Reality TV is About as Enjoyable as Snuff Films For Bruce
“We’re very different and we do exist outside what you might call the mainstream of pop music. We even exist outside the mainstream of what is metal music,” Dickinson explains in his charming British accent. “Iron Maiden is a band that’s created from the street, and people scratch their heads and don’t understand that because very few bands are created from the street these days. Most bands are created by industrial light and magic in studios. Even musicians themselves, sadly, acknowledge if they want to make a living in this day and age, they have to tailor what they do, get the right haircut, wear the right clothes, all that kind of stuff. Maiden is fantastic because we’ve never given a shit.”Dickinson says he feels sorry for bands raised in today’s “cult of celebrity,” but he’s even more disturbed by American Idol and reality TV trends that make a mockery of artistry and result in careers that last approximately 15 minutes.
“I just think reality TV showcases all the lowest forms of human nature. In effect, it’s a freak show,” he rants. “Creativity is bound up in being eccentric, being different, not just giving the people what they want. What you need to do is to elevate things, to take things beyond the norm. Reality TV shows don’t encourage that whatsoever. They dumb everything down to horrible, uniform level of acceptable talent.
“The only people with less talent than the worst performers are actually the judges … The sight of all the judges back-slapping themselves like a pack of smug hyenas does nothing for me whatsoever,” he continues. “I know people like it, but so what? I’m sure people would like watching snuff movies, too, but that doesn’t make it right.”
Dickinson’s distaste for freak-show voyeurism has landed him in hot water in the past: at last year’s Ozzfest, Dickinson made a joke about reality TV that ignited Sharon Osborne’s rage. The metal mistress and wife of Ozzy took the mic at one show, called Dickinson a “prick” and later allegedly enticed people in the crowd to pelt the band with eggs, bottles, beer cups and, yes, spit. But Dickinson doesn’t care to focus on those unpleasantries — he prefers to live by what he calls “the Maiden lifestyle,” a culture grounded in music, creativity and exploring the world.
“Iron Maiden lifestyle is having the band somewhere in you, having a little birdhouse in your soul, as the Talking Heads would say, where you keep something special,” he explains. “Someone can come along and go, ‘Right, I want to get into the Maiden lifestyle,’ so they go into some rock ‘n’ roll store and buy all the T-shirts and memorabilia and come out looking like some metal drag queen, but that doesn’t make you more into the Maiden lifestyle … You can go to work in a suit, but in your head, you can be humming Iron Maiden tunes, and that’s great — it’s fantastic! How subversive is that? I think it’s great.”
Part of the Maiden lifestyle for Dickinson also includes being sensitive to the world around him. On the band’s venomous new record, A Matter of Life and Death, he observes many of today’s most troubling issues in his lyrics, exploring the root of religious-fuelled wars in “For the Greater Good of God” and weapon’s races in “Brighter than a Thousand Suns.”
“As a band, we’ve all got kids, and they all talk about this stuff. They’re growing up in this world dominated by fear, possibly fear that may or may not be manipulated by governments for its own ends,” Dickinson says of the inspiration for the political songs. “The last time this happened was the Cold War, when we were told all these scary things about the Russians for years, many of which were manifest and untrue. They said they had so many bombs and weapons, but actually, they didn’t until the very end when they caught up. Then, yeah, they really were dangerous. By then, we’d had 25 years of the Americans telling the Russians how dangerous they were and the Americans telling them they were going to bomb them into the Stone Age, so no wonder they caught up. No wonder they built lots of bombs. ‘Brighter than a Thousand Suns’ is about that, and that track is strangely prophetic with what’s going on with North Korea at the moment. All these things we write about are just reflections of things going on around us. We didn’t plan it that way.”
If only planet Earth was a little more like planet Maiden, maybe then music wouldn’t be an industry, the lowest-common denominator wouldn’t be the norm and everyone wouldn’t be so close-minded about the world. And, of course, metal would rule all. Who wouldn’t want to live there?
The Wild Side of Planet Maiden
Not everything about Iron Maiden’s world is exactly ordinary. Here’s what singer Bruce Dickinson had to say about some of his stranger experiences living a crazy rock ‘n’ roll life.
What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever signed?
Somebody’s pet rabbit. Live, I might add. I thought they were joking because they produced this pet rabbit and asked if I could sign it. I signed its fur with a marker.
What has been your most embarrassing onstage moment?
Somebody in Spain had actually stolen my trousers out of my dressing room. We were shooting a video at these shows, and we’d filmed all the close-ups the first night and the second night we were shooting all the far-away shots. I had to wander around and try to find myself a pair of stretchified, leathery-type rock star pants, which chances were about zero of getting. We found some women’s clothing store that had some patent-looking PVC things that you would wear to some cheesy Saturday-night disco. We thought we’d take those and put some crap on them and from a distance, it might look alright. So, I barely squeezed into them — they were tight. I got on stage and everyone was looking at me, just staring. I looked down and, well, they had split in just such a way that all my equipment was hanging out. We were in the middle of the show, so we had to carry on. The best I could do was put a piece of black gaff tape over myself. I’ll tell you, I’ve never had a Brazilian wax, but after the show, it came close.