well, I am happy for the billionaires that they have the time for their adventures. Honestly, I grant them that. But I see rather bad chances that I will accompany them in the near future.
Really? Then space travel is not one of the adventures that appeal to you?
Hm, no, if I'm honest, not so much. Oh, you are totally lashed into this rocket and then you are just a passenger. All right, I do not rule out the possibility that I treat myself to such a skill. But I'd rather wait until the price for these flights drops a bit (laughs). Right now, I prefer to invest all my money in my company in Wales, which employs 150 people.
This is Cardiff Aviation, a company that offers aircraft maintenance and pilot training, among other things.
Exactly. But we renamed it CAERDAV a few years ago. In fact, business is doing far better than anyone should have feared. We are practically fully booked until next March and have just hired eleven trainees. We are even in negotiations to take over even more hangar space, which would also create additional jobs. We didn't have to fire anyone either.
Your old core business, Iron Maiden, is finally up and running again. Senjutsu has become a powerful and quite demanding album, as in many places it seems to refer again to a record like Brave New World. How do you feel about Senjutsu?
I think we made a fantastic record. The crazy and really blatant thing is that we've been sitting on this finished album for almost three years now and couldn't tell anyone about it. We recorded it in spring 2019, then we went over to America again to play shows from the Legacy Of The Beast-tour - and actually wanted to release Senjutsu quickly. Instead, the pandemic came and screwed up our plans twice. But now nothing is being postponed. The part has to get out now. We can't and don't want to sit on these songs until the end of our days. And we couldn't have kept the album a secret any longer. It is almost a miracle that we have made it this far.
AC/DC also had to keep their album, which was released last year, a secret for a very long time and everyone involved in the recordings, including the producers, were condemned to silence by contract. How did you do that? Especially since photos of Iron Maiden were circulating on the Internet, which showed you in the corresponding recording period in Paris, where Senjutsu was made.
There are photos from time to time, but nobody can really check them. Those are just rumors. More importantly, no one had a copy of the recordings and we could be absolutely sure that no scrap of music or gossip could get outside. Nobody had a copy of the album. Not even our management. Steve had one on his laptop, and another was locked in a safe somewhere. Well, and I had one at one point because I pulled it off Steve's computer when he was around to mix the Mexico live album.
You compared your video for the single The Writing On The Wall with the Germany-video by Rammstein. Where do you see the parallels?
In the sense that it really is totally surprising. Our video is an animated short film, we haven't done anything like it in all these years. Of course, it's not the same thing, aesthetically and generally, as the Rammstein mini-film about Germany, but we hope the video will have a similar effect for Iron Maiden fans. Some might see the band in a new light. In any case, the Rammstein video is one of my favorite videos of all time. It really is a piece of art.
Why did you choose an animated film?
That was obvious and was practically impossible to do otherwise. In the pandemic, we could never shoot a video like we wanted with real people. If we had started to take on this adventure, then we would have had to make an entire fictional film so that the financial feat would have been worth it.
Senjutsu as such, with its 82 minutes, could be one itself. The songs are again very complex with long intros, long instrumental passages and many twists and turns. Nevertheless, the album differs significantly from The Book Of Souls (2015) or Dance Of Death (2003), on which the progressive side of Iron Maiden really broke through. Do you go into the studio with a rough goal for new music? What did you come up with for Senjutsu?
Oh, we didn't have anything special in mind. We just wanted to make an interesting album. There have already been individual ideas, they always exist. But actually, we went into the studio pretty unprepared. The last two records didn’t go much differently either. Which is a bit strange because The Book Of Souls and The Final Frontier are two of the most complex Maiden albums. When we write music, it's an organic process. We tried out, rehearsed and recorded most of the time. Of course, the songs don't just fall out of the sky. Most of them, anyway (laughs). Steve tends to be very meticulous; he works very detail-focused and knows extremely exactly how he wants something. Sometimes, he would lock himself away for a few days to tinker with certain parts while the rest of us had a good time. At some point, Steve's doors jumped open and he called for the recordings. The things I wrote with Adrian were more conventional. We played the guitar and sang, and we kept doing that until we thought we had something. Then we rehearsed and recorded straight away. Everybody in the band had a very unique, very special feeling while working on Senjutsu. We felt it was going to be great. I think the versatility of these new songs is very strong. The Writing On The Wall is really a bit out of the ordinary and doesn't really give a foretaste of what the rest of the album is like, from my point of view. Every song is different.
