New Bruce Interview: DVD on the Way, Tour Possible
Here's a very interesting interview from Bruce that Metalforge ran. Maidenfans bolded some extracts for those lazy to read it in its entirety:BRUCE DICKINSON: The Sounds Of Sirens
From the moment Bruce Dickinson made his debut with Samson (Just one of the pivotal acts to emerge from the early N.W.O.B.H.M. - New Wave Of British Heavy Metal - scene) on their debut album Survivors (Released in 1979, with Dickinson going under the moniker of Bruce Bruce), the man dubbed as "The Air Raid Siren’ has rarely been out the spotlight. Dickinson’s contributions to Samson’s Head On (1980) and Shock Tactics (1981) furthered the groups fortunes, before Dickinson decided to replace the departed Paul Di’Anno in the up and coming act Iron Maiden in mid 1981.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Dickinson’s debut with Iron Maiden (1982’s Number Of The Beast) became a certified classic, as did the albums that followed (1983’s Piece Of Mind, 1984’s Powerslave, 1985’s Live After Death, 1986’s Somewhere In Time and 1988’s Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son). In an interesting twist, Dickinson decided to try his hand at projects outside of Iron Maiden (While still being a member), with his second notable venture (His first was as a representative of Britain in the European Fencing Championships) an attempt at a solo career, and in 1990 he released his debut effort Tattooed Millionaire. Never one to restrict his talents to one particular skill, the same years saw Dickinson make his debut as a novelist with his book Lord Iffy Boatrace.
Iron Maiden continued to roll out the albums with Dickinson on board (Such as 1990 No Prayer For The Dying, 1992’s Fear Of The Dark (Which incidentally was the same year that Dickinson’s second novel The Missionary Position was released), 1993’s A Real Live One, A Real Dead One and Live At Donnington), until Dickinson shocked the world with his announcement of his plans to go solo permanently in 1994. Dickinson quickly established himself with a new sound in the release of Balls To Picasso in 1994, followed by Alive In Studio A/Live At The Marquee Club in 1995. In an attempt to broaden his perception beyond the ‘Ex-Iron Maiden Vocalist’ tag, Dickinson entrenched himself within a group called Skunkworks in 1996 (Which Dickinson refers to as ‘A low point in my career, and yet I remember it very fondly’).
As much as Dickinson had tried to distance himself from the metal scene, he finally decided to eventually give in, and with guitarist Roy ‘Z’ Ramirez (Ex-Tribe Of Gypsies) and fellow ex-Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith in tow, 1997 saw the release of the highly acclaimed (And metallic) Accident Of Birth. While considered a high point in Dickinson’s solo career (Especially given the rather disappointing output from Iron Maiden with Blaze Bailey, Dickinson’s replacement), it was 1998’s The Chemical Wedding that Dickinson had finally delivered an album worthy of classic status outside the confines of Iron Maiden. As a stopgap measure, Dickinson released a live album Scream For Me Brazil in 1999, before reassumed his role as lead vocalist in Iron Maiden once again. The reunion has since produced two studio albums (2000’s Brave New World and 2003’s Dance Of Death) and a live album/D.V.D. (2002’s Rock In Rio), which have all been held in high regard, but left many wondering if Dickinson would ever return with another solo release.
Seven long years since The Chemical Wedding, vocalist (Fencer/novelist/airline pilot/Rock Radio Network D.J.) has once again decided to reunite with guitarist Roy Z and take on the challenge with a return to the studio for the long awaited follow up to The Chemical Wedding in Tyranny Of Souls. Justin Donnelly caught up with Bruce Dickinson while on a stop over in London to talk about unknown keyboardists, scary album covers, back catalogue re-releases and just exactly why it’s been a long seven year wait for the release of his sixth solo release, Tyranny Of Souls.
