Bruce Dickinson

For the Saturday Night Live character, see More cowbell.

Bruce Dickinson

Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is a British singer, airline pilot, radio show host, fencer, author, and songwriter best known as the vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden.

Dickinson performed for some local bands including Styx (not the American band of the same name) in 1976, Speed, (1977–1978), and Shots in early 1979. He then joined hard rock band Samson later in 1979, where he gained some popularity. In this band he went by the name of "Bruce Bruce." He left Samson in 1981, citing musical differences. Shortly afterwards, in 1981, Dickinson was hired as Iron Maiden's new vocalist, debuting for that band with the 1982 album The Number of the Beast. During his time in that band, they issued a series of high impact releases, resulting in Dickinson gaining worldwide fame, and becoming one of the most acclaimed heavy metal vocalists of all time.

Dickinson quit Iron Maiden in 1993 in order to pursue his solo career, being replaced by Blaze Bayley. Dickinson's solo work ranged a wide variety of heavy metal and rock styles. Dickinson rejoined Maiden in 1999 along with guitarist Adrian Smith. Since then, Dickinson has only released one more solo album, Tyranny of Souls. He is the older cousin of Rob Dickinson, lead singer of British alternative rock band Catherine Wheel. In his personal life, he is known for his criticism of drug use.

Childhood

Paul Bruce Dickinson was born in the small mining town of Worksop, Nottinghamshire. His mother Sonia worked part-time in a shoe shop and his father Bruce was a mechanic in the army. Dickinson's birth hurried the young couple into marriage. Initially, he was brought up by his grandparents; his grandfather was a coal-face worker at the local colliery and his grandmother was a housewife. This is referred to in his song "Born In '58" from the album Tattooed Millionaire.

Dickinson started school at Manton Primary. Soon afterwards, when he was six, his parents moved from Worksop to Sheffield and he consequently had to go to a new school, Manor Top, which Dickinson disliked. After six months, his parents decided to move him out to a small private school called Sharrow Vale Junior. Of this period, he recalled "I grew up in an environment where it struck me that the world was never gonna do me any favours. And I had very few close friends, because we were always moving. I think that's partly why I grew up feeling like such an outsider. I didn't have an unhappy childhood, but it was unconventional, to say the least". He also has a younger sister named Helen who was born in 1963. He tried to isolate himself from her as much as he could when he was young, supposedly out of spite because she, unlike him, was a planned pregnancy and birth.

Dickinson's first musical experience was dancing in his grandparents' front room to Chubby Checker's "The Twist". The first record Dickinson recalls owning was The Beatles single "She Loves You" which he managed to persuade his granddad to buy him. "I was only four or five but I really loved that scene, The Beatles and Gerry & The Pacemakers. ... I noticed they had B-sides, and that sometimes I liked them even more than the A-sides. That was when I first began noticing the difference between 'good' music and 'bad'." He believes that this marked the beginning of him thinking like a musician. He tried to play an acoustic guitar belonging to his parents, but it blistered his fingers.

By this time, Dickinson's parents were earning a good living from selling estate. A lot of Dickinson's childhood was spent living on a building site, until his parents bought a boarding house where his father sold second-hand cars off a forecourt. The income from their business success gave them the opportunity to give Dickinson—then 13 years old—a boarding school education and they chose Oundle, a public school in Northamptonshire. Dickinson enjoyed being away from home. "I didn't particularly enjoy being with my parents, so I saw it as an escape. I think it was because I hadn't built any real attachment to them when I was very, very young."

At Oundle, however, Dickinson was picked on and routinely bullied by the older boys of Sidney House, the boarding house that he belonged to. His interests at Oundle were often military. He co-founded the school wargames society with Mike Jordan, and he rose to a position of some power in the Combined Cadet Force.

Oundle was also where Dickinson became attracted to heavy rock. He has said :"I was 13 when I first heard Deep Purple's In Rock album, and it just blew me away! I heard this thing coming out of someone's room one day, and I went in and said 'Whoa! What's that?' And they just looked at me disdainfully and went 'It's "Child in Time" by Deep Purple. Don't you know anything?' But I was too amazed to care. The first album I ever bought was Deep Purple in Rock, all scratched to fuck, but I thought it was great."

