Bruce Dickinson Talks Solo Album "The Mandrake Project" & Ill-Fated Metal Supergroup
Normally getting time to sit down with Bruce Dickinson isn't easy. To say he is a very busy person is an understatement. Most famous for fronting Iron Maiden he also keeps himself occupied with multiple projects including the podcast Psycho, Schizo, Espresso, writing a graphic novel and recording a new solo album.It's that album The Mandrake Project where we spent most of our chat.Bruce offered up some incredible insights into the writing process, including an ill-fated side project with two iconic frontmen, songs he didn't think were good enough but luckily made the album anyway, and the odd off-topic comment.I decided to kick things off by asking Bruce why it's been so long between solo albums, to which the frontman replied"Well, Maiden were busy retaking over the world when I got stuck back into the band. In 2014, I saw this little window creative window open up. I went 'hey, let's go and let's put the foundations down for doing another record.' And you know when we get an opportunity, well, let's go. It all sounded good. And then the end of 2015, I got throat cancer. So that was a year of nothing. Then the next thing was a year and a half of Maiden playing frantically to catch up with all the stuff we'd missed. And I was thinking right, 'OK, I'll make some plans to go over to LA and continue this record.' And then COVID happened. That was three years of being locked up so finally we got back together. Some things had moved on in a good way and some things had happened which enhanced things. So for example, the first thing that happened when we got back together we wrote two songs immediately. One was after 'Afterglow of Ragnarok'. And then the second track 'Many Doors to Hell' and I was like, well, hey, they're cool."I then wanted to get into the writing-creating process of the album and Bruce offered up some amazing insights."So the last track 'Sonata (Immortal Beloved)', which is a 10-minute almost ambient thing, leaves a lot of people quite affected at the end of that song, which is great. But people go, 'oh, that's amazing. You must have written that song because of your problems with this or that.' But no, actually, I wrote that song 25 years ago and I'd actually even forgotten that we'd done it. And the story of that track is weird. So Roy (Z) went to see the movie Immortal Beloved starring Gary Oldman as Beethoven. [He] Goes home, stays up late one night. Samples an actual recording of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata', puts that groove to a drum machine and then just plays guitar and Mellotrons layers things up..."Everyone's creative process is different, but it takes a huge amount of talent and self-belief to pull off what Bruce did next when laying down vocals."All I did was close my eyes and imagined where am I. I'm in a dark forest where nothing will live and all I did was I imagined myself there. It was all improv. So I did that and 80% of the vocals on that record, including all the spoken word in one take"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID5mqmSsycQBruce also explains how some of the album's songs weren't written for him, but for a side-project called The Three Tremors featuring some absolute legends of rock."There was an idea to do a project called The Three Tremors, which was going to be me, Rob Halford and Ronnie James Dio doing an album together and then going out on tour. Well, that never happened, cause Ronnie unfortunately passed away. The idea was maybe to get Geoff Tate involved ... That kind of didn't work out. But in the meantime, we were busy trying to write songs that would feature three singers. When the project didn't happen, we'd done two of them, one [song] was 'Tyranny of Souls' ... The chorus is all three of us but that never happened. So I said, well, screw it, I'll just do all the bits myself and make it more like my style of singing. 'Shadow of The Gods' was written for the same project. And basically the same thing happened with 'Shadow of The Gods'. So when the heavy riff happens 2/3 of the way through the tune they all go that sounds like vintage (Judas) Priest - Well guess who's supposed to be singing that bit?"
Fun Fact: Keen readers would know The Three Tremors would later become the current touring and recording project consisting of Sean Peck (Cage, Death Dealer), Tim 'Ripper' Owens (Judas Priest, KK's Priest), and Harry Conklin (Jag Panzer, Tital Force).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puNR8UhdAgsOur chat focused mostly on the album, but I did get a bit of inside info on the upcoming Iron Maiden Australian Tour which kicks off in Perth on September 1st, 2024:"So we're actually in Perth rehearsing for two weeks before the 1st show with Maiden. Yeah, we can come down and annoy you, tell me which pub you want to go to." Check out the full interview and pre-order the new album while I scout Perth's best pubs for Bruce...Interview by Gareth Williams
The Mandrake Project is out March 1st, 2024.
Pre-order/save here
Bruce Dickinson – The Mandrake Project tracklisting
1. Afterglow Of Ragnarok2. Many Doors To Hell3. Rain On The Graves4. Resurrection Men5. Fingers In The Wounds6. Eternity Has Failed7. Mistress Of Mercy8. Face In The Mirror9. Shadow Of The Gods10. Sonata (Immortal Beloved)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yulfvacpvTc