“I’ve actually been thinking of doing another solo release since the success of The Chemical Wedding. I had quite a thriving solo career with about six albums behind me, so the intention was always to make another one, but it was just a question of getting it together in terms of time. Roy Z, my song writing partner, producer and guitarist was busy doing the Judas Priest record (2004’s Angel Of Retribution), and before that he was doing Rob Halford’s last solo album (2002’s Crucible). So he was only available when I was touring with Iron Maiden. I guess you could say that we were biding our time. I was getting up the necessary creative juices so I could commit myself to doing an album.”
While the schedules hindered the getting together of Roy Z and Dickinson, Dickinson isn’t afraid to admit that the pressure of following up The Chemical Wedding played a part in his decision to enter the studio only when he was ready to do Tyranny Of Souls justice.
“There was definitely some pressure for sure. For the first two to three years after The Chemical Wedding, I was quite happy to sit on the sidelines and say, ‘Yeah. Wasn’t that a great album!’ (Laughs) I did record a couple of new tracks for 2001’s best-of compilation (Both Broken and Silver Wings appeared on The Best Of Bruce Dickinson), and the intention at that time was that as soon as that was released, we would go in and record another solo album. But things conspired one with the other in terms of other commitments such as Iron Maiden and all kinds of other things, and it soon became obvious that it simply wasn’t going to happen. We started thinking about doing a compilation D.V.D., and while we were putting that together, I suddenly saw this window of opportunity. So Roy Z and I wrote a bunch of songs, and immediately thought, ‘Wow!’ So we decided to grab the next two or three weeks we had together and made this album. Suddenly, everything changed. I then decided to put out this new album rather than put out any more stuff that had to do with the past, purely because I think it’s going to severely influence the way people look at things from this point on.”
Admittedly, schedules have been somewhat mismatched for Roy Z and Dickinson to get together to work on new material, but even with seven years passing since studio releases, Dickinson waited rather than consider working with anyone other than Roy Z.
“Roy Z’s my first and only choice. We’ve got this little psychic thing going on between the two of us. Every time I’ve worked with him, I have a great time, we end up making music that I really like and we have minimal drama. I’m all up for that.”
Apart from Dickinson and Roy Z (Who performs all the guitars and some bass), the latest line up in Dickinson’s fold includes but a few unknown session musicians such as Ray ‘Geezer’ Burke (Bass), Juan Perez (Bass) and David Moreno (Drummer). But the one musician that has gained the most interest from fans is keyboardist Maestro Mistheria (Although considered a known artist playing under a pseudonym, Mistheria is actually an Italian neo-classical keyboardist virtuoso who has been making a name for himself over the last decade with contributions to artists such as Winterlong, Rob Rock, Rick Renstrom, and to tribute albums to Shawn Lane, Jimi Hendrix and Jason Becker. He also released his solo album Messenger Of The Gods on Lion Music in 2004), an artist that neither Roy Z nor Dickinson have ever met!
“I’ve never met the guy in my life. I don’t even have a picture. None of us have! (Laughs) We had all the keyboard parts sent over by e-mail. The way it came about was Roy Z was aware of him through some other people in L.A. who had worked with this guy. So Roy Z just e-mailed him and asked him if he was interested in working on the album. He replied back quickly and said he was a big fan of my work, and he wanted us to send him over a track. So we e-mailed him a backing track, and he e-mailed us back all three or four different versions of the song with his different keyboard sounds. We just picked what we wanted, and that was it.”
The unconventional manner in the way that the keyboards were added to the album is indicative of how Tyranny Of Souls was pieced together.