Dickinson obtained bongo drums from the music room and practiced. Dickinson remembers trying to learn "Let It Be." Other than this tinkering though, he never learned an instrument at school, and as far as his contemporaries can recall, he could not read music. Any technical musical skills that Dickinson now possesses were acquired after his stay at Oundle. In an episode of BBC2's Seven Ages of Rock, Dickinson said in interview that, like Sinatra's "My Way", Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" was based on "rising sixths". Whether or not his illustration was correct, it has to be said that Dickinson knew nothing about rising sixths when he left Oundle.

Dickinson was later expelled from Oundle for urinating in the headmaster's dinner. Neil Ashford, his co-urinator, was rusticated; that is, sent home for the rest of the term rather than being permanently excluded from the school, on the grounds that the contribution to the headmaster's peas had been Dickinson's idea. Returning home to Sheffield in 1976, Dickinson enrolled at a local Catholic comprehensive school, although not a practising Catholic himself.

In the summer of 1976, he joined his first band. He had overheard two other pupils talking about their band and that they needed a singer. Dickinson volunteered to do the vocals. They rehearsed in the drummer's father's garage and the band were impressed by Dickinson's singing. It was at this point Dickinson decided to buy a microphone. The first gig Dickinson's new band did was at the Broadfield Tavern pub in Sheffield. Originally called "Paradox," the band changed name upon Dickinson's suggestion, to "Styx", unaware of the American act with the same name. They made local newspaper headlines when a steel worker was awoken by their performance. Of the incident, it was said: "He bottled the guitarist and chucked the drums off-stage." Soon after, the band split up.

University

After leaving his school Dickinson didn't really know what he wanted to do. He joined the Territorial Army for six months, which he did not enjoy. As army life was not what he wanted, he applied for a place at University. He had met the minimum grades for getting in and read history at Queen Mary College, in London's East End. His parents wanted him in the army, but he told them that he wanted to get a degree first. "That was what they wanted to hear so that was my cover story. When I got down there I started immediately finding and playing in bands."

In college, Dickinson got involved in the Entertainments Committee. "One day you'd be a roadie for The Jam, the next you'd be putting up the Stonehenge backdrop for Hawkwind or whatever." In 1977, Dickinson met a guy called Paul "Noddy" White. He was a multi-instrumentalist and he had a PA and other equipment. Dickinson suggested that, along with drummer Steve Jones, they form a band together. This would eventually evolve into the band "Speed", described by Dickinson as sounding like a 'crossover between Judas Priest and The Stranglers with a Hammond organ on top of it.' Dickinson recalled: "It had nothing to do with taking speed, we were a completely drug-free band, we just used to play everything ridiculously fast. Like speed metal, but ten years too early." Dickinson was the vocalist and occasionally played guitar. "I got Noddy to give me guitar lessons and I ... started writing stuff straight away. He showed me three chords and I'd write stuff just from those three chords."

Speed didn't last long, but it encouraged Dickinson to continue to work to be a musician. Dickinson spotted an ad in Melody Maker with the caption "Singer wanted for recording project". Since he had never been near a recording studio he replied immediately. He "wailed, wolfed, hollered and made noises" onto a tape and with it went a note that read; "By the way, if you think the singing's crap, there's some John Cleese stuff recorded on the other side you might find amusing." They liked what they heard and Dickinson came down to the studio. The band was called "Shots" and were formed by two brothers, Phil and Doug Siviter. They were amazed by Dickinson's vocal abilities and they started talking about what music they liked. "I started saying Ian Gillan, Ian Anderson, Arthur Brown, and Doug goes, 'That's it! Fucking Arthur Brown, man! Sometimes your voice is a dead ringer for Arthur! We've got to form a band.' This guy's got a studio and he wants to form a band with me! I was like 'Yes'." A song "Dracula" from this session can be heard as the closing track on The Best of Bruce Dickinson, disc two. According to Dickinson, this song is first thing he ever recorded.

