The voice Of Iron Maiden
[The first part of the article is related to his well known health problem: the reaction to the shocking news ("In the first five minutes you wonder: why me? Then you think about it and change question: why not? You gradually accept, and respect the opponent. to beat it"). Then he assures fans that the larynx is ok, talks about his weight loss ("Now I weight like when I was 21, but there are surely better ways to reach that result") and the fact that his doctors were delighted to deal with him ("In the end, they told me that I was one of the most funny patients they ever had")]
'Death Or Glory' is an hommage to pioneers of the skies. It's about a triplane, dogfights, and the Red Baron, isn't it? "Yes, about his Fokker, it's the same as mine. These are Von Richtofen's words: 'it turns like a devil, it climbs like a monkey'. And to me they seemed perfect to be included in the lyrics".
We come back to flights with 'Empire Of The Clouds': "it's the story of R101, fallen in Beauvais, France, causing more emotion in Great Britain than that on the Titanic disaster. There were 48 killed, including the Air Minister and many politicians, that insisted to take off despite the extreme weather conditions. It was the inauguration of routes between England, India and Australia. The whole British Empire. That night the R101 was overloaded. The last thing to be put on board was the authorities' red carpet. They didn't want to leave it on the ground. It was placed in the foredeck and that one was a fatal decision".
For Bruce there's something even better about the songs. "My favourite song on the album isn't one of those written by me. It's 'Tears Of A Clown': it talks about Robin Williams". [...] "Wonder why he's feeling down". Who's the Beast today? Isis? The war? Global crisis? "No one of us does politics. Eddie is within us, is our dark side, but we take him out of the shadows. He makes our songs more interesting. The Beast of Iron Maiden is primitive, he makes you do crazy things".
smiley.
