The Rich Roll Podcast - Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson: The Metal God On Piloting 757s Through War Zones, Surviving Cancer, Olympic Fencing & Why He Could Be A Sleeper MI6 Agent

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Bruce Dickinson is the legendary frontman of Iron Maiden and a true polymath—a commercial airline pilot, Olympic-caliber fencer, author, and cancer survivor. Joined by acclaimed filmmaker, close collaborator, and mutual friend Sacha Gervasi, we explore Bruce’s approach to creativity—from music to aviation, and humanitarian service. We discuss his journey from bullied schoolboy to global rock icon, his unique cognitive abilities, and how flying into war zones has shaped his worldview. EXCLUSIVE GIVEAWAY: In honor of this special episode, newsletter subscribers can win a signed Iron Maiden collectible statue and comic book! To enter, simply sign up for Rich’s newsletter at richroll.com/subscribe and await further instructions. See our official rules for more details at richroll.com/official-rules. Bruce is a force of nature. This conversation is pure gold. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors:  Seed: Use code RICHROLL25 for 25% OFF your first order 👉seed.com/RichRoll Eight Sleep: Use code RICHROLL to get $350 OFF Pod 4 Ultra👉eightsleep.com/richroll Go Brewing: use the code Rich Roll for 15% OFF  👉gobrewing.com This episode is brought to you by Better Help: Listeners get 10% off their first month 👉BetterHelp.com/RICHROLL Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉 richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange

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Bruce Dickinson is the larger than life frontman of Iron Maiden, one of the most influential heavy metal bands of all time. Maiden is part of the core existence for a massive number of people. Bruce's operatic voice has been thrilling audiences for more than four decades, but he is so much more than just a rock god. Bruce is a commercial pilot. He's an aviation entrepreneur who not only captained the Iron Maiden 757 tour jet, but also has flown conflict zone retrieval missions on behalf of the British military. He survived cancer. He publishes comic books, writes novels, children's books, and screenplays, Publishes comic books, writes novels, children's books, and screenplays,

and is honing his world-class Olympic-caliber fencing skills. Art is anything that is done well. So as your music, your painting, your whatever, has got a piece of you that's authentic, do it well. Today, joined by a friend of the podcast, Sasha Gervasi, Bruce Telzall. And to honor the occasion, I have decided to give away this Iron Maiden comic book called Peace of Mind, which Bruce was kind enough, as you can see right here, to sign it, as well as this incredible statue of the trooper. To enter, simply sign up for my newsletter at richroll.com. And from that list, I will pick the lucky winner.

This is a guy who doesn't really do podcasts. So it was an honor to host this conversation and a rare treat to share it with all of you. This whole Iron Maiden singer fencing, do you know what he's really doing? What? Bruce Dickinson is Britain's most important leading intelligence asset. I just would like to say that. Well, you know. We just finished the podcast before the podcast. We talked about MCT oil, Kyoto, Japanese breakfast, plantar fasciitis, hip replacements, and fencing in the Commonwealth Games.

There you go. A whole bunch of stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah. Now I'm like, why didn't we get that recorded? Yeah. Because you'd be here all day. You know what I mean? I know.

All night. There's only so much we're going to cover today. Absolutely. It's impossible to capture, you know, the entirety of your extraordinary life. But I thought a good place to start. I mean, first of all, thank you for coming. It's a real treat.

It's an honor to have you here today. I've been looking forward to this for a very long time. And I thought it would be cool to just start with a little bit about like this friendship between the two of you here today. I've been looking forward to this for a very long time. And I thought it would be cool to just start with a little bit about like this friendship between the two of you, Sasha, and yourself. Like, there's an unlikely friendship of sorts. No tongues. No tongues. No tongues. No, I mean, I first met Bruce. And basically, I'm so happy because like two of my very good friends in the world, I'm happy that you two are meeting because I know you both very well

and talk to you a lot about various different things. And you're genuinely good friends and close friends of mine. So I thought, what a great thing to do. But the history of Bruce and I goes back a long time. Bruce vaguely remembers this, but I remember meeting him at 15 years old in Soho with a guy called the Right Honourable Philip Harvey, who was known as the... The Lord. The Lord of Metal,

as he was named. He had this apartment of Four Clarks Muse in Marlborough where he hosted these incredible parties. And he lived, I think, with Monica, who was Jimi Hendrix's girlfriend, who had lived there at one point. These parties were extraordinary.

It was every... At that point, it was the... It was not like a P. Diddy party, though. No. No, it was just like... It was like the new wave of British heavy metal. Every band that visited London, wherever they were from,

would come and Phil would provide massive amounts of entertainment and fun for all involved. It's the early 80s, I'll leave that the rest to your imagination. And so I was hanging out with Phil and I got to know him through, I think, I can't remember which band,

whether it was Twisted Sister or Anvil or whatever. And he sort of, I think he liked my French girlfriend. It was nothing to do with me. I don't know. But anyway, so I got to know Phil. He smelled. He really did smell because he would go to Zanzibar on safari. Hadn't he just returned from?

But he hadn't washed. He hadn't washed. He was on safari in Zanzibar, as it was then known, whatever, or Zambia. And he had his Jeep, his it was then known, whatever, or Zambia. And he had his Jeep, his proper old-fashioned Jeep, shipped over from Africa. And he was wearing his leathers. And he drove this Jeep and he came to pick me and this girl Alexandra up. And he was driving into Soho.

We were going to the Marquis to see, I think, a band. We ended up going to meet Phil Linnert of Thin Lizzy down at the St. Moritz Club down the stairs. Which still exists. Which still exists. Which still exists. Still exists. So Phil's in the car and he says, okay, we're picking up a friend of mine. His name is Bruce Dickinson.

And I'm like, you mean from Samson and now from Iron Maiden? Yeah, I wasn't in Iron Maiden then. You were still in Samson, that's right. But there was talk, there was stuff going on at that time. There was all kinds of rumors, yeah. And I remember meeting Bruce, and I was thrown into the back of the Jeep. And I remember meeting Bruce in the back of Phil's Land Rover Jeep.

He was wearing his leathers. The whole car stank because he would wear his leathers on safari. I mean, he was a lunatic eccentric. And so that's how I met Bruce, originally as a fan. And I think the next year, he had joined Maiden and Number of the Beast had come out. And I went to see Maiden

for the first time at the Hammersmith Odeon on the Number of the Beast tour. Something like that. Yeah. I think we recorded that. Yes. But Bruce has no memory.

No memory. No, no, no. You do remember a little bit, right, of that whole... But of meeting you. The only reason I remember meeting him is because he showed me the pictures. I But of meeting you. The only reason I remember meeting him is because he showed me the pictures.

And I went, I really did meet you. There's a whole other podcast about how Sasha at 15 found his way into these unique circumstances where he's meeting all these people when you're barely a teenager. You remember Philip Harvey. Oh, God, yeah. My first wife, you know, was very impressed by him. She was always going off to his parties

and I was always leaving early, never bothering to arrive in the first place, going up. Really? Lots of people all wandering around sniffing things and I didn't sniff things. Yeah, exactly. He was out of the loop. It wasn't very attractive.

But what was really great was he was so cool. I was just a young, no-one fan and Bruce, as he is with all fans, you had a conversation with me which was i think he generally was like open to people but anyway it was that's when we first met and then i'll tell you more later but anyway and so that was on the cusp of you joining maiden you weren't an originating founding member of the band but you stepped in to replace paul diano which i suspect you know came with a fair amount of pressure and responsibility.