“Tyranny Of Souls was put together in a very different way to any of my other albums. Roy Z sent me a C.D. of guitar riffs, which had no drums or click tracks. It was just simply guitar. And I wrote the songs based around those ideas with a notepad, a Walkman and headphones and by wandering around on tour with Iron Maiden. So I sketched out the melodies and words and things like that, and phoned him up from tour and said, ‘I’ve got eleven songs. Put the drums on the following tracks.’ That was without him hearing the vocals, melodies or anything I had added to them. I said, ‘Just do what you think would be cool, and we’ll catch up in a couple of weeks’. So a couple of weeks later, I went back and heard the drums, which were done by Moreno. He’s a friend of Roy Z’s, and he did an incredible job. Roy Z has his own pro-tools set up in his basement, with a drum kit all ready to rock. So we just gave him the guitar tracks on digital, without click tracks I might add, and he just played his drums over the top. So then we had drums! (Laughs) I then came back and sang the vocals to Roy Z, and then we decided to change a couple of the drum lines. So I went to Japan on tour, they changed the drum tracks and Roy then put more guitars onto the songs. I came back from Japan after touring with Iron Maiden, and that’s when we found out that Roy Z had two weeks left before he was off to do the Judas Priest album for eight months. So that’s what spurred me on to do the lead vocals then and there. We had guitars, and we had drums. I didn’t need anything else to do the lead vocals. After I had finished my part, we left it like that for eight months. Then when Roy Z was done with Judas Priest, Maestro Mistheria had e-mailed us his keyboard parts, and Roy Z finished up putting the bass on. I went back for a couple of days to lay down some backing vocals and make some decisions on the way we were going to approach some of the tracks. Roy Z finished up some solos and then we mixed it! (Laughs) It was a pretty cool way of working! I guess you could say that we kind of jammed together, but not at the same time! (Laughs)”
There’s also been much speculation about the absence of characters on Tyranny Of Souls too, such as Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith (Who appeared on Dickinson’s Accident Of Birth, The Chemical Wedding and Scream For Me Brazil).
“Smith came along for Accident Of Birth, and he’s a fabulous guitar player, but the core of the sound that we have for my solo albums has always been myself and Roy Z. Smith’s guitar sound is always very characteristic. It fits on top of our sound, and people will always recognise Smith’s sound. But the bulk of the songs and the core of the sound will always be Roy Z and myself. For Tyranny Of Souls, I wanted a really low maintenance approach in making the record. I didn’t want to go for a band, because people start calling it a band, and therefore people assume that you have to tour it and you have to have pictures taken as a band and all that kind of bullshit. Roy Z and I can virtually do the whole album together. We write all the songs, he plays guitars, I do the singing, and I come up with the stories and the words and the tunes and Roy Z produces it all. All we need is a good drummer and we need some guy to do the keyboards. The keyboards may not be terribly prominent, but they’re there none the less. We didn’t need anyone that’s known. We just needed somebody who’s good. I’m not into working with people just because people have a name and a reputation.”
Much like The Chemical Wedding, Tyranny Of Souls isn’t so much a concept album, but a theme based affair that typifies subject matters that Dickinson has long held important throughout his solo career.
“The theme that runs through the bulk of Tyranny Of Souls I suppose is the journey of discovery that we’re all making, whether that’s through technology or through relationships. Although it’s a dark album in a lot of ways, I find it really optimistic being that there are more things out there than we’ve ever dreamt of. Our mission, or the reason mankind is here, is to discover those things and embrace them, and not be frightened of them. Along the way, we’ll always have the same problems. We’ll still be the same human beings. We’ll still have bad relationships, still love our kids and all those things will still happen. But like it says in Star Trek, our mission in life is ‘To boldly go where no man has gone before’.”
And while most may find a connection between the artwork that adorns The Chemical Wedding (The Ghost Of A Flea by William Blake from 1819) and Tyranny Of Souls (Hell by Hans Memling from 1485), Dickinson insists there little to read between the two similarities.
“I don’t want to make too much out of the album cover. It was a metal album, so we wanted a scary cover! (Laughs) I like paintings, but I’m not crazy about computer graphics. Hugh Gilmour helped out on the design for a couple of my albums (Everything from Accident Of Birth onwards), and he’s a guy I’ve worked with for quite a while. I wanted to have Blake on The Chemical Wedding, because he was a big inspiration on the album’s lyrics and overall feel. Obviously we had Derek Riggs on Accident of Birth, and that was a real cartoon like painting with the insane puppet. And on this one, because it was such a heavy record in a lot of ways, I wanted people in absolutely no doubt when they picked it up just what they were going to get. So I wanted something that was heavy and scary. When Gilmour presented me with the different choices of artwork I could have, I immediately knew that that the Memling’s painting really depicted a tyranny of souls. That was it. It was done. And my appreciation of the fine arts stopped at that point! (Laughs)”
While Tyranny Of Souls is without a doubt a worthy follow up to The Chemical Wedding, the albums stunning centrepiece number Navigate The Seas Of The Sun surprisingly enough almost didn’t make the final cut.
