Around The World In 15 Days!
IRON MAIDEN
12 Aug 2000 


Jules Verne’s heroes did it in 80 days – but IRON MAIDEN vocalist Bruce Dickinson circumvented the globe in just a fortnight on a recent worldwide promotional trip. With ‘Brave New World’, the much-anticipated new Iron Maiden album - the first to be recorded with the revamped line-up with frontman Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith rejoining bassist Steve Harris, guitarists Dave Murray and Janick Gers and drummer Nicko McBrain – scheduled for release on 29th May, it seems that every music publication in the world wants to get the scoop on the latest recordings. Hence Bruce’s global excursion.

Metal-is Editor Valerie Potter caught up with the weary singer in Paris, where he talked about the rigours of an arduous promo schedule and revealed that video shoots in Los Angeles are not always as glamorous as they sound!

You’ve just flown completely round the world…

I will have done by tomorrow, yes. I started in L.A. on Saturday, arrived in Sydney on Monday morning, then arrived in Tokyo on Wednesday morning, then I was in Stockholm on Saturday night, Cologne on Monday, Milan on Wednesday, Brussels on Wednesday night, Paris on Thursday and I'm back to L.A. tomorrow. Then I go straight to Mexico City, then to New York for three days, then to Brazil for three days, then back to L.A. And I'm missing a day somewhere - I don't know what happened then!

…And you haven’t really had time to see much of the countries you’ve visited.

When I flew from L.A. to Sydney, it took 14 hours. You get there at eight in the morning and you start interviews at 12 o'clock and then you work through 'til the next night, when you fly off to Tokyo at ten o'clock, get there at six in the morning and you start interviews at 11 o'clock the same day. So you're just cracking through this schedule and it's not actually been that bad, but, of course, when it gets to the evening, all of a sudden, you fall asleep in the sushi if you're in Japan or the meat pie if you're in Australia, and it's 'Sorry, I have to go to bed now!'

Don’t you find it disorienting that, although you’re constantly traveling from country to country, many of the questions you’re being asked every day must be the same?

It's not been too bad so far - but it's very strange that the closer I get to England, the bitchier people get! When we were in Germany and Sweden and Italy, they were all 'Great to hear the album, it's really cool, and it's great that you're all back together!' Then as soon as we land in France, it's like 'Aha, I see that you and Steve are in separate rooms doing interviews - what does this mean?!' 'That way we can get twice as many interviews done.' 'But it really means that you hate each other, doesn't it?' 'No, it doesn't actually and I don't believe we do, unless this is news to me!' 'Yes, this is the company line, isn't it?' ‘NO!’ Jesus Christ! I've just spent a whole day of UK interviews here, saying the same thing. Everybody in the UK wants it to be Mick and Keith, or Daltrey and Townshend, or something! I might have to start lying in future and tell them that only the other morning, we were dueling with baseball bats at breakfast, or some crap like that!

What is the best question you’ve been asked in this round of promotion?

There's actually been a singular lack of 'best questions'. In Australia, I had to do an interview with Australian ‘FHM’ to see if I passed the 'Bloke Test', so there were 20 questions on whether or not I was a true 'bloke' - and bear in mind, you had to be a true Aussie bloke, so you really had to be pretty gross to pass this test! One of the questions was, 'Had I ever fallen asleep while shagging?' Another was, 'What would I do if my lawnmower broke down?' And 'Had I ever fallen off a motorbike?' I said no, but I'd fallen off a moped - would that do? I think I was a bloke, 'cause I'd done all of the worst things that they could imagine - and more! - but the lawnmower one got me a bit flustered!

And what was the worst question?

’What is the most outrageous thing that anyone has ever said about you?’ ‘Cause I couldn't think of a single outrageous thing that anybody had said about me that wasn't true, and therefore it wasn't outrageous to me.

Are you sick of doing promotion and ready to get back to playing music again?

I've got a little bit of 'grin and bear it' and actually, I've still got a few more 'Avengers' episodes to watch on DVD. I do find that the long plane flights are pretty good, because I can get two or three episodes done before I get to the destination and I can crack a couple of beers. If you're doing promotion whilst pissed, eventually the mouth stops moving, so you stay extremely straight! But it's not too bad. I'm going to be really glad when we start rehearsing and get stuck into it properly, 'cause I must confess, at the moment, I am a tad apprehensive about the first gig - and the second gig, and the third gig…! Because we won't have done a gig this year and the first one we're going to do is in front of 30,000 people, so I am mildly crapping myself - but not yet… I don't think there's any purpose in letting it get to you just yet - there are, after all, two months to go!

After all these years, you still get nervous before shows?

I definitely do when I haven't done any for a while. It's the fear of screwing up and the fear of losing your voice and all of those other type things. And then after a while, it turns into a positive thing, an excitement where you're really looking forward to doing the show, because you know you have the confidence to deliver, so the adrenaline of 'Oh God, please don't let me screw up!' turns into the adrenaline of 'This is going to be great, let's go and do it!'

But the Maiden shows last year went so well, you must have taken confidence from that.