I mean, he was such a huge part of why the band was considered avant-garde, you know, kind of outside of strict genre at the time. But you have a certain level of self-confidence and conviction. I've heard you talk about kind of knowing that this was going to be your path. I'd never seen Maiden until they, funnily enough, supported us on this bizarre tour called the Heavy Metal Crusade, which was, I mean,

just a shocking tour title back then, you know. But the quote-unquote Heavy Metal Crusade was dreamt up by, I think, by the band that was in Samson's management they went yeah we'll we'll do a kind of a a show of all these allegedly new wave of british heavy metal bands um and the new ever british heavy metal the new album as it became known uh and again it's a very unwieldy uh an unlikely title for a um a movement a movement indeed and that was dreamt up by a bunch of journalists who sat around going oh what can we do let's let's create a movement. A movement, indeed. And that was dreamt up by a bunch of journalists

who sat around going, what can we do? Let's create a movement. I think it was Malcolm Dome and Jeff Barton. Malcolm Dome and Jeff Barton of Sounds, right. That's right. Because obviously there was punk and they were getting hammered by punk

and that was New Wave and that was a kind of a movement to it. Let's have a New Wave of British heavy metal. So all of these bands who up till then had just been like basically struggling pub rock bands all became co-opted. What do you mean? We're part of the new wave.

Are we? Really? Since when? I thought we were just playing rock music. I think they all got drunk at the ship on Wardour Street. Which is also still there. Still there. Yes.

And decided that New Wobbin was an acronym which was rolled off the top. Not shockingly. That didn't stick around, that name. acronym just rolled off the top. Not shockingly, that didn't stick around, that name. So basically there was a kind of compilation tour of bands that went around. There was Saxon and Samson and Iron Maiden and Praying Mantis and the Tigers of Pantang and White Spirit,

all these names kicking around. So basically it was like a revolving door of bands. But because Samson's manager had thought up this whole thing, we featured fairly prominently. And of course, they'd always have us as the headliner, whether or not we actually deserved it. So we were doing a gig in London, and Maiden were kind of on just before us.

And there was probably a couple hundred people in the venue. And the venue holds about 800. So I'm thinking, hmm, okay, well, when are the Maiden guys going to come on? I'll go and watch them because we'd heard a lot about them and everything. And suddenly the venue filled up with people. And it was rammed. And Maiden came on. And they're amazing.

Energy was amazing. And I just was looking at them, and I thought, well, one of my favorite bands when I was a kid was Deep Purple. One of my favorite albums, I think one of the greatest live albums ever recorded was Maiden Japan. But I'd never seen them.

So in my mind, I constructed concerts that this is what they would look like if I'd ever seen Deep Purple, which I never saw them. A bit like, you know, the Marquis de Sade, you know, who wrote all these, you know, like amazing sexual fantasies and BDSM stuff and everything else. But at the time, he was actually in a prison cell writing it all on toilet paper. Toilet paper, yeah. You know, a fevered imagination. the paper. Yeah. You know, a fevered imagination. And my fevered imagination, I looked at Maiden and I went, oh my God, this is what I would want Deep Purple to look like if I ever saw

them. Because when I saw Deep Purple, I was like, oh golly, they kind of stand around. You know what I mean? And Led Zeppelin the same. They just kind of stand around, you know. But because I was a hyperactive, bouncing off the wall type kid, I looked at Maiden and went, wow, that's amazing. Steve and Davey, you know, just wailing away there. And then I saw the singer and I went, yeah, I get it. But oh my God, if I was singing for them, oh my God, if I was singing for them, what could we do?

And that's what planted the seed. I went, one day I'm going to sing for that band. I just know it. I felt, why? I don't know. I thought because it's right. It just felt right. So fast forward and the Samson thing had kind of,

we'd done two or three albums, some decent stuff, some stuff that was less than memorable, but we had arguments with our management, fired them in a very amateurish way. They sued us, we lost, we had no money anyway, so they said we owed them a quarter of a million pounds, and we went, oh, okay. Let me see, I had 10 pounds in my pocket.

That was all the money I had in the whole world. I went, quarter of a million, wow, I had £10 in my pocket. That was all the money I had in the whole world. I went, quarter of a million. Wow, I'm really worth something now. So we had a different manager room. Anyway, the whole thing was slowly, slowly, slowly going down the plug hole. But we had a last gig at Reading Festival. Can I say, this is available online and you should watch on YouTube. Samson playing Reading and the drummer at the time was is available online and you should watch on YouTube. Samson playing Reading

and the drummer at the time was Mel Gaynor. Yeah, Mel Gaynor. Legendary Simple Minds drummer, don't you forget about me. Yeah, great drummer. And Riding With The Angels is, I have to say,

it's a very good moment at the Reading Festival. Russ Ballard. Russ Ballard. Russ Ballard. Look at it on YouTube, it's brilliant. So we're doing that

and I do this show and at the time there were all kinds of rumors flying around that I was going to join Rainbow, Richie Blackmore's Rainbow, who did, Richie's roadie actually called me. And I was in my little girlfriend's flat because I didn't have anywhere to live. So I was kind of crashing at her place.

And the phone rang. And it was like one o'clock in the morning. I mean, who the hell's that? And it was like one o'clock in the morning. I went, who the hell's that? You know, and it was like, for whatever guy's name was, he said,

I'm Richie's guitar brody. Are you interested in, in auditioning for Rainbow? I went, of course I am. Because Ronnie Dio had just left. I said,

are you kidding me? Of course I am because I love Richie. Wow, great. Yeah. You know, and I never heard any more about it. That was it. Last I ever knew about it. The rumor was that, rumor had it that

Richie had gone, don't like his trousers, you know, and that was it. Which is one of your greatest strengths. Exactly. Ironically. Exactly. So that didn't happen. And that evening in the after show area where everybody was just gossip central about everything, I got summoned by Maiden's manager, the legendary Rod Smallwood, to his hotel room. I go in there and he said, I'm going to offer you the chance to audition for Iron Maiden. What do you think?

And I went, hang on, let me get this right. You're offering me the chance to audition. Yeah, I went, and here's where this like ludicrous, I don't know where it comes from, self-confidence thing kicked in. And I went, right, first of all, let's just get the audition out of the way, can we, right now? I said, you know I'm going to get the job.

I said, so let's clear the decks. You know if I audition for the band, I'll get the job. Otherwise, I wouldn't be in your hotel room. So the next question is, do you actually want me? Because I'm not going to be like the other guy. I am going to be my own guy. I'm going to be awkward. I'm going to be potentially awkward anyway, because I'll have opinions on things and I'll do things differently.

And if you don't want that, just let me know right now and I'll walk out the door. And he said? And he said, well, actually what he did was he chopped out a big line of cocaine. He said, and said, and said. It was 1981, just FYI, we're on a podcast. I know, I know. And he said, and he said, do you want some? And I went, no. And I thought, was that a test? I mean, or something, you know, I mean, a test of the emergency broadcast system, you know, And I said, no. And it wasn't because I thought, oh, it's a test.

I mean, I genuinely wasn't interested, you know. I said, no, but, you know, fill your boots, go ahead, you know. I mean, but that was it. And then I heard no more about it. Paul was still in the band. So I thought, well, this is a little strange. I'm not sure, you know, with my, you know, Union of Lead Singers card carrying badge,

I'm like, I'm not too happy about the way this is being done because obviously there's some subterfuge going on here.

But, they did say, look, we're gonna, he's gonna do the last few shows, they've got some festivals to do

in Sweden and, then that'll be it. But in the meantime, turned up for rehearsals, all super, you know, so I get on the, we go to Hackney, the rehearsal studio in Hackney, and there's the band, minus Steve, and I went, oh, well, we might as well stop.