“A lot of people have mentioned that song as their favourite, so I’m dead chuffed about that. Navigate The Seas Of The Sun is actually the spiritual key to the whole album. Although it is the lowest key song on the album, it was the song, or the tune if you like that actually kicked off the whole recording process of the album. As soon as I had written that little chorus, I was jumping around in the kitchen going, ‘Wow man! This is a really cool little tune!’ I really love the vibe it gave me. It still gives me the shivers. I just knew that with that song, we were going to make a great album. It was completely irrational to think that of course, because there’s no logic to writing songs. It was simply a gut feeling that you get. It may have taken seven years to get that gut feeling, but I got it one evening when I had just written the chorus to Navigate The Seas Of The Sun. It was at that point that I committed myself to writing a new album in the following two months. I knew that it was really going to happen. Ironically, that song almost didn’t end up on the album, because by the time we had finished up the rest of the album, Navigate The Seas Of The Sun ended up sounding very strange, and very small compared to some of the other songs, which were obviously very heavy. What we had imagined was that Navigate The Seas Of The Sun would be like a Tears Of The Dragon part two, being a power balled like number. And of course, it didn’t work like that. If fact, the louder the instruments became, and the more arena rock we tried to turn it into, the less it worked. And it made it onto the record in spectacular fashion because we actually stripped everything away. We also scrapped the vocal effects, the reverbs and all that stuff on the vocals. Instead of making the voice sound like it could fill an arena, we turned it into a voice that sounded like it was six inches away from your nose. The rest of the treatment to the song instrumentation wise went along with that. And suddenly it became incredibly powerful, because we had stripped it down and simplified the whole thing. I was really pleased, and relieved for that matter. I didn’t know how we were going to plug the hole in the album that that song had left.”
On the other side of the coin, Devil On A Hog sounds like it could have been a leftover from Tattooed Millionaire, which is a view that Dickinson wholeheartedly agrees to as well.
“Oh completely! (Laughs) After The Chemical Wedding, it took me seven years to gain the confidence to look back over all my solo stuff, in particular Tattooed Millionaire and go, ‘That album had a lot of cool stuff on it. For an ‘80’s kind of a thing, Tattooed Millionaire still sounds great’. So there’s no reason why you can’t have fun on the album. Devil On A Hog just stuck me as soon as I heard that riff; I was just taken back to early Monster Magnet and stuff like that. My immediate reaction was, ‘Yeah! Let’s do space hog! Let’s put the devil on a space aged Harley Davidson riding out there picking up chicks in cosmic bars!’ (Laughs) Why not? Hence the reason for the big vocal harmonies and everything else that’s in there. We had a blast doing that track. It was a lot of fun.”
And last but not least, there’s the title track A Tyranny Of Souls, which was actually written for a completely different project in mind.
“The title track of the album, A Tyranny Of Souls, is in fact one of the odd tracks out on the album. It was originally written in 2001 for a project called The Three Tremors. That was supposed to be this collaboration between Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Geoff Tate (Queensrÿche) and myself. We were supposed to be doing an album together, but it never happened (Due to scheduling difficulties and musical differences). So it wasn’t written at the same time as the bulk of the album, and is in fact thematically quite different from the rest of the album as well. It does have a cool title however! (Laughs) I just kept thinking of the name Tyranny Of Souls, and I kept thinking to myself that it’s a great name to an album. There are lots of titles that I’m very proud of such as Navigate The Seas Of The Sun, Abduction and things like that, but none of them kick you in the nuts quite like Tyranny Of Souls.”
