During Loudwire’s “In Conversation” reside occasion with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson final week (Jan. 16), the singer revealed that his new solo album, The Mandrake Project, options his first-ever guitar solo.
While Dickinson is finest recognized for his age-defying vocal performances, when it come to songwriting, he dabbles on guitar and piano. He performs down his skills whereas conceding that though he can use these devices to jot down, he’d a lot favor another person play them on the recordings.
Bruce Dickinson on Playing Guitar
“Roy Z made me, the bastard, he made me play guitar,” Dickinson amusingly grumbles when requested about his contributions on guitar on this new document.
“I said I’m going to show you the riffs and the chords and everything and he said, ‘Yeah, cool. Well, you do it!’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, but I’m not very good so if you do it, it’ll be a lot quicker and he said, “No, no, you do it.’ And I went, ‘Okay, only for the demo, proper? Just for the demos,'” he goes on.
“So, on we went for the demos. Plenty of it did get changed, however some bits he stored, sneakily, with out me realizing,” Dickinson notes, revealing, “There’s a guitar solo — my first guitar solo in recorded historical past and likewise most likely my final.”
The solo appears on “Face within the Mirror,” the third to last track on The Mandrake Project, which will be released on March 1.
Bruce Dickinson on Playing Piano
The singer then recalls his experience writing the epic “Empire of the Clouds” off Iron Maiden’s 2015 effort The Book of Souls. He had to record his parts in small bits, even tracking the left and right hands separately.
“The sound of it’s sort of robotic and sort of mechanical. It does not have that pretty stream that any person can actually play piano has,” Dickinson laments, noting that he’d like to re-record the 18-minute song with an orchestra and give it the real proper treatment.
Watch the interview directly below.
Q&A With Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson (Full Video – Live Audience)
READ MORE: 10 Singers You Didn’t Realize Can Also Play Guitar
About The Mandrake Project
The Mandrake Project is the successor to 2005’s Tyranny of Souls and contains material that has been in the works for over two decades. The first single and album opener, “Afterglow of Ragnarok” is a real thumper and can be heard here.
Ever the creative, Dickinson has also just launched the first of 12 The Mandrake Project comics (order here), which further fuels the dark narrative that’s explored on the album. The story was actually based on the title track to Dickinson’s 1997 solo offering.
“The story for the comedian was primarily based on a music known as ‘Accident of Birth,'” Dickinson explains, “In ‘Accident of Birth,’ there is a brother separated from his twin at start. One is in Hell, the opposite one is alive [with] survivor’s guilt… ‘Why him and never me? Why am I not in Hell and survived?’
He continues, “But imagine if there was a way of bringing back his dead brother from the underworld? Imagine there was technology that could do that and that technology is owned by two guys — Professor Lazarus and Dr. Necropolis. One’s a good guy and one’s a bad guy. One wants to use it for the good of humanity and one wants to make a load of money.”
How Many Songs Each Iron Maiden Member Has Written
Here’s a breakdown of Iron Maiden’s song-writing credit.
Gallery Credit: Joe DiVita
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