They asked me to learn four songs. I only had two albums, so I learned all of them anyway. I thought, not, you thought, who knows what could happen? And basically, because Steve wasn't there, we just had a bash through all the songs that we knew from other people, just having a laugh, playing half of this song, half of that song, half of Deep Purple song. And we realized that we all knew all the same songs from all the same people. This was their roots, and it was my roots as well. I thought, well, this is great. Everybody was smiling.

We were all really happy. And when I walked in the room, everybody was kind of down, as you would be, because touring with a lead singer who you know is going to get fired has got to be corrosive. It's corrosive to the soul. It really is.

And honesty, dishonesty is corrosive to the soul. It really is. And honesty, dishonesty is corrosive to the soul. You know, much better to be out front and open with it, my opinion, but hey. So we were all chirpy and happy. Steve turned up. I said, oh, right, great. That's main event. This is Steve Harris.

Steve Harris, yeah. So then we bashed through the four songs and he was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. So he's on the pay phone, no mobile phones back then, to Rod, you know, shoveling in cash. so then we bashed through the four songs and he was like whoa hang on so he's on the pay phone no mobile phones back then to Rod you know

shoveling in coins going can we get a studio tonight to check him out and Rob was like whoa no no no

you've got to go to Sweden blah blah blah so it was left and then a couple of months later they got done with the festivals I went into a studio

recorded four songs over some live backing tracks that they already had. Martin Burch, the producer, was there. And they were all in a bit of a huddle with the manager in the control room. And I was like in the vocal booth going, well, you know. And I thought it was kind of funny. Because it was just like, what exactly are they discussing? And they came out, they said,

welcome to Iron Maiden. I went, right, let's go and get drunk. So we went down to see UFO at the Hammersmith Odeon that night and we were all in the bar together. We had a few beers and then the rest is kind of history.

And still to this day, UFO opens with Doctor Doctor, Maiden plays that song. Steve's a huge fan. Yeah, it's a brilliant song. And a massive fan of Pete Way, the bass player in particular of UFO. So, yeah. But this brashness that you had, like, look, I'm going to get it.

We all know I'm going to get it. Like that conviction, you said, you know, you're not sure where that self-confidence came from. Like, I don't know. Do you buy that? I don't know if I buy that. Like, where does that come from? Like that sense of self that you were able to bring to it. Like, being able to like have this imagination

of what that stage presence would look like and knowing that on some level you were gonna manifest that. I think a degree of self-reliance because basically I was, as a child, I was a mistake. So mom was just about 16 when I was born, maybe a little bit. Oh, I mean, you know, I could do the math later on when I figured it out. Hang on a minute, you know. So, I was raised by my grandfather who was a coal miner for the first three or four years of my life. Went to the local school,

the first three or four years of my life. Went to the local school, which was a mining town, and actually had a great time. It never occurred to me, you know, that there was a nasty, cruel world out there. You know, I was made aware. My grandmother wasn't too impressed with me because I'd kind of stolen her daughter because she was an only child.

And again, you know, later on in your life, you look back and you go, I kind of see the mechanics of what was going on there, you know. So I do recall when I was four or five being hauled up the road by my grandmother who told me that I was the child of Satan. Which, you know, I mean... Come to number of the beast. Six, six, six. And so I went, ah, right.

It all starts there. I was doomed. I was the child of Satan. I was this, I was, you know, and I was like, well, how come my granddad really likes me? You know, so... But again, you go through it, you know, I was the son he never had.

So that explains that part of it. And I represented the bit that stole my mother from her mother because they were very protective because she was an only, my mom was an only child. She was a really talented ballet dancer, went to like local classes and won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in London.

And they wouldn't let her go. So next minute, she's pregnant. Knocked up by a soldier, good looking soldier, who's my dad. And that was it. They basically moved to the nearest big city and started doing two jobs and everything else

and doing all the things to try and get a little house together so I could move in with them, which happened when I was probably, yeah, four years old, somewhere around about then. Because I have memories of moving in and being really pissed off. I was angry. I was like, who are you? They're like, we're your parents.

Really? Since when? You know, because they've taken me away from my granddad. He was a great guy. So this kind of self-reliance started there. Now they sent me off to boarding school when I was like 12, 13, right? And I got the shit kicked out of me. I was bullied and all the rest of it, like, you know, really quite consistently, you know, so 12 or 13 kids every night, lights went out, they would beat the shit out of me every night, you know, and this

would just go on. And I just developed an attitude. So the harder they hit me, the more I tell them, tell them they were fucking idiots. It goes two ways. Either you're going to implode under that and be a victim, or you rise up and do what you did. Those are all formative things. But at the same time, you know, I was doing other stuff in my life, and I didn't let that part of it impinge on the other things that I did.

You know, I mean, I loved the theatre. I loved plays. I loved acting. I loved English literature. I loved all that kind of stuff. Military history. Well, military history as well, you know, because at one point I was going to join the military.

So we had an army cadet unit at the school. I was in that for four years. I did all kinds of jumping out of helicopters and going on exercises with the regular army and went for interviews with regiments that I could possibly join and all that kind of stuff that I did. Then I was kicked out of school. According to Wikipedia, it has something to do with urination and the headmaster.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean— I don't know if that's apocryphal or true. No, it's true. I peed in the headmaster's dinner. Yeah. And that'll do it. I think it proved it.

That'll do it. British cooking at that period. Again, it was a weird story. You see, I sort of had this kind of—I had a dislike of the institution because I thought this is an institution that finds it awkward if kids get beaten up and seeks to just kind of pretend it doesn't happen. So as I got, you know, older and more imaginative, at one point I start sabotaging things. And then one day, I'm walking through the town because the school was embedded in a town

kind of like Yale or Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge, you know. In fact, it was designed to be a complete facsimile of Cambridge. It had quadrangles and things. It was a fake version of Cambridge, which was the intention, though. It did send everybody off to be hothoused, to be captains of industry or whatever. So I'm wandering through town

and there's a little card in a window and it said manure delivered to your door. And I thought this is too good to miss. So I phoned the guy up, pay phone, and I said, hello, I just made you a card. Do you deliver manure? He said, yes, I do. I deliver manure.

How much would you like? And I said, well, I do. I deliver manure. How much would you like? And I said, well, could you deliver two tons? Two tons, yeah. Where would you like it? Could you deliver it to the front door of Sydney House Andal School, courtesy of the housemaster in charge? Right, I'll do that. I'll do that tomorrow afternoon. It'll be all right. Cash on delivery. Yes, that'll be fine. Thank you. So this tractor turns up. You can imagine this Downton Abbey facade of this place. And the tractor turns up and this guy just dumps two tons of horse shit on the top step in front of the main entrance and then sits there waiting for the housemaster who's the teacher in charge to return and ask him for money. Did this

get tracked back to you? I had to own up. No, because I mean it's a standard authoritarian response, you know, collective punishment. So the guy stood up at dinner and said, and he actually had this weird voice, he said,

this afternoon some wag thought it would be very funny to dump two tons of shit on the front of the house. Well, I thought it was bloody amusing. Of course, I'll thrash him for it. But if that person doesn't own up, then there will be no electricity

for the house for the next whatever, which no electricity meant no music. And music was the only escape that you had from this institution. So everybody was like, everybody, it was me. So everybody looked at me going, well, and I was like, yeah, okay, go on then. Guilty as charged. So I turned up, knocked on the door and said,

hi there, it was me. And he went, oh, yes, Dickinson, I thought it might be you. And he said, it's very funny. He said, of course, I'll thrash you for it later. I went, oh, thank you. So they had corporal punishment. So beating and stuff like that by him.