Apart from the release of Tyranny Of Souls, Dickinson will also have his entire back catalogue re-released before the end of the year, with bonus tracks, extensive liner notes and improved artwork from Gilmour himself.
“This is the funny thing. A guy came to me from the record company not long ago and said, ‘We want to put your albums back into the shops’. I asked him if they had been deleted, and when he said they weren’t, I said that theoretically they should be in already be there right? Yes, but they hadn’t been! (Laughs) So wishing not to get into an argument about who fucked up, I simply asked, ‘Well what are you going to do about it?’ He then explained that they were going to do a big campaign, put all these b-sides on as an additional disc and blah, blah, blah. So I let them go ahead with it. Some of the b-sides, particularly from the Skunkworks era are just awesome. I mean they are really, really good. The re-releases will finally put all the albums out there, and make them available to people who have had trouble finding them in the past. As soon as people get them, I feel sure that they’ll turn around and go, ‘I didn’t even realise that this stuff was so cool!’ (Laughs) I really do believe that. I look back at these albums and go, ‘My god! I was doing that stuff and it sounds great!’ (Laughs) So I’m really proud of what I’ve done solo wise, and I’m happy for it to stand up alongside anything. There’s been a huge amount of enthusiasm from everyone who’s heard Tyranny Of Souls. So that means that the record label will now remarket the entire back catalogue with extra tracks and stuff like that, and there’s a really good feeling that the record label really have got their eye on the ball this time. They’ve got a great album to work with, and obviously I’m very prominent now because I’m back with Iron Maiden and what have you. So they really feel they’ve got something they can work with in promoting the new album, but also to sell as many copies of the older material as it should sell. In some territories, it was very patchy. A lot of people couldn’t get hold of them, and it was a bit of a mess. But they’re really planning to tidy everything up this time around.”
But that’s not all that Dickinson has up his sleeve. As mentioned before, prior to start of recording for Tyranny Of Souls, Dickinson’s project at the time was the putting together of a comprehensive double D.V.D. package documenting his entire solo career up to date.
“That’s very much an ongoing project! Absolutely! I guess by the end of the year, or whenever the time is appropriate, we’ll put out the D.V.D. The main reason why we chose to release Tyranny Of Souls before the D.V.D. is because if you’re given a choice to put something out that is new studio album wise, you always go with that. That’s what it’s all about. Keeping things alive is by releasing new material. But the D.V.D. itself is looking really cool actually. It’s very entertaining. In fact, I’ve just shot a video for Abduction, and there will be a few bloopers for that in the making of section. We’ll be adding some more material to it before we put it out. It’s going to be a complete works of all the concert footage, lots of bootleg footage, all the promotional video clips I had ever done, a documentary and the whole shooting match. I’ve got so much video stuff that I’ve done, and it’s never been out. A lot of the promotional video clips weren’t shown on M.T.V. I was busy beavering away at all kinds of mad things, most of which people have never seen. It’s a really good thing to do, but it’ll happen when all the fuss about the new album has died down and people are standing around asking what’s next? Then we’ll hit them with this! (Laughs)”
Obviously working a solo career around Iron Maiden is a logistical nightmare on the recording front, but on the touring front, it’s impossible.