Dickinson played pubs with Shots on a regular basis. One particular night, Dickinson suddenly stopped in the middle of a song and started interviewing a man in the audience, heckling for not paying enough attention. He got such a good response he started doing it every night until it became a regular routine. "Suddenly everybody was paying attention, cause they might be next. The first time I did it, afterwards the landlord of the pub was like 'Great show, lads, see you next week'. So we started sort of building this bit into the show. And that was when I first started to get the hang of, just not being a singer, but being a frontman, too."

The next step in Dickinson's career was taken in a pub called the Prince of Wales in Gravesend, Kent, where Shots were playing regularly. One night, Barry Graham ("Thunderstick") and Paul Samson paid a visit. The legend says that Thunderstick, who was there in his every day guise, became the victim of Dickinson's gimmick. "He looked a bit weird so I did a spiel on it". Obviously impressed with his stage-act, Thunderstick and Samson talked with Shots after the performance. A couple of weeks later, Samson called and asked him if he was willing to join their band, Samson. Dickinson was interested since this meant he could play larger gigs in London. Dickinson wanted to "do things with a bit of a weird edge to it." By then, Shots had almost become a heavy metal comedy act; the show had completely taken over the music.

Samson: 1979—1981

Main article: Samson (band)

In my naïveté I thought people who were in rock 'n' roll bands were great artists, and it was a huge shock to the system to realise that they weren't, that they didn't even aspire to be, really. Some of them did, maybe, but some of them, like Samson, were very frightened of the idea.

—Bruce Dickinson.

In a gig by hard rock band Samson at Bishop's Stortford, Dickinson came onstage and performed one of their songs, "Rock Me Baby". He was offered the job as the band's vocalist immediately. They released their debut album, Survivors, in 1979 on an independent label. Dickinson did not appear on the original version, as it had been completed two months before he joined them. During his time in Samson, he went by the name "Bruce Bruce", derived from Monty Python's Bruces sketch. The other band members knew they had improved things by hiring Dickinson, but it took some time for the fans to "catch up". Dickinson was shocked after finding out that all rock performers were not as great artists as he had thought them to be. Most of them, like Samson, didn't think of popularity, but just "to have a good drink, a good shag, and take some drugs". It was very difficult for him to relate to that kind of living. He had smoked before, but in Samson it was more like a habit. Dickinson had to smoke joints in order to communicate with other band members. He called it, "the price that had to be paid", as it was a step towards his goal —being a rock n' roll singer.

The band released two more albums with Dickinson - Head On and Shock Tactics. However, after Samson encountered numerous difficulties, Dickinson departed in 1981.

Iron Maiden

Main article: Iron Maiden

Beginnings: 1981—1993

Maiden worked to a time table. A table that wasn't absolute but it had to be stuck to. "Now you'll write for six weeks, now you'll make a record for three months, now you're rehearsing for two weeks, now you'll tour for eight months." It was organized like that and that seemed to suit the style of writing of the band.

— Bruce Dickinson at Gino, Stockholm.

Dickinson auditioned for Iron Maiden in September 1981, singing a version of "Remember Tomorrow", from their self-titled debut album, to which the band members answered "Hey... you got the job". Maiden had a strict and organized routine that suited the band's writing style, which Dickinson described as a "time table". After a few gigs, Maiden started writing new material for their third album, The Number of the Beast, released in 1982. In the wake of Samson's contractual problems, Dickinson couldn't be credited on the songs. He called it a "moral contribution", referring to the fact that the contribution that he had made to the songs was equal to those of the other band members. The album was a major success, topping the UK charts, The band embarked on a supporting tour around the globe.

On the following albums, 1983's Piece of Mind and 1984's Powerslave, Steve Harris's song-writing monopoly was pushed aside in favour of other members' ideas. Dickinson contributed a number of songs, including the singles "Flight of Icarus" and "2 Minutes to Midnight". During the World Slavery Tour, as part of the new theatrical elements, Dickinson wore a feathered mask during "Powerslave". This was the band's longest-lasting tour to date, where Harris and Dickinson thought of going home mid-tour, due to the high number of dates.