So about nine o'clock that evening, you know, I hear this squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak coming up at my door. And he goes, I'll see you now. I went, oh, here we go. So I look and it's extraordinary. He'd actually changed his clothes into like tennis sneakers,

like hot pants and like a skimpy top. And I'm following this guy going, this is really bizarre. So I go in there and then he's, you know, he rearranged all the furniture in his study. There's a chair, so you have to bend over the chair. He's taken the cushion out, so you have to bend over so your butt is sticking up.

He then squeezes the cheeks of your butt, ostensibly to make sure there was no protection there. And then he has a selection of canes ranging from about four foot long to a bendy one with nobbles on it. And then he beats you six times until it's bleeding, basically. And that was that. And then you go back upstairs and everybody knows you've been beaten. So you drop your pants and they shine a torch on your butt going, yep, hmm, oh yeah, number four was a bit low.

Yeah, you know, not bad grouping there, you know. And so... Savage. Savage. Horrible. Savage, horrible, yeah. All of which is a long way of saying, like, you had to develop,

maybe like your ability to trust other people, not so hot, right? Developing this resilience and this, like, sort of, you know, sense of self. Like, you're the only, the buck stops with you. Like, your future is completely dependent upon, like, you can't rely on anyone else. Yeah, by and large. But I didn't take that as being a negative. It was just a reality.

That was just reality. That was life. People were just like that. And some people might not be like that, but some people might be like that. It's just the way they were, are, whatever. So, is it, can I ask a question? Yeah.

Going back to the earlier childhood stuff where your grandfather, who obviously had a tremendously close bond with, brought you up. And then when you were introduced to your parents and they moved in when you were four, between the ages of four and 12, when you went off,

did that develop the relationship with the parents? Was that a positive, like, cushion after that or a positive thing? Or were you still trying to figure out, like, what the hell's going on here? No, I mean, looking back, I realized that basically what I was doing, I was effectively being a secret agent in my own house.

I was, like, living a complete double life. How did you meet? Well, I mean, I just, whatever I was thinking, whatever I was feeling, my parents never knew. Because it didn't feel safe? Well, yeah, because I was just like, I'm really not sure. I mean, I used to argue with my dad a lot. I mean, I used to play chess with him, you know,

and then one day I beat him, and then we never played chess ever again. Yeah. You know. Like searching for Bobby Fischer. Yeah. I don't know if you saw that. And he tried the best he could,

but he looked at me and had no clue what to do with me. He did not understand what was going on with me at all. Over his lifetime, did that change? Was it ever a positive or a connected relationship in some sense? When he died, he died of lung cancer. So he was in Germany and I went to see him. And he was just, I was like,

you know, you could forgive him for being grumpy, you know, because you're dying of lung cancer. It's not very nice. Of course, he denied he had lung cancer. Of course he did.

All the doctors were wrong. He didn't have lung cancer. He was obsessed with, there was a window that looked out, and his room looked out on a clock, and he really liked the clock, town clock, and he looked at the cranes, the building cranes, and he would always talk about the cranes, because it represented a future, it represented, I think for him, some kind of continuity with the past and the future, his dad was a builder, he'd done a lot of building, I'd helped him build some kind of continuity with the past and the future. His dad was a builder. He'd done a lot of building.

I'd helped him build houses and stuff like that. But we were never really that close. So, you know, in terms of a father figure, I've got my grandfather who kind of exited my life as that, really, when my parents took over. Did either of your parents ever see any of the success that you had? Oh yeah, and they loved it. Oh no, they loved it.

No, don't get me wrong. That part came around. Like your mom, because she had a certain trajectory and was headed towards ballet and you interrupted that. Was there residual resentment that spilled out of her that made you feel unwelcome? No, like, residual, like, resentment that spilled out of her that made you feel, like, unwelcome? No, no, not at all. But she was so young when she had me,

absence of physical contact, physical, like, growl. I mean, not like kids. I mean, you know, my kids. Just like basic emotional needs being met. Kids, you want to kind of mangle them, you know, like... But there was none of that, you know. And actually, my father had a nasty streak to him, in truth. I mean, and there was always that side to him.

So I don't know what went on in his life, if that's repetition of a pattern or stuff like that. He wasn't a stupid man. He was an intelligent man. He was resourceful. He was a successful businessman. He loved mechanical things. He's one of these guys that had a complete understanding

of anything mechanical. He would just look at it and he would go, oh, I know what's wrong with that. Hang on a minute. And bang, it was fixed. I always felt like whenever he looked at me that, you know, I was a two-headed baby plague, you know, like what? You know, like he was looking at me through a magnifying glass going,

what's going on? You know, and I'm like, well, I'm not telling you, you know. We're brought to you today by a very exciting sponsor, Go Brewing. I am sober. I don't drink. And I devoted so many episodes of this podcast to the unreal benefits of an alcohol-free lifestyle. Why? Because even if you don't have issues with booze and suds, no amount of alcohol is good for you. At a minimum, it wreaks havoc on your sleep and produces a hangover that destroys your energy, your mood, and your focus. At worst, it turns your whole life upside down. But no longer does that mean you have to break up with

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And I think we do this a lot more than we think. And we do it at work. We do it at social settings. We do it around family. And personally, I didn't realize how much I was doing it until I got into therapy and started learning to accept all of my parts. And that has helped me take this mask off. So if you're considering therapy, and I strongly urge that you do, BetterHelp is worth exploring. It's entirely online. It's designed to fit your schedule. You just fill out a questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. And you can switch therapists anytime at no extra charge. So overcome your fears

with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash richroll today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash richroll. So, you have this love of music that you're developing and throughout adolescence you're in a couple bands, initially as a drummer. Your influences are these prog rock bands. But at what point do you discover the voice? The voice is the thing with you, that you have this talent.

This is a really weird thing. And I think this is worth touching on for people that normally in people's lives there's a little moment and it can be tiny but it's like throwing a pebble into a pond. You don't know where the ripples are going to go. Before I went to boarding school I went to a day prep school, private school if you, for three or four years. Before that, it was just like a regular school. But my parents thought, you know, they're going to sort of like make sure that I didn't have to work like they had to work because they worked really hard. You know, they did. I can't deny that. You know, we had a little

hotel that they ran and dad ran a garage and a maintenance business and a building business as well. And we all lived in a basement. You know, I would walk myself to school every morning or get a lift from neighbors or whatever it was. So they were never around for that because they were too busy cooking breakfasts for the guests in the hotel and all that stuff.

Whilst all this was going on, I started this like thing with music, basically. You know? So, with music, theatre, it was just a life of the imagination. And I didn't start really getting into music until I was, probably until I was like 13. But when I was at this prep school, we used to have to sing.

So we would, we have to go to church and the head of religious teaching was this guy, what's his name? His name was the Reverend, the Reverend B.S. Sharp was his name

so everybody used to call him Batty he was Batty Sharp and he was completely deaf in one ear I think something had blown up in the war and like blown his eardrum up so he could only listen to you with one ear and we went to his church

there was a place in Sheffield called Gleedless and he was the vicar of Gleedless so we went to his church. There was a place in Sheffield called Gleedless and he was the vicar of Gleedless. So we went to his church, the school, we were all sitting there and we're all singing these hymns, you know. And he's walking up down the aisle listening with his good ear like that, cocking his ear

to one side. So I thought that instead of like mumbling, like everybody mumbled, you know, when they hear, I would just yell at the top of my voice and, you know, basically take the piss. So I did. And he came up and he went, oh, you have a very good voice, boy. And on and off. And I was shocked. I was like, do I?

And that was it. That was the moment that just, that was the pebble that dropped in the pond four or five years later when I was unsuccessfully trying to be John Bonham on the bongos. And somebody said, why don't you give the lead singer a hand because he can't hit the top notes? I went, can I? And that was it.