Is it also fun to come up with surprises for the fans?
Let's leave the "also" out. We take great pleasure in impressing people with our creativity. Everyone knows what kind of beast Maiden is, and we know it too, and yet there is a lot of space within its framework to try new things. The hard work is getting yourself up and going. In the end you sit in the studio with your mouth open in amazement and think to yourself: Wow, isn't that cool?
In addition to Days Of Future Past and Darkest Hour, you also wrote The Writing On The Wall with Adrian Smith. Are you proud and happy that your song was chosen as an ambassador for the album and not one of your main songwriter and bassist Steve Harris?
Yes, I really am. The song is really pretty catchy and a relatively conventional hard rock song. It is definitely a gigantic Maiden song in the tradition of The Number Of The Beast. But as for the chorus, it's not exactly a million miles away from a number like Run To The Hills either. Let's put it this way: the melody is super memorable, the riff is great, the groove anyway. One of the big trump cards on the album for me is Nicko's drumming anyway. Because he has such a great groove, which for me is the key to all the songs on the album.
But we shouldn't ignore your voice either. Do you do anything for it?
Nope. Nothing. I just start singing. The voice is naturally well oiled. I never took vocal training or anything. Sure, over the years you learn a lot about your voice, you pick up on certain techniques. As my voice has gotten older, it has gotten a little darker. And somehow fatter at the back. Which, by the way, I like a lot. Because that means that I am more flexible with my voice, more atmospheric. Overall, I think my voice has held up very solidly.
Like the rest of Bruce?
(laughs) I hope so. I very much hope that certain parts of me don't age faster than the rest.
In general, songs like Days Of Future Past or The Time Machine convince with particularly robust and strong vocal melodies.
That's how it should be. I think all songs have their melodic advantages. Especially, the two you mentioned. But even some of the guitar riffs are very catchy.
Days Of Future Past is the shortest and most compact song on the record with four minutes and gets straight to the point. Last time, we had a song like this was on Brave New World. How come?
No idea. It just ended. We also looked at each other and thought: ****, we have a song that has scythe after four minutes? (laughs). I believe that the length of a song as such is not a benefit itself. We don’t focus on the length of the songs. The key is that everything you want to do in a song fits into it. The Writing On The Wall, for example, is six and a half minutes, but we also need that for the acoustic intro, among other things. The video is longer, but at the end there is only the credits, so we cheated a little.
Well, the benefit of a long song is in the listening pleasure, right?
Well said, but of course it only works if you can keep the interest running for that long. And I think most of the songs on Senjutsu do their job at this point. Steve's songs too. Stratego isn't that long either, but it's packed with awesome stuff.
What do you actually sing about in Days Of Future Past and in The Writing On The Wall? Is it about some kind of dystopian apocalyptic mood that you create in these songs?
Yes. No. Perhaps, a little (laughs). The Writing On The Wall is a look back and into the future. I'm talking about the generation that fought in World War II and who largely died by now, who secured our freedom and made the post-war economic miracle possible that created Western Europe as we know it to this day. And the question is: what do we do now? With all the technology, with our lifestyle, how should this all go on and who gives us advice on how to behave? Ultimately also: Do we initiate developments within the existing system or do we better turn the system upside down?
So, Bruce?
Oh, I don't provide any answers. I just ask questions. Answering them is not my job. Otherwise, I would run in the elections. And I'll never ****ing do that. Just the idea. No, no, I'll leave that. All music can do is offer choices and give you something to think about if that's what you want. As for Days Of Future Past. The lyrics are based on the film Constantine with Keanu Reeves, the source of which is again a comic. The text describes the situation from the perspective of the main character.
The management previously explicitly forbade me to broach the subject of politics, but if you mention it yourself: With a little imagination, one could imagine a Prime Minister Bruce Dickinson.
No. Please, stop.
It can hardly get any worse than Boris Johnson.
Still no. **** off. (Laughs uproariously) I am a ****ing rock singer and that's it.
But you're also a man of many talents.
Maybe, but my talents are not suitable for such tasks.
