In a recent appearance on the Rich Roll podcast, IRON MAIDEN frontman Bruce Dickinson discussed the band’s commitment to independence and integrity, emphasizing their refusal to follow trends or succumb to commercial pressures.
“We are outsiders in terms of the music industry in a lot of senses,” Bruce said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “There are bands, and there are bands, and there are bands, and they’re just bands. I mean, you might like them, you might not like them, they might be successful or not successful. But MAIDEN is somehow more than that.
“MAIDEN is part of the core existence for a massive number of people, an unlikely number of people from all kinds of walks of life and avenues, from CEOs to special needs people — I mean, the whole gamut — and everybody seems to get something out of the band. And I don’t analyze it or question it. It just is. And it’s a product of who we are when we get together.”
“It’s a strange chemistry, because it’s manufactured — as in, I would never have met [MAIDEN bassist] Steve Harris and [MAIDEN guitarist] Dave Murray in the normal course of my life, ever, if they hadn’t gone, ‘Hey, we want a singer for IRON MAIDEN.’ And now, what we have in common is IRON MAIDEN, is that music. And, of course, we all got to know each other. And one of the reasons I think the band has survived is because we have grown into each other over the years as people, but at the same time the music is always sacrosanct.”
Expanding on the significance of maintaining integrity and authenticity in MAIDEN‘s music, Bruce said: “When I had throat cancer, the last thing on my mind was, would I ever sing again? The first thing on my mind is, am I gonna get through this and be alive? And the last thing on my mind was would I ever sing again? And I thought, ‘Well, we’ll get to that stage when I’m done and we start trying to sing.’ And I was quite prepared to accept that I might not be able to sing with IRON MAIDEN again. I might be able to sing, I might be able to vocalize, I might be able to sing in a different way, but if I couldn’t sing the way I have to sing with IRON MAIDEN, I’ll help them find a great replacement. Because the music is sacrosanct.”
Dickinson underwent 33 radiation sessions and nine weeks of chemotherapy to treat golf ball-sized tumors on his tongue and neck lymph node. He was declared cancer-free in May 2015.
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