And I opened my mouth and this noise came out and people went, oh, wow. Yeah. Bass player, you're no longer the lead singer. Boom. And then we split up artistic differences. But I mean, you know. Right. But those little comments you might have dismissed that make that end up making all the difference i think that people's lives are changed sure by not changed by

big things they're changed by small things that that if they take if they notice them. You have to accept it and notice it and go, wow, really? And then you have to go for it. Then you have to throw yourself in the water and see if you can swim. Right. So from that comment, fast forwarding to Iron Maiden, 130 million albums sold at this point.

Yeah, a lot, right? Like maybe even more t-shirts. There's the whole merchandising thing. This is a nation state Iron Maiden, right? And there's that sort of famous comment by Rod Smallwood, distinguishing

what you guys do, disabusing people that you're a cog in the music industry. You're not in the music industry, you're in the Iron Maiden business, right? And this is like its own thing altogether that has, you know, continued to like flower and be successful for over 40 years at this point. Yeah, we are outsiders in terms of the music industry in a lot of senses. There are bands and there are bands and there are bands

and they're just bands. I mean, you might like them, you might not like them, they might be successful or not successful. But Maiden is somehow more than that. Maiden is part of the core existence for a massive number of people, an unlikely number of people from all kinds of walks of life and avenues, you know, from CEOs to special needs people.

I mean, the whole gamut. And everybody seems to get something out of the band. And I don't analyze it or question it. It just is. And it's a combination of, it's a product rather, of who we are when we get together. It's a strange chemistry because it's manufactured. As in, I would never have met Steve Harris and Dave Murray

in the normal course of my life ever if they hadn't gone, hey, we want a singer for Iron Maiden. And now, what we have in common is Iron Maiden, is that music. And of course, we've all got to know each other. And one of the reasons I think the band has survived is because we have grown into each other over the years as people,

but at the same time, the music is always sacrosanct. When I had throat cancer. is always sacrosanct when I had throat cancer. And the last thing on my mind was, would I ever sing again? The first thing on my mind is, am I going to get through this and be alive? And the last thing on my mind was, would I ever sing again? And I thought, well, we'll get to that stage when I'm done and we start trying to sing. And I was quite prepared to accept that I might not be able to sing with Iron Maiden again.

I might be able to sing. I might be able to vocalize. I might be able to sing in a different way. But if I couldn't sing the way I have to sing with Iron Maiden, I'll help them find a great replacement because the music is sacrosanct. Meaning like the idea of Iron Maiden transcends you

and the role that you play. Absolutely, absolutely. This is something that's very special to a lot of people. You don't try to deconstruct it, but I would imagine on some level, you have a sense of why it is so important to so many people. And if I had to guess, it has to do with

authenticity. Like you said, it's manufactured, but it's also not manufactured. It is like an organic expression of who you are and staying true to what you have always been from day one. The manufactured bit comes from only in the sense that we didn't all... It's a construction of these people coming together. We didn't comes from only in the sense that we didn't all

It's a construction. We didn't all grow up in the same street. Actual fact, bands that all grow up in the same street together, that's sometimes a bit of a recipe, or families that play together, that could be a recipe for implosion. I mean, I know Oasis

have just gotten back together and doing it, but my my god how difficult was that the two brothers so we all get together but the music is the single point of contact that is the most important thing for all of us if I couldn't do it if I couldn't do what I do now

effectively I would be the first one to say if I couldn't do what I do now effectively, I would be the first one to say, you know what, it's time I retired from singing for Iron Maiden and did something else, Stack Shelf, something, you know, because I have too much pride on the line to go out there.

And people said to me, oh, you know, I was speaking to somebody, to a fan the other day, and they me, oh, you know, I was speaking to somebody, to a fan the other day, and they said, oh, it's great you guys are all still back together. You know, I said, yeah, we're all still back together

because we're fierce and the music is still as good, if not better in some respects, than we played it 20 or 30 years ago. Can I say that actual point because I wanted to make this point that when I first saw you, it was November 1982,

I'm remembering, Hammersmith Odeon, and there was however many, 6,000, 7,000 people. The show, as a 16-year-old, it was just, I mean, first of all, they are a very tight, intense, fierce, and also loud, impressive band,

and the stage show, whatever. I went to see you guys on this Tuesday night, three days ago at the Forum, which was completely sold out. And the band sounded better than 42 years ago. And I struggle to find another band that I've seen

that is able to maintain that level of... It's like, you have to... Next time... You told me, like Tom Morello said to you the other day, that 30 years later, like, better than ever. Yeah, that's what we had this conversation. And we sort of passed like the fact that you had throat cancer

and very well could have gone a different way. And for you to come out the other side of that and maintain this extraordinary operatic voice with this unbelievable vocal range is like kind of an amazing thing, yeah? Well, I'm grateful that it worked and that the cancer was where it was and wasn't actually associated with my vocal cords or my larynx. It was in the base of my tongue and in my lymph node.

So, you know, the radiation and chemo at the same time and everything, that just kicks the crap out of your body in general. But the voice seemed to come back. In fact, some of the top notes were better than they were before, probably because there wasn't a golf ball living in my throat. But on that point of the standards that we set ourselves in the band, very rarely do we all come off stage and go, yep, that was it, fantastic, nothing to say about that.

All of us could point to, yeah, that song in the middle of it, yeah, I wasn't too happy with the tone on that, on the voice. You're just always tweaking. I mean, we're perfectionists. And so we still play all the songs in the original key. We don't detune, we don't do anything like that on any of the songs. And this guy was saying, he said, oh yeah, but he said, you know, you, you'd be going around for years, you know, I mean, all these bands now, they all detune, you know, and they all use backing tracks and they all

use, I said, okay, stop right there. No, we're not going to do that because it's not authentic. It's not real. You know, it's, it's, that's just,'s that's just you start to get into the world of Disney World now so no and if I can't do it if I can't do it

the way I should be doing it I shouldn't be doing it at all I have a very good friend called Ryan Holiday and he writes

all these books about stoicism he hosts a podcast called The Daily Stoic he's your number one fan he's always wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. I told you about him once.

He goes to millions of concerts. He's written extensively about all the life lessons that he's learned from paying attention to your example and deconstructing the whole Iron Maiden thing altogether. And he's come up with a variety of principles to help understand kind of what you've done. And one of those up with, you know, a variety of principles to help understand kind of what you've done. And one of those that I think is really potent and powerful is like, you guys understand what business you're in. You know, there's this saying that this technologist,

Kevin Kelly always repeats, like, it's this idea of a thousand true fans. Like if you just have a thousand true fans who love what you do, like you can build a career on that. And Iron Maiden is really like that at scale, right? Like you have these fans who are so devoted to what you do that they will follow you everywhere and have for decades at this point. But that really is a function of you understanding and appreciating that. Like you're in the service business, right?

Like you're there to serve these fans. And I've heard you talk about the importance of, of like eye contact, whether you're playing in front of 300,000 people or like one person, like you are there for that person to give them that experience that they paid for. There's two areas there. So the first one is live. So live, absolutely. I try and, you know, honey, I shrunk the kids. Honey, I shrunk the venue. So I try to turn the forum into a club. Don't ask me how I do that. I have my own theories on how it works.

But it is a lot of it is about eye contact. And eye contact and reaching out and projecting to the person who's 50, 60 yards away, halfway up the seats at the back. And eye contact is an amazing thing. Human eye contact. You know, I mean, try this experiment and, well, not too often because you'll probably get arrested. You know, when you're on the beach and, you know, try and find some male or female, as is your wish, and stare at them from 100 yards away. Stare at them. And you wait. And you will get the most withering, what the are you looking at?