Where does this basic Japanese theme of the album come from?
From Steve. The topic actually only extends from the album cover and the furnishing of Eddie with a few Japanese symbols and properties. And the title track has such a slight Japanese flavor I would say. I also have to ask Steve which wall the lyrics are supposed to be about. It seems to me he's been watching a lot of Game Of Thrones lately.
So, Steve watched Game Of Thrones, you Constantine with Keanu Reeves. You mainly spent Corona in front of the telly?
Yes, among other things. I started a bit late, but I watched all the episodes of Sons Of Anarchy. This is one of the reasons why the bikers appear in the video for The Writing On The Wall.
Do you ride a motorcycle yourself?
No, absolutely not. I don't use any means of transport that have pedals.
What actually happened to Eddie? What is he doing in Japan and why is he suddenly a samurai?
No idea. We just thought he looked cool with a sword.
His teeth seem to have suffered quite a bit, however.
That's probably true, our buddy doesn't make the very best impression. He looks a bit gnarled. I don't know, maybe he caught some ****ing disease.
You recorded again in the Paris studio Guillaume Tell and again with your regular producer Kevin Shirley. What makes the combination between Kevin and Iron Maiden unique, especially compared to your work with Martin Birch back then?
Martin is unfortunately no longer available. The last album he recorded for Maiden was Fear Of The Dark. He had been retired for a long time and sadly passed away last year. Working with Kevin is different. It is great in its own way because he knows how to capture the band - the way the band plays and ticks today. I think his mix on the new album is particularly successful. Senjutsu's sound is really, really good.
How do you work together in the studio? Like a team or more like a bunch of highly talented individuals?
Iron Maiden are, above all, a unique band. We are different from any other band I have ever met. It would be very difficult and complicated to get a new producer on board for Maiden. Kevin works very well, we sound fantastic, no need to change anything.
What is it that makes you so unique?
We're an unusual mix of characters. Sometimes we work closely together, sometimes not so closely, we write in unusual ways. Lots of little things make us - let's use the word willful. And everything brought together makes up our identity. Without our quirks and peculiarities, we wouldn't be the band we are. We would sound a lot more like other bands.
You mentioned it earlier: You wrote songs and then immediately recorded them instead of collecting the rest of the material, letting the songs sit and working and recording them later in one go. What is the advantage?
We have tried all possible approaches in our careers. If you play every song live and then record it, the work is less complicated, but you also limit yourself. The way we do it now, instrument by instrument, you have more opportunities to experiment. And in that case, we don't think about playing live until the recordings are finished. It is of course a bit tricky to re-develop the song for you to play together. All in all, there is no right or wrong.
If you compare today's Iron Maiden to the band from the eighties or nineties - what do you particularly like about the present-day maiden?
Oh, we have much, much more confidence in our qualities and the confidence to do exactly what we want to do. Without thinking about fashions or whether it's still metal or not. If it's Iron Maiden, it's Iron Maiden. We no longer have to question ourselves critically.
Have you ever thought about trends and fashions?
No, sometimes other people did that for us.
But then you don't care.
That's right, but that's still not it. You get angry after all. But no matter, we don’t give a **** anymore (laughs).
The phase around Somewhere In Time (1986) wasn't your happiest with Maiden - in the 90s you even left the band for a few years after Fear Of The Dark. Do you personally have more fun playing in the band now than before?
Hard to say. I think I actually enjoy it a little more today. Firstly, because I never thought I would do this job for so long, at my age. Every day I'm allowed to go on tour with Maiden feels like an extension of my life. That's wonderful.
Why did you think, at this age, and you are not that old yet, you would no longer be active?
When you're 30, it seems unthinkable to be 60 one day.
What if you are 63?
Then you suddenly think you're 30 again (laughs).
60 is no longer an age for a rock musician, is it? The Stones are as good as 80. How long do you want to carry on?
As long as we do a good job. As long as we don't become a parody of ourselves. Nobody complains that the Rolling Stones are still on the move.
You have changed a lot musically in the past few years. The Maiden sound has become more diverse, we already mentioned it. How do you see the development in your musical direction?
I totally agree with you. On one hand, it sounds silly after all these years when I say that we dare to do more today than we did in the past, but that's how it is. Even in the subconscious, we no longer worry about what anyone on the planet is thinking about us.