The band took a six-month break, which Dickinson spent practicing fencing. Maiden started writing for a new album, Somewhere in Time. Dickinson was unhappy with the synthesised bass and guitars and progressive rock-influenced style, and had no writing credits. Following the subsequent tour, Maiden started working on the next album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, which followed its predecessor's approach, and became their second effort to top the UK charts. After the subsequent tour in 1988, they decided to take a year off.

Bruce Dickinson performing with Iron Maiden in Paris, France, 1 July 2008.

During the pre-production of the next album, Adrian Smith left Iron Maiden, and was replaced by Janick Gers. The band embarked on a mini tour during the summer, to introduce the new guitarist. Maiden's eighth studio album, 1990's No Prayer for the Dying, had a raw sound that didn't "hold up well", compared to past efforts. The album featured Dickinson's "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter", originally composed for a film soundtrack, which despite receiving a Golden Raspberry Award for worst "original" song in 1989, it became the band's first single to top the UK singles chart. By 1992, Harris had set up a studio of his own and the new album, Fear of the Dark, was recorded there. This effort's overall sound received a better treatment than No Prayer for the Dying. Dickinson said this was the first time they attempted to recapture something from the past. Dickinson left Iron Maiden after a farewell tour in 1993, to concentrate on his solo career. His last performance with the band was filmed by the BBC and released as a live video, Raising Hell.

Return: 1999—present

Along with Adrian Smith, Dickinson rejoined Iron Maiden in 1999 with Janick Gers remaining in the band, and they embarked on a small tour. Afterwards, they set about recording Brave New World, their first studio album with Dickinson since 1992. The supporting tour culminated with a performance at the Rock in Rio festival. In 2003 they released Dance of Death. During a 2005 tour, Sharon Osbourne accused Dickinson of disrespecting the Ozzfest at the band's last Ozzfest performance. She repeatedly turned off the P.A. system, and chanted "Ozzy! Ozzy!". Some members of the audience threw eggs at the band, to which Dickinson replied it was a premeditated assault organised by insiders. In an interview for Rhythm, a UK drum based magazine, Nicko McBrain stated that this incident inspired Dickinson to write the song These Colours Don't Run for Maiden's next album, stating: "When Bruce brought that to the table, he said 'I've got this song called 'These Colours Don't Run' and we all just laughed at him, saying, 'Yeah right, and where did that come from then?'."

In 2006, Maiden released their newest effort, A Matter of Life and Death and embarked on the tour. In 2008, they held the Somewhere Back in Time World Tour. Months later, Dickinson talked about the band's plans to compose a new album to come out in 2010, now known to be titled "The Final Frontier".

Solo career

In early 1989, Zomba asked Dickinson to do a track for the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, with a budget, a studio, and a producer, Chris Tsangarides. Dickinson took up the opportunity and called an old friend of his, former Gillan guitarist, Janick Gers. Shortly after meeting up, they had "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter" ready for the studio. The song was composed with the assistance of bassist Andy Carr, and drummer Fabio del Rio. Later that year, Dickinson participed on a re-recording of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water", as part of the humanitarian effort Rock Aid Armenia. His intention now was to release a solo album. His solo debut, Tattooed Millionaire, was written and recorded within weeks, and released in May 1990. Backed by the band Skin, Bruce Dickinson, with Mr. Bean, made a cover version of Alice Cooper's "Elected", which was used in 1992 for Comic Relief, and five years later, on Bean Soundtrack.