The energy, yeah. Because. You can feel it. That's what human beings are built for. We're not built for much that's really any good physically, you know. I mean, you know, human being versus tiger, tiger wins. Human being versus fish, fish wins, you know. But in terms of checking each other out,

our whole visual apparatus and auditory apparatus is designed for congress with other human beings. It's what we do. And we are constantly scanning for eye contact, body language, everything else like that. So if you can project that to somebody a long, long way away, that person then notices that, person then notices that and then everybody around that person notices that so they're going he's looking at hey that guy there he's looking at him him he's looking he and now he's now everybody's connected you've just connected a couple of hundred people. Now move your gaze to somewhere else. So I'm doing that during the show. I'm literally, I don't know if you've ever driven a steam engine.

Have you ever, like a steam locomotive? No. Really cool. That has not happened in my life yet. Maybe Saturday. Yeah. I recommend it. I did a steam locomotive driving experience

and I'm on the footplate, you know, with the driver and the fireman, the guy that... Loading the coal. Loading the coal. And actually does a whole lot more. He's really driving the engine. All the other guy does is press go.

Right? But anyway, he opens the firebox and there's the fire. This is an analogy. I'll get to the point in a minute. So he says, yeah, shovel some coal in. I said, well, I'll just chuck it in. He goes, no, no, no, no, no.

He said, look for the dark spot. He said, there's a dark spot over there. So put a couple of lumps on there because we need to get an even fire over the whole firebox. I went, hmm, that's exactly what I do with the audience. I look for the dark spot. I look for the bits that need jiving up, you know, because the people in the pit, they're there.

People on the floor, you don't kind of ignore them, but you need to take the people at the sides, the people who just bought the last minute tickets, the people, you know, those are the people who you need to include in all this as much as the people who are in the pit. They've got it all up front. The goal being everybody is connected through this experience.

Exactly. And not on the internet. Everybody is connected physically in the human being web of eye contact and body contact and all those sensations and getting their arms up and singing and joining in and all that. That's what we do live. Recording, on the other hand, I mean, a record is exactly that. It's a record of where a band was at mentally, emotionally, musically at a given moment in time. And that's why records sound different from, you know,

they don't sound, every record doesn't sound the same, hopefully, because you move emotionally as you move through. Now, our first, you know, four, five, six records were when we were in our 20s. And then we, people had kids, they moved emotionally. So now Senjutsu, you know, we got, we're much more proggy. But we haven't, I mean, yeah, there's some sort of like grumpy people who want us to stay exactly how we were in, you know, 1981.

But that's not stopping people coming in, hundreds of thousands of people coming to our shows now. So I say really what we're all about is, one, our fans understand that our music is a journey, and it's a journey that's our journey, not their journey. Their journey is to be on the journey with us. So we don't go, what should we play for the fans? We do, what should we play for us?

And then the fans can have their opinion. And they'll discuss it. And they respect that we do what we do. And they literally follow that. And that hopefully entertains them. I mean, some of them go, I don't like that album, I love this album. People are discovering us on albums

that we've done in the last, you know, 10 years. Well, the album we did 30 years ago, they're like, oh, what's all this? Back catalog stuff. And then they rediscover all the early stuff. So your analogy about a thousand people, you can base a career, kind of. I say that our fans are,

my maiden analogy for our fan base is like this table, okay? Which I assume underneath the lamination is made of plywood. And our fans are like a plywood table. We lay down a layer of wood, and then the next year, we lay down another layer of wood, and then another, and then another, and we just try not to lose anybody.

So by the time you've got to 40 years, that's an awfully big table. Yeah. And also the other thing of the show I noticed the other night was, you know, original fans from 80, 81, their children are there and their children are there.

There were, you know, eight, 10-year-old kids and I think even your friend Ryan Holiday is bringing his kid to the show tomorrow at Sacramento. Yeah, yeah, his young son

at the Sacramento show. So, you know, people are bringing their kids now. It was astonishing. It's hard. Intergenerational. But fundamentally, like, I'm trying to understand what you're saying. So, you know, people are bringing their kids now. It was astonishing. It's hard. Intergenerational. But fundamentally, like, I'm trying to understand what you're saying. So there is the idea of like reverence and respect for the fans, but ultimately

the role of the artist is to express themselves in the way that, you know, feels right for them, right? Like not to be like, well, the fans want this, so we're going to do this. Like, no, I'm the artist. We decide the way in which we want to express and what we're going to do this like no i'm the artist i we decide the way in which we want to express and that is the the crucial point that our fans accept i mean one or two of them might not but but the vast majority of them accept that now when we go out live we go out live to do the best show we can possibly do with the material that we're doing if a song is particularly difficult you know so it's a song is particularly difficult. So it's a song that might be particularly lengthy or something else like that.

Some fans will love it. Other ones will go take a toilet break. But you're not afraid to challenge them. No, absolutely not. And that's the reason why... I mean, for example, when we did... I think it was A Matter of Life and Death, that album,

we did the whole record. We went out and we played a whole new record. In order. I can't remember if it was in order, but we basically did the whole record start to finish. And we had some people in America, like vocal people on the internet, spitting tacks going,

I paid money to go and see this rubbish. Where was Run to the Hills? You know, I was like, okay, buddy, right? And people were going, yeah, I can't believe they're so arrogant as to do this, yada, yada, yada, yada. And next year we came back to America and guess what? Double the number of people turned up. Because-

And you make of that what? You make of that that some of the most vocal people on the internet are not what people are really thinking and talking and saying to each other in the real world, you know? And fans respected it. Then they went, well, I saw Maiden the other night. Man, you know, you should have been there. Oh, yeah, but I heard they were doing this matter of life and death.

Oh, my God, it was incredible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You've got to go see him next time. And lo and behold, everything we've done has built and built and built and built. And it's all old-fashioned word of mouth. Word of mouth, I think, is yes, internet, social media, everything else, but it... It's organic.

It's still real. It's real. And that's why some people in the music industry don't understand it because it actually is quite... To do that requires dedication, long-term commitment. You're playing a very long game. We're playing a very long game. The music industry is not about that.

It's about how can we get billions of streaming things on TikTok about which nobody gives a stuff in five minutes. It's tissue paper to the flame. Five minutes time, it's gone. You know what I mean? So we just don't do that. You know, our numbers on things like TikTok are probably almost irrelevant, you know? Yeah, what's interesting is that, you know,

amidst this 130 million album sales or whatever the number is, at the same time, you're not necessarily, you don't have like breakout singles or consistent like classic rock radio play. No, no, no, no, no, no. And although, you know, in the United Kingdom, you're like an institution.

I'm sure you can't walk down the street without people stopping you and your own postage stamps and stuff like that. But in other parts of the world, like you can kind of, you know, wander anonymously. No, not true. Not true? Not true. It's the other way around. This abused me.

No, it's the other way around. This is my naive, like not metal, you know, kind of like fluent. It's the other way around. We were driving to the airport or something, and I was chatting with the driver. And we were talking about self-driving cars. You knew sort of like self-driving Ubers and things like that, you know. And I said, yeah.

I said, you know, because driving is not really, honestly, it's not really that much fun. It's kind of like a waste of your life, really. I know you have to have a car in LA. But I said, I mean, back in London, I don't have a car. I don't own a car. You take the tube quite a lot. Yeah.

And the guy went, how do you get around? I said, I have a bicycle. And I go on the subway. Sometimes take the bus. Walk. Right. I mean, can you imagine Bono or Chris Martin or somebody like that? Chris Martin, yeah.