Was that a moving process or a sudden realization?
We came up with Brave New World when I got back, and that was a first-class album. Then we slipped into an experimental phase with Dance Of Death, we tried more things out. I think A Matter Of Life And Death is also a fantastic, somewhat underrated album. The Final Frontier was okay, The Book Of Souls was good, but… this album is, of all the albums we've made since Brave New World, a very special one.
We should also talk about Lost In A Lost World. The song starts like a melancholy folk ballad before it bursts.
The first two minutes sound like Moody Blues. Those are the influences of Steve. We have so many influences in this band, half of which the others have never heard of.
What are your secret favorite bands that nobody thinks you like to listen to?
I like folk rock music. Jethro Tull, for example. We almost all love them at Maiden - our folk parts can usually be directly traced back to this band. Otherwise, I seem to be one of the few people who can understand the step Ritchie Blackmore took with Blackmore’s Night. Away from hard rock to folk and medieval music - it's not that absurd. I like this stuff. Otherwise, I really like the early Hawkwind. And The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. Anything, really. In contrast to Steve, I am not at all interested in the virtuoso technical aspects of progressive rock. Yes is one of those bands that has always emphasized it way too much for me. However, I always thought Van der Graaf Generator was great, they meant a lot more to me than Genesis.
Iron Maiden are probably the greatest heavy metal band in the world. On your last tour you sold more than two million tickets. Can you understand it when people say that rock music today no longer has the relevance of the early days?
I just have to invite these people to one of our shows and they will be converted forever.
If you were a 13-year-old boy anywhere in the provinces today, would you love Iron Maiden?
Well, yeah! And not just me. Children, teenagers, girls, boys, all over the world are absolutely drawn to Iron Maiden.
Right from the start, you delighted fans all over the world. Today, in the age of the Internet, it is so common that in the early eighties it usually took longer to attract global attention. Why did you succeed so fast?
Because we were damn good. Just like that. We have always put on the really big drama, the really big show, on stage.
You never suffered from shyness, did you?
No, I'm a pretty extroverted boy. Always been. I like it when everything is loud and bangs. For example, I love the good old explosions on our stage. But of course, you have to fit all of this into a framework, and this framework is always dictated by the songs. We were never posers. We are musical storytellers with a weakness for drama.
In your opinion, what is the significance of humor and self-irony at Iron Maiden?
Important. These are the qualities that make us human. Even in dire situations, we don't completely ignore them. With us, a show, an album always covers the entire spectrum of the human emotional world.
Is Darkest Hour also about World War II?
Yes, more precisely to Winston Churchill. The song deals with how one man, despite his numerous shortcomings, made a decision that, in principle, saved the whole world. Namely, not to surrender, but to fight. Churchill was a great melancholy and was pretty dumped after the war, but despite everything, he inspired an entire nation to stand in the way of dark forces. And he was successful.
You said very clearly that you were not available for the job. But do we need someone like Churchill in politics today?
If only it was that easy. Leadership skills are always relative. Sometimes you need a charismatic optimist at the top, sometimes a technocrat can help you. Most of the time, both are not possible.
You live in London and in the past you openly supported Brexit. Would you decide differently today?
Definitely no. I stand by my decision.
You are also a pilot and fly the Boeing 747, in which you travel from show to show, yourself. Are you looking forward to the flying the jet again?
We discarded it after our concert in Gothenburg in 2016. Because it was damaged, because of the environment, and also because it's impractical to always have an airplane on your bag. You don't need a jumbo to fly from Paris to Zurich.
But it was a great picture that went around the world of your plane standing next to Angela Merkel's little plane.
Oh man, yeah! Didn't that look damn cool (laughs)? At that time, the timing was partly the same as with the plane. But now the Ed Force One is history.
Last but not least, your beer, Trooper Ale, is going really well, isn't it?
Yes, phenomenal. We have sold 30 million pints since the company was founded in 2013. And now we have a whole range of delicious flavors.
Which strain do you like best yourself?
In addition to the original, I especially appreciate Sun & Steel, our pilsner fermented with Japanese sake. That’s really delicious.
You made it, Bruce. What are you doing now?
I will actually go to the pint next door and have myself a beer.