For his second solo effort, Balls to Picasso, Dickinson received the collaboration of American producer, Keith Olsen. Unhappy with the results, Dickinson started working with Tribe of Gypsies guitarist Roy Z, to improve Olsen's work. The album was recorded with Tribe of Gypsies as the backing band, and was released in 1994. That same year, Dickinson recorded a cover version of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" with the band Godspeed for Black Sabbath's tribute album Nativity in Black. Tribe of Gypsies departed to continue with their work and Dickinson tracked down another band. Now his new writing partner was Alex Dickson. After the supporting tour finished, he started working on a new album, Skunkworks. Dickinson decided the band would be called that, but abandoned the idea to keep his name on the release.

Due to musical differences, the "Skunkworks" entity ceased to be when the tour ended. After a short period of inactivity, Dickinson once again teamed up with Roy Z and Tribe of Gypsies to record his next album, Accident of Birth. Adrian Smith was asked to guest and remained later as a full-time member. The album marked a return to heavy metal for Dickinson; being a much heavier album than Iron Maiden's, with a less progressive influence. Follow-up, The Chemical Wedding, was a semi-concept album on alchemy. It drew inspiration from William Blake's writings, with songs such as, "Book of Thel", having the same title of some of his poems, and the artwork featuring one of his paintings. The record was even more successful than its predecessor, with engaging lyrics and powerful songs. Dickinson recorded a cover version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", with Montserrat Caballé, almost ten years after her duet album with Freddie Mercury. Scream for Me Brazil was a live album that documented a show recorded in São Paulo in 1999, during the supporting tour.

In February 1999, Dickinson, along with Smith returned to Iron Maiden. Dickinson performed vocals on the song, "Into the Black Hole", for Ayreon's Universal Migrator Part 2: Flight of the Migrator. Later that year, he collaborated with Judas Priest's front-man, Rob Halford, recording, "The One You Love to Hate", for Halford's debut, Resurrection. In late 2001, was released a compilation album, titled The Best of Bruce Dickinson. This work also included a limited edition disc of rarities and two new songs. His latest album, Tyranny of Souls was released in May 2005. This time the songwriting was all split between Roy Z and Dickinson. Many songs were composed by Roy sending recordings of riffs to Dickinson, while he was on tour with Maiden. In June 21, 2005, Dickinson's complete solo discography was re-released, featuring bonus discs with rare and remastered tracks. That same year, Dickinson contributed in the song, "Beast in the Light", from Tribuzy's album, Execution, and a subsequent live album. In 2006, was released a three-DVD package, Anthology, containing concerts from his career, promo videos and footage from his work on Samson.

Other work

Bruce Dickinson in a flight suit

Dickinson's interests include literature, writing, fencing (at which he has competed internationally, and has founded a fencing equipment company under the brand name "Duellist"), railway technology and aviation. Due to the wide variety of Dickinson's pursuits, the Winter 2009 edition of Intelligent Life named him as a living example of a polymath.

Aviation

Dickinson holds a commercial pilot's licence, and regularly flies Boeing 757 charter jets for the UK charter airline Astraeus where he is employed as a Captain. He was taught to fly by British Airways commercial pilot Captain Phil Dales. In mid-2006, Dickinson flew about 200 UK citizens home from Lebanon during the Israel/Hezbollah conflict. On 12 February 2007, Dickinson was given permission to fly Rangers F.C. to Israel for their UEFA Cup game against Hapoel Tel Aviv. Dickinson asked if he could pilot this flight as soon as he found Astraeus had the contract for it. After the collapse of XL Airways UK in September 2008 he piloted an Iceland Express aeroplane and flew home 180 stranded holiday makers from Egypt, as well as a Boeing 757 with a group of British RAF pilots from Afghanistan. "A lot of them recognised him because they are Maiden fans, but he was there in his professional capacity as a pilot," says an RAF spokesman. For their 2008-2009 Somewhere Back in Time World Tour, Iron Maiden purchased and had a Boeing 757 specially converted to carry equipment for their concerts. Dickinson himself piloted the plane, dubbed "Ed Force One".