“In about six weeks time I’m back on tour with Iron Maiden. That’ll run through May, June, July, and right up until the end of August. We’ll then have a bit of a break, and then start with the writing of a new Iron Maiden album. I guess it will depend on the reaction to the album, and the demand, but I won’t rule out doing some gigs. I think the idea of touring to support the album will be long gone by the time I find the time. The album will have done everything that it was going to do by then. But, of course I did some shows a couple of years ago at some festivals in Europe, and we had a blast. We just went out and played a load of cool material. We just had a lot of fun! (Laughs)”
Bruce Dickinson's Tyranny Of Souls is out on May 23 on Mayan Records through Riot! Distributors. For more information on Bruce Dickinson, check out www.screamforme.com
Source: TheMetalForge.com
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And their review of the album:
Bruce Dickinson – Tyranny Of Souls
Well worth the wait
It’s easy to forgive Bruce Dickinson for the amount of time that has elapsed since his last studio effort, 1998’s The Chemical Wedding. After returning to front Iron Maiden once again following the departure of Blaze Bayley, Dickinson has been more than a little busy with the metal legends, releasing two studio albums and a live CD and DVD package as well. Of course, there has been touring as well to support those releases. For Tyranny Of Souls, Dickinson once again teamed up with the in demand guitarist-writer-producer extraordinaire Roy “Z” Ramirez (of the latin based rock group Tribe Of Gypsies). With “Z” being busy working with the likes of Halford, Helloween, Downset and more recently Judas Priest's Angel Of Retribution album, is it any wonder that it’s taken so long for Dickinson’s sixth studio album to become a reality?
Mars Within begins with some atmospheric guitar effects which turns into a heavy chord based breakdown when David Moreno’s thunderous drums kick in. Solid, driving riffs courtesy of Roy Z pulling double duty on both guitar and bass launch into Abduction as the man dubbed “The Air Raid Siren” wails in classic Dickinson style. Moreno’s machine gun like double kick work morphs into a more straight forward metal number in Soul Intruder as Dickinson continues to do what he does best. The atmospheric guitar tones return to open Kill Devil Hill which quickly settles into a mid tempo paced metal groove.
You’d be forgiven if you asked yourself if you were still listening to the same album when Navigate The Seas Of The Sun begins with it’s casually strummed acoustic guitars and simple march like snare rolls. It’s a track that highlights not only the diversity of Dickinson’s voice, but also the diversity of his writing co-op with Roy Z. This stunning song is further highlighted by Roy Z’s perfectly suited flamenco styled solo midway through. River Of No Return’s pedestrian pace allows for simple verses and powerful, driving choruses. I could do with out some of the keyboard samples at times that do sound a tad out of place. Dickinson and co. return to a more straight ahead metal track with Power Of The Sun where as Devil On A Hog is probably the only track on here that I’d put in the “filler” category. The somewhat experimental at times Believe and it’s eerie verses are a deviation from the norm in a good way, whilst things are wrapped up with the epic title track that encapsulates everything that you’d come to expect from an album with Dickinson’s name on it.
There will be as many that praise it as there will be those who will cry that it isn’t as good as its seven year old predecessor. Tyranny Of Souls has it all – epics, experimentation, ballads, metal etc. It’s a solid album show casing the brilliance of Dickinson and his partner in crime Roy Z that is a must for any fan of well written heavy music.
(Mayan Records/Riot! Distributors)
Added: May 14th 2005
Reviewer: Simon Milburn
Score: 4 stars
http://www.themetalforge.com/modules.php?n...wcontent&id=235
Cheers
I think the most shocking part of this review is that Roy Z has a last name.
QUOTE(The Saint @ May 19 2005, 10:15 PM)
I then decided to put out this new album rather than put out any more stuff that had to do with the past, purely because I think it’s going to severely influence the way people look at things from this point on.
we end up making music that I really like and we have minimal drama.
I like paintings, but I’m not crazy about computer graphics.
It may have taken seven years to get that gut feeling
Obviously working a solo career around Iron Maiden is a logistical nightmare on the recording front, but on the touring front, it’s impossible.
we end up making music that I really like and we have minimal drama.
I like paintings, but I’m not crazy about computer graphics.
It may have taken seven years to get that gut feeling
Obviously working a solo career around Iron Maiden is a logistical nightmare on the recording front, but on the touring front, it’s impossible.
Nudges at the maiden camp
QUOTE(gor @ May 20 2005, 08:27 AM)
Nudges at the maiden camp
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Oh yeah. And he will kick Steve's bollocks today at the rehearsals.
Excellent news for a DVD! Great work Mr Saint yet again!
Oh thx....its great interview...very cool