Absolutely. Chris is quite low-key. Yeah. He yeah. Absolutely. Chris is quite low key. Yeah, but his face is so recognizable. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, but honestly, I mean... But can I say one story though? When Bruce and I were working together on this project in my office,

which is on Portobello Road, we were taking a break. We decided to go down and get coffee at the Greek coffee shop. Oh, the Greek place. So I go in, I said, let's go get a quick coffee. So we went in there. I noticed one of the Greek owners just picked up the phone. Literally before our coffees were delivered to us,

60 Greeks just came in. And like, he was mobbed. And I was like, Bruce, what the fuck is going on? And then you told me, you know, maiden in Greece. Right. So the salient point, you're in London, but it was because of the Greek audience. The Greek thing, and I had to pull him out of the crowd. And the same thing, I mean, I don't frequent Harrods, but I can't remember

why, but for some reason I'd got out of the tube station, and I was walking past the front of Harrods and walking to go somewhere else, and there was a bunch of Brazilians waiting to go in. And I'm sort of like, oh, no. And I don't know. And then, of course, one night I'm on the tube.

And I've got the, what's the local paper? The Evening Standard, right? So I'm just like sitting there reading the paper, like typical, you know, English grumpy tube person, you know, rustle your paper, not talk to anybody. And I see this guy looking at me. And he's looking at me, he goes, are you, are you Bruce?

And I just put the paper down and said, who? I mean, oh, sorry. Oh, poor guy. No, but, you know who? I mean, oh, sorry. And that was... Oh, poor guy. No, but, you know, but I was just like, let's see if I can get away with it. You know, I mean, the key to being... There's some places you can't be anonymous,

like Brazil. I mean, forget it. I am a prisoner in the hotel room. Or, you know, I've been smuggled into more kitchens and out of more underground kitchens in hotels to go and do stuff. But not in London. No, absolutely not in London. Unless it's Brazilians or Greeks or, you know, or India or Korea or Uruguay.

I mean, it's truly global. But even in, I live partly in London, partly in Paris with my wife. And so, you know, in our local neighborhood, I mean, the French, they don't really hassle you in the same way as, you know, some other countries, you know, where they're a bit more volatile, should we say. You know, so they, you know, they asked sort of politely or nod.

I mean, we went down to Australia. So we were in Perth for three weeks rehearsing and we went down a bit early to go and hang out. And nobody was, in fact, they went out of their way to apologize, to sort of go, look, we know you probably want to be left alone, but can I just say that, you know,

we're really big fans. I said, yeah, of course you can. Yeah, let's sit down and have a cup of coffee and blah, blah, blah. And they go, yeah, we don't want to trouble you. But that was it. That was the only thing that happened to us down there. People were just chilled out, everything.

So it's a cultural thing. But yeah, we are more well known now you know and obviously after being on this podcast there's no escape it's all about the ritual podcast if you are truly desiring of mastering your plate but you feel like you lack the skill in the kitchen or the time or the culinary acumen you believe you require, I can't stress enough how much our Plant Power Meal Planner can help you out. It truly is an extraordinary product I'm so proud of. We worked very hard on to solve a very basic problem, making nutritious eating convenient and delicious. When you sign up at

meals.richroll.com, you will get access immediately to literally thousands of delicious and easy to prepare plant-based recipes, thoroughly customized based on a battery of personal preferences that you input when you sign up. You also get unlimited grocery lists, grocery delivery in most metropolitan areas, and a team of crack nutrition coaches at the ready to guide you. And you get all of this for just $1.90 a week. So to learn more and to sign up, go to meals.richroll.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu on my website. There's a great book called Range by a guy called David Epstein. Have you read this book? No.

It's a really interesting kind of deconstruction of all these high performers in a variety of fields. And we have this idea that the people who are the very best at what they do are the ones who have blinders on. And they just do that one thing and they blot out everything else in their life so that they can be the most elite they possibly can be. When in truth, the fact is that most of these high performers are people who have a wide variety of interests and have studied many different things and have tried lots of different things.

And it is only later in life when they realize like all this myriad of experiences kind of congeal to create a situation that allows them to kind of be the best at what they do in ways they couldn't have imagined. And when I think about you, I mean, you are a true polymath. You are a modern day Renaissance man. You're a commercial airline pilot. You're an aviation entrepreneur. You write novels and screenplays and comic books and children's books.

And you have a beer company. And then there's the fencing. And then the fencing, right? Which maybe we could start there, but I want to kind of dive into, you know, the plethora of other interests that you have and kind of the relationship between curiosity and, you know, passion and how all of these things kind of influence what you do in your main gig, being this front man in one of the most iconic bands in the world.

Okay, so the earlier guy that you talked about, Mr. Epstein and his book, he's not wrong about you have to take a deep dive into something and almost be a kind of like maniac in terms of dedication, but not all the time. So to be a really successful sportsman, you need to basically just be,

there's no other way to describe it, just selfish. You just have to think completely about you, your performance, your sport, yourself, and everything else takes a backseat. Family, kids, everything. And I think most sportsmen, people go through a phase of their lives where they do that

in order to almost brainwash themselves into the level that they need to succeed. Now, once you've had what psychologists sometimes call a peak experience in any area of your life. It transfers. So like a muscle that suddenly gets awakened that you didn't know you had that muscle. And suddenly it awakens and it gets stronger and stronger and stronger and you could feel your body, your psyche squeezing it

when you attack a problem. You have to have that initially in one area of your life. But then you can transfer that feeling, and it is a feeling, but it's an emotional thing. It's not a, you know, I'm going to, for me anyway, it's not something you measure on a tape measure or, you know, on the Richter scale. It's an emotional feeling, but a focus that you can apply. Like, yeah, like when you switch the lights on in a room,

it's a general wash and you can see sort of most things, you know. But then you turn it down to like a real tight laser cone and you look in great detail at one thing. That ability to focus is something that you have to train on something, on something. You have to take a big deep dive into something and make it a part of your entire being. But then once you've done that, you can apply it to other things. It is an emotion, but it's also a set of skills, right? Knowing like, okay, I applied myself in this way to this field. I improved, achieved some level of excellence. And now I know I have like a sense of, you know, the tools that I have in my toolbox that then I can take over here.

Well, then you have more tools. But you have to have the emotional piece, which is the enthusiasm and the curiosity. That has to be an authentic source of inspiration. Absolutely. That's got to be there. So I have a lot of friends who play golf. I do not play golf. But I accept it's a very difficult game.

I accept you could spend your entire life practicing it and never know it all. So in that respect, it's very similar to a lot of things I've done, like flying or like fencing or like, you know, you can never know these things completely. The same thing with music, you can never know these things completely. But golf has eluded me. but golf has eluded me. I have no passion for watching it, for, you know, I've tried. I mean, I've gone on putting greens and people have gone, oh, that's really good.

I'm like, I don't get the feeling that, wow, I really want to spend my life doing this, hitting a ball on a driving range. I'm like, no, it does nothing for me. It's like gambling. Some people love to gamble. I just like, no, it does nothing for me. It's like gambling. Some people love to gamble. I just go, it's a waste of time. What are we, why am I wasting my time and energy and money?

I've tried. But aviation being different, right? Like a lot of people get their pilot's license, but there's a difference between that and being sort of a pilot hobbyist and piloting 757s and basically going on missions at the behest of the British government to retrieve, you know, troops in conflict zones.