Radio and TV

Dickinson presented "Bruce Dickinson's Friday Rock Show" on BBC radio station 6 Music from 2002-2010. Jean-Jacques Burnel, bassist with The Stranglers, took over the presenting duties while Dickinson toured the US with Iron Maiden. In March 2010, the BBC announced that, after over eight years, Dickinson's show was to be axed. His final broadcast was on May 28 2010, with the regular format abandoned in favour of a personal and musical tribute to the recently deceased Ronnie James Dio. Dickinson also scorned the BBC executives for the cancellation, playing the Johnny Paycheck version of Take This Job and Shove It. He has recently taken the helm of BBC Radio 2 serial 'Masters of Rock'. He also presented the 5-part historical TV series about aviation, Flying Heavy Metal, which was shown on the Discovery Channel, and later on Discovery Turbo in the UK. He was also a guest on an episode of the Military Channel's "The Greatest Ever", where he drove a Russian T-34 tank. The most recent television programme he has presented was a show on spontaneous human combustion for Sky One called Inside Spontaneous Human Combustion with Bruce Dickinson, in which he investigates the phenomenon of this occurrence by enlisting the help of several experts and performing various experiments to determine its possible cause.

Writing

Plotting it out was the doddle. It came from a series of mad conversations, actually, that all gestated together along with some Sherlock Holmes, some Biggles and Penthouse, and out it came.

— Bruce Dickinson commenting on Lord Iffy.

During a 1986-1987 Iron Maiden tour, and in the wake of a divorce, Dickinson started writing his first book. He spent sleepless night trying to give birth to the main character, Lord Iffy Boatrace. Iffy was an English landlord, whose problems were always related to the lack of money and quested a wealthy life.

The book, The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace (ISBN 0-283-06043-3), was released in 1990 and sold more than 30,000 copies almost immediately. Due to the high demand, the publisher, Sidgwick & Jackson, asked Dickinson to produce a sequel, which became 1992's The Missionary Position (ISBN 0-283-06092-1).

Dickinson has also turned his hand to scriptwriting, having written a film script entitled Chemical Wedding which has been made into a film starring Simon Callow, in which Dickinson played a few small cameo roles and composed the soundtrack. Dickinson has also appeared twice in The Paradise Club, a BBC series.

Singing style

Dickinson was trained operatically to get his famous broad range of notes and enormous screams. He was given the nickname "The Air Raid Siren" because when he joined Iron Maiden and recording his first album The Number of the Beast, their sound engineer Martin Birch wanted to get the right sound for the first four lines of the title song, and forced Dickinson to sing them over and over again for hours, until Dickinson grew so frustrated that he let out a tremendous scream originally not written in the song, but found to be so fitting by the band that they kept it as part of the intro. In reality, this scream soon became one of the things that the song is most recognized for.

Dickinson's singing varied notably in the 1990s in the recording of albums such as No Prayer for the Dying, Fear of the Dark and his first solo work Tattooed Millionaire, making use of a much more raspy and unpolished sound, befitting of the stripped down style of the albums. Since returning to Iron Maiden in 1999, his singing style has returned to much like it was in the 1980s with Iron Maiden, though soft and reflective passages have been incorporated with the familiar operatic wail to suit the more progressive direction of Iron Maiden since the reunion.

Discography

Iron Maiden

Main article: Iron Maiden discography

• 1982: The Number of the Beast
• 1983: Piece of Mind
• 1984: Powerslave
• 1986: Somewhere in Time
• 1988: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
• 1990: No Prayer for the Dying
• 1992: Fear of the Dark
• 2000: Brave New World
• 2003: Dance of Death
• 2006: A Matter of Life and Death
• 2010: The Final Frontier

Bruce Dickinson

Main article: Bruce Dickinson discography

• 1990: Tattooed Millionaire
• 1994: Balls to Picasso
• 1996: Skunkworks
• 1997: Accident of Birth
• 1998: The Chemical Wedding
• 2005: Tyranny of Souls

Samson

• 1979: Survivors ^*
• 1980: Head On
• 1981: Shock Tactics
• 1990: Live at Reading 1981

^ * 'Dickinson appeared on the album's re-issue only, as it had been originally completed before he joined the band.

External links

• Bruce Dickinson's official website
• Template:MySpace