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Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer, airline pilot, radio show host, DJ, historian, TV presenter, diver, fencer, producer, novelist, and songwriter best known as the vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. Dickinson performed for some local bands like Styx in 1976, Speed, (1977-1978), and then Shots in early 1979.
Joining Samson later that year, where he gained some popularity. In those bands he went by the name of "Bruce Bruce." He left Samson in 1981, citing musical differences.
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Quotations
I dreamt for years about making albums and doing world tours-I'd fulfilled all my ambitions in one year.
I'll be arriving at the last possible minute and walking on stage raging and pillaging and then disappearing immediately afterwards.
I'm a ham. I was immediately attracted to fencing because it seemed like a romantic, melodramatic form of combat.
That gives me tremendous encouragement and optimism for the human race in general, that people choose to go off and do their own things.
Well, yeah, sometimes I get a little too creative.
Life on the road can get a little one-dimensional. I didn't want to reach 40 and have to say all I'd done was look out the window of a tour bus and get drunk.
Encyclopedia
Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer, airline pilot, radio show host, DJ, historian, TV presenter, diver, fencer, producer, novelist, and songwriter best known as the vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. Dickinson performed for some local bands like Styx in 1976, Speed, (1977-1978), and then Shots in early 1979.
Joining Samson later that year, where he gained some popularity. In those bands 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 masterpiece," The Number of the Beast. During his time in that band, they issued a series of "high impact" releases, gaining worldwide fame, and being regarded as 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 (of Wolfsbane fame). Dickinson's solo work ranged a wide variety of 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.
Biography
Childhood
Paul Bruce Dickinson was born in the small mining town of Worksop, Nottinghamshire. His mother worked part-time in a shoe shop and his father 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. These pieces of information are actually referred to in his song 'Born In '58' from his solo 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".
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 Deep Purple 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 beans 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. Dickinson had claimed that the split was his idea believing that the rest of the band was holding him back and that the music "just wasn't hard enough."
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
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In my naivety 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.
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| colspan="3" | n 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 didn't 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 rock performers, were not as great artists as he thought. 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.— They spent the rest of the year touring on support of the album. In early 1980, Samson appeared as the opening act for Robin Trower's concerts, including dates at Hammersmith Odeon. The tour finished at Newcastle City Hall, where days later the band opened for Rainbow, on their Down to Earth tour. Here, Samson started performing for bigger audiences, but after some touring differences, they were cancelled for the rest of the dates.
Later that year, a short film, Biceps of Steel, was shot at the Rainbow theatre. It featured some of their songs and was directed by Julien Temple. They went back to the studios to record the songs they had written during previous rehearsals. The band's second album, Head On, was released July 1980, and peaked at #34 in the UK charts The supporting tour was full of controversy and legal issues, due to problems with their management. They kept writing and rehearsing for a new record. Ten songs had already been composed, by October 1980, and were ready to be recorded. At the same time, the band re-issued their debut album, Survivors, now with Dickinson handling vocal duties. The tour continued until the end of the year, when Samson entered the studio to record their third album, Shock Tactics. This was the last album Dickinson recorded with the band. Samson faced an innumerable amount of problems with their management. They were always being booked on ill-matched support tours. After leaving their management in 1981 they discovered that their record company was going bankrupt. Dickinson said they "made every mistake in the business". His last performance with Samson was at the Reading Festival in 1981. This was recorded by the BBC and released in 1990, as the live album Live at Reading 1981.
Iron Maiden: 1981–1993
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| width="20" valign=top | | align="left" |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. |-
| colspan="3" | ckinson 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 an organized and strict routine that suited the band's writing style, and to whom 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. It was the first time the band wrote an entire new album, as the previous efforts consisted of songs that had been played for years. 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 topped the UK charts, and the two singles released, "Run to the Hills" and the title track, became top ten hits in many countries. The band embarked on a supporting tour around the globe. The US leg was marred by controversy among religious groups, who wrongfully labeled the band Satan worshippers, because of the title track.
On the following album, Piece of Mind, released in 1983, the band reflected lyrical interest in books and films. Steve Harris's song-writing monopoly was pushed aside in favour of other members' ideas. This resulted in "such all-time metal standards" as Dickinson's "Flight of Icarus", and the highly acclaimed "The Trooper". A year later was released Powerslave, full of epic compositions which made it "stand out as a true heavy metal achievement." During the "World Slavery Tour", Maiden introduced theatrical elements, with an Egyptian-themed stage set, and Dickinson wearing 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's "legendary" live album, Live After Death, was recorded during this tour, at the Long Beach Arena in Los Angeles. Maiden appeared among the bands who inaugurated the Rock in Rio festival in 1985. They performed in front of their largest attendance to a single concert, an estimated 350,000 audience from all over Brazil and Latin America.