Oh yeah, but it doesn't last very long. It only lasts 'til the next gig! It's very bizarre, but it's true. With me, that aspect of it goes after three or four shows, so if I have a break of a week, I'm like, 'Oh help, here we go again!' for the first couple of gigs and it's a relief to get the first one over with.

When you were last in L.A., you shot a video for the first single from the album, ‘The Wicker Man’.

Yes, under massively adverse circumstances! Three Celsius, torrential rain and me and Janick were up for 25 hours straight! Steve got food poisoning and did his performances between visits to the toilet - for which a French magazine gave him a terribly bad write-up. They said he was an awfully bad sport and didn't look cheerful! Get a fucking life! The guy had the drizzling shits, it was freezing cold and pissing down with rain!

At least we had nice, warm winnebagos. The audience were stuck with space heaters and a tent - and that nearly blew down in the middle of the howling rain! Not to mention the semi-naked nymphs, who didn't have anything except a couple of torches to keep them warm. In fact, one of them was a real pyromaniac and had actually set fire to herself on a previous occasion. We were all standing around, shivering, and she kept saying, 'I'm not cold at all - I'm generating my own inner fire! You should get in touch with it, you know!' We all went, 'Ah, yeah, okay - we'll take the winnebagos!'

And while you were on the set, you were also hanging out with Twiggy from Marilyn Manson and Dave Navarro?

Oh yeah, they showed up in the back of the truck and had their pictures taken. I'm not sure anybody knew who they were… Merck came in and said, 'Here's Twiggy and Dave Navarro!' and a lot of the guys in the band went, 'Ah, great - who are they?'

There has been much debate about the forthcoming album on the Internet, and a lot of misinformation has been posted there too. Do you see the Internet as a blessing or a curse?

Honestly - if I had to pick whether I prefer my life pre- or post-Internet, I prefer pre-Internet, because it was a lot easier to keep secrets and to keep things more dramatic, if you like. Basically, the Internet is almost like having someone eavesdrop your every thought and from that point of view, it's a pain. Yes, it's nice to be able to converse with fans directly - but you can't possibly converse with 2 million people directly and if people get into the habit of imagining that they can, it becomes a tyranny, because they then get pissed off that you never talk to them. So I think the best thing to be is a sort of Internet recluse. I'm an Internet recluse, 'cause I can't even get my computer to get on the Internet except in America, so I am by definition a person who never reads his e-mails.

So that wasn't really you, causing consternation and confusion, by purportedly posting messages on Iron Maiden’s official website last night then?

No, I've never been on the Iron Maiden site, except for a couple of times in the last year. How exciting! Phantom Internet imposters! The flipside of this is I did an official thing with a radio station in Berlin about a year ago and it was set up that I would be online and broadcasting at the same time. So there I am online and nobody would believe it was me! They were asking me questions like, 'It's not really you, is it?' and I was like, 'It IS me! I'm supposed to be here!' so then they'd say, 'If it is you, then answer THIS!' and they'd ask me a question about one of my albums. I didn't fucking know the answer! I was like, 'I can't remember!' 'If you WERE Bruce, you'd know!'

Do you find it a big difference, after your years as a solo artist when you were having to sell yourself, to now, when there is so much interest in Iron Maiden, you’re practically having to beat the journalists off with a stick?

Actually, it's not that big a change, because when I was a solo artist, they still managed to find 57 people to do interviews with me in three days. So I was sat in a small, airless room in Cologne for three days, doing 17 interviews a day, and now I do maybe six or seven or eight interviews a day, so from that point of view, the workload has halved, which is a good thing! Obviously, the impact of the interviews is much greater, because you're talking to a bunch of big magazines or an interview for national TV, so you've got to be more of a switched on cookie when people start asking you sometimes interesting or probing questions, which could open up a can of worms if you don't give a response with your brain switched on. But I don't mind that. I'd rather have to use my head for six hours and talk than go onto autopilot for ten hours and just blather out the same thing over and over and over again, when you could half the time stick all the journalists in one room, give them all one tape recorder and say, 'Now, listen carefully…’, because sometimes you can virtually predict a lot of the questions. But with some of the interviews I've been doing recently, it's been quite entertaining, and there have occasionally been quite thought-provoking questions - but there's been so many of them, I can't necessarily remember any of the fucking questions!

On the verge of releasing a new album, how does it feel to be part of a team again, as opposed to carrying it all on your shoulders as a solo artist?

It's actually very good. When we were recording the record, that's when it really hits home that you can look over your shoulder and there's somebody there on the wing and there's a full-back over there and Nicko's in goal sort of deal. You really get that sensation that it's a team effort in the studio, particularly because we recorded the album live. Then you get it again when we're all together and listening to what we've done collectively, and we all get real good vibes off it. And then we take off to the four winds, doing our promo. Steve and Janick are in Europe, Dave and Adrian are in South America and then we're all meeting up in Mexico City to go through the setlist and doing some jamming on what tunes to pick for the next tour. So the next time that the A Team gets together is actually on Tuesday and I'm kind of looking forward to that, because I must say that, after whizzing round doing all these interviews on my own, it's going to be a relief to get back together under one roof, shut the door and start playing music together again. That's when you really get the feeling that it's a team.

Look out for the second part of this interview, in which Bruce talks about the new album, on metal-is in May!