In a recent interview with Classic Rock magazine, IRON MAIDEN frontman Bruce Dickinson emphasized that he and his bandmates would rather “bow out with dignity” than deliver a subpar performance.
“The idea that you can turn it into the Disneyland MAIDEN by using backing tracks, a few tricks… No!” Dickinson said, as Guitar.com reports. “MAIDEN has to be one hundred per cent real — and f**king fierce!”
He continued: “Only recently this guy, a big fan, said to me: ‘It’s so great to see MAIDEN still doing it,’ I said: ‘Yeah, and we’re doing it for real. There’s no detuning.’ This guy said: ‘Lots of bands use backing tracks now…’ I said: ‘No! No, no! [If we use backing tracks,] that’s the day I quit. Or the day we stop. If it’s not real, it’s not MAIDEN.”
In a 2023 interview with Dave Gleeson on Australia’s Triple M radio station, Dickinson discussed the band’s ability to seamlessly incorporate a wealth of new material into their performances without facing significant pushback from fans.
“Well, yeah, that’s because they — that’s because, strangely, they actually like the music,” Bruce responded. “Which is bizarre, isn’t it? I know that’s a really weird concept now — where people actually go to a show to listen to the music. But it’s because we’re not fashion icons or anything else like that. We’ve always been — how can I put it? We’re not like Michelin star chef-type grub; we’re meat and potatoes. And it’s straightforward, what people come to see is.
“I mean, the songs are not necessarily straightforward, but the attitude is. And we still play all the songs in the original key; we don’t drop, downtune and stuff like that. We still play everything too fast, because we’re all excited. We’ve never played to click tracks or like time code and everything else now, ’cause I see a lot of bands now, and I’m going, ‘Hang on a minute. Hey, you sang that without moving your lips.’
“So there’s all this backing vocals being flown in left, right and center and everything. But we don’t do any of that. Everything is analog and real. So we are kind of old school in that respect. But I think that pays dividends ’cause the audience understand that reality is increasingly kind of rare now.”
IRON MAIDEN will hit the road again in 2025 with the “Run For Your Lives” world tour, set to kick off in May.
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.