The band took a six-month break, which Dickinson spent practicing fencing. Maiden started writing for a new album, Somewhere in Time. A progressive rock-influenced effort that contained synthesized bass and guitars to add textures and layers to the sound. Although it's not a concept album, it's themed loosely around the idea of time travel. Dickinson was unhappy with the effort, and has no writing credits. During the subsequent 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. "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." Iffy was an English landlord, whose problems were always related to the lack of money and quested a wealthy life. The first 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 him to produce a sequel, 1992's The Missionary Position (ISBN 0-283-06092-1). When the tour finished, Maiden started working on the next album. Harris had written the song, "The Clairvoyant", and the band produced a concept album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, based around this subject. This one perfected its predecessor's approach, and became their second effort to top the UK charts. After the tour in 1988, which climaxed when Maiden headlined the Donington festival in front of 107,000 people, they decided to take a year off. 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 being 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 over all 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. The album's title track and "Afraid to Shoot Strangers", became fan favourites. "Wasting Love", "Fear is the Key", and "Be Quick or Be Dead" were also standouts. 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 a year later as a live video, Raising Hell.
Return: 1999–present
Along with Adrian Smith, Dickinson rejoined Iron Maiden in 1999. Janick Gers remained in the band as well, and they embarked on a small tour. Afterwards, they set about recording Brave New World, their first studio album with Dickinson on vocals since 1992. The supporting tour culminated with a performance at the Rock in Rio festival, which was released as a live album and video. That marked the first time the band performed for Clive Aid, a trust fund to help their former drummer, Clive Burr, pay mounting medical bills to treat his multiple sclerosis.
In 2003 they released Dance of Death, influenced by historical and literary passages, in songs like "Paschendale", relating to a significant battle during World War I. From the tour, the band recorded their performance at Westfalenhalle in Dortmund, Germany. This was later released as video and live album, titled Death on the Road. Two years later was released the video, The Early Days, celebrating Iron Maiden's 25th anniversary of the release of their debut album. During the supporting tour, Sharon Osbourne accused Dickinson of disrespecting the Ozzfest at the band's last Ozzfest performance. Repeatedly times, she 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 organized by insiders.
In 2006, Maiden released their newest effort, A Matter of Life and Death. This was not a concept album, but war and religion were recurring themes in the lyrics and album's artwork. During the tour, Maiden played in India for the first time. The band ended the tour with a performance at the Brixton Academy in aid of Burr's fund. In conjunction with their world tour at the time, the band released a best of album, Somewhere Back in Time, in early 2008, containing songs from their 1980s' efforts. Months later, Dickinson talked about Maiden's plans to compose a new album to come out in 2009.The year of 2009 started pretty good for Maiden with the final leg of Somewhere Back In Time World Tour and the 2009 BRIT Awards for "Best Live Act".
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 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 paints. 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 Freddy 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. 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.
Recent life
Dickinson's interests include literature, writing, fencing (at which he has competed internationally, and he also founded a fencing equipment company under the brand name "Duellist" ), train technology and flying 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 the summer of 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.
Dickinson has three children with his wife Paddy Bowden: Austin Dickinson (born 1990), Griffin Dickinson (born 1992), and Kia Michelle Dickinson (born 1994).
TV and radio
Dickinson currently presents the Friday evening "rock show" on BBC radio station 6 Music. Dickinson had Jean-Jacques Burnel, bassist with The Stranglers, take over for him while touring the US. 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 was shown on the Discovery Channel, which is now shown on the replacement for Discovery Wings, Discovery Turbo in the UK. He was also a guest on a Discovery Channel show where he shared his enthusiasm for trains. He was also a guest on the a tank show, 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.
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. Dickinson played a few small cameo roles and has composed the soundtrack. Dickinson also had a one off role in 1990s ITV series called Boon.
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.
Over the years, his vocal range has extended from C#2 to B5, with such high notes being a common trait of his early work with Iron Maiden. However, following Powerslave in 1984, Dickinson cut out the use of all high-pitched screams in the band's studio material, with the only exception being the G5 scream at the beginning of "Be Quick or Be Dead" in 1992. However, during live performances, he has always continued to prove himself of still achieving high notes, though with notes higher than G#5, he often sings a lower pitch instead now.
Discography
Iron Maiden
Bruce Dickinson
Samson
External links
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