These are like worlds apart. Yeah, but when I was a kid growing up with my grandfather, didn't really have childcare back then, and he was working a night shift or whatever. So during the daytime, I was sometimes sent around to my great uncle and my grandfather's brother. So he was in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, 200 Squadron on Liberators and Venturas, Lockheed Venturas,

sub-hunting around Europe and then West Africa. I used to sit with him and he would just tell me all these stories and we would make model airplanes together. And my heroes when I was a kid were not, when I was a young kid, I'm talking, I was born in 1958. So I remember quite clearly, you know, Yuri Gagarin, first man in space, Russian guy. I remember the headlines in the newspaper

because I could read by then, whenever that then was. I think it was in 62. I can clearly remember that. So my heroes up to the age of 10 or 11 were test pilots and astronauts. You know, I followed, I mean, Apollo 13. I mean, I wish I could find the notebook. I filled a notebook when Apollo 13 was happening with the disaster with all the notes and everything else. So, but at school, I had no interest in mathematics whatsoever. I hated mathematics. I mean, I could add up and things like that, but equations and trigonometry, what the hell use is that, right? And the same, funnily

enough, with physics. So, fast forward, I was going to join the army when I was in 15, 16, you know, why? Because I was angry and grumpy and had the shit kicked out of me and I wanted to fight people. Stupid, but kind of understandable. Army had a lucky escape. I didn't join. But people said, well, why didn't you join the Air Force? I went, because I was rubbish at maths and physics and they'd never have accepted me. Absolutely wrong.

As I subsequently figured out, later on, having met people in the Royal Air Force and everything else, it is the best, probably the best educational system on the planet, the military, because they don't leave anybody behind. First of all, everybody has to achieve the standard. Otherwise they're pretty useless to be working with, right? And the other thing is that if you have the right character for doing the job, they'll teach you everything you need to know, including the maths and physics that you need to do your job.

So I didn't find that out until later, so I didn't do that. And I always wondered about flying because I, you know, I loved airplanes and jets. And then I took a trial lesson when I was in Kissimmee in Florida on holiday, just kids to Disney World. And I went off and took a trial lesson that's $30 for 25 minutes in a little Cessna 152 and I remember walking up to the airplane

and touching it and looking at it and going I know a surprising amount about this airplane I know what that is I know what that is I know

wow I'd forgotten that I knew all this stuff there's an awful lot of stuff I didn't know, obviously. But we got on the plane and we got off the ground. And as soon as we left the ground, I was just like, I'm not happy about this.

And the further we got away from the ground, the happier I became. Then we're about 1,500 feet above the sunsets. And I could see in all dimensions. So I'm living in three-dimensional space now. Not only am I living in three-dimensional space, but I can see a possible future, a navigational issue. Where are we going to go in three-dimensional space? How do we stay in three-dimensional space?

What's keeping me alive? I shouldn'tdimensional space? What's keeping me alive? I shouldn't be here. What's keeping me alive? Answer, well, the power plant at the front. Answer, the instruments in front of me. Answer, this little cocoon that I'm surrounded in. How do I know what it's doing? What is it thinking?

What makes it tick? What makes it go? And suddenly I saw an external and internal world expanding in all directions to infinity. And that's why I fly. A light bulb moment. Yeah, a light bulb moment. You knew in that moment you were going to be...

And I didn't know I was going to be... Digging into this world. I didn't know. I thought I am 28 years, 29 years old. And literally just one thing led to another until I got to the point where I went, well, I wonder what it's like to fly a jet. I really liked the idea of flying for a purpose, with a mission,

to actually do, not just to go up and tootle around, you know, on a Sunday afternoon and burn fossil fuels for a $100 hamburger, you know. I thought, I love mission-orientated things because it gives you something to judge yourself by. You know, how good are you really when the chips are down? Can you really cut it? So I became a flight instructor.

So I used to teach flying. And then gradually did all my exams. I mean, I've got a full set of American licenses that I've done over here in the USA. And then I've got another full set of licenses that I did in the UK and Europe. And they're two separate sort of systems. When I quit Iron Maiden, which I did for six years or so, something like that, I thought, well, if this solo career of mine doesn't work out, what am I going to do?

I thought, you know, I don't know. Unemployed rock star seeks gainful employment. You know, stacking supermarket shelves is an option. You know, I mean, you've got to do something to feed the family and work and stuff. So I'm not scared of that. But I thought, you know what? I mean, maybe, you know, world needs pilots.

Maybe I could do this. So I started doing the exams to go and do it. And then at the moment that I got the job to go back to Iron Maiden, I said, do you want to come back to Iron Maiden? So I said, oh, yeah. This was like 91? Yeah, something like that, yeah.

And I went, damn. Well, there goes any chance of flying a jet because I'm going to be busy, busy, busy. You know what I'm going to do? Screw it. I'm going to buy an airplane. So I bought from Santa Monica. There was an airplane sitting out there,

a little eight-seater, an eight-seat airplane with a pressurized cabin, two piston engines in it. It was a Cessna 421. And I thought, you know what? I've done all these flying exams. I'm actually, I'm going to just go and fly myself around the world doing gigs in this thing. So I did an American tour, like 50 shows. And then there was a European tour, Beckoning. So I thought, well, I'll do the European tour. So I flew it across the Atlantic. Got there and did the European tour.

Then we had another American tour, so I flew it back the other way. Had a few adventures along the way. Did the US tour. Got back to Santa Monica. And this guy who was at the airport there said, do you want to sell a half share in that aeroplane? I went, yes. I'd go back to Europe, and Maiden had like about a six or eight month break.

Very rare, but we had a break. My buddy, who I'd gotten into flying, was actually almost qualified as an airline pilot. And he phoned me up. He said, look, I'm getting into a, I mean, I'm in a simulator because I've got a job interview coming up. They're going to give me a test in a simulator. A buddy of mine's in the back. He's a trainer and he's going to walk me through a few bits. Do you want to sit in the other seat and just operate a few of the knobs and switches? I went, yeah, great, sure. So I turn up, and I thought, you know what I should do?

I should, I type out the CV, put it in my pocket, and I sit in the other seat. The guy does like 20 minutes in the sim, and the trainer in the back says, tell you what, take a break for a sec.

He said, you're a pilot, aren't you? I said, yeah. He said, you have a go at the same profile. I went, okay, sure, fine. And I did it. And he said, do it again. So I do it again. And as we came into land, it was a 737 simulator.

As we're coming into land, we land. I think we're pretty good landing. And then the guy collapsed the main landing gear on me. And I come to a stop like, oh, wow, what was that? I think the gear's collapsed. He went, yeah. He said, I couldn't let you get away with a landing that good. He said, considering you've never done this before.

He said, so I collapsed the gear. Screw you. But he goes, he said, so where'd you learn to fly like that? I said, well, I've just been flying around the world, flew across the Atlantic a couple of times in a single crew, twin engine, pressurized airplane with no autopilot on it. You put your hours in.

You put the hours in. It was the hours, but it was the level of raw flying that was there. And he said, well, he said, you'll be giving me your CV next. I went, funnily enough, here it is. And this is what led to you basically being employed as a commercial airline pilot. So he then said, come on, let's go for a beer. So the three of us went for a beer and we were talking about flying and about experiences and about stuff. And I said to him, I said, do you always do your job interviews in the pub? He said, yeah, usually. I said, you find out a lot more about people when you're sitting here talking to them. He said, what do you want to do? I said, look, I said, I would just love

to fly a jet. I'm not John Travolta. I can't afford my own. So I figured it would be cool to get a job. But I don't want to be a pilot for life. I have another job. It's a pretty good one. But I figured that the industry is cyclical. You need pilots that you can get rid of in the winter. When the loads are flying in the summer, in the winter, and then they come back the next summer.

He goes, you're absolutely right, we do. He said, but you need to get a certain minimum level of experience before you can jump in and jump out. I went, okay. He said, but let me think about it. He said, I'm going to join a new airline as the head chief pilot. Yeah, let me see what's going on. So I phoned him a month later and I said, hey, any news? He goes, yeah. He goes, there might be like a half a line, like half a job going this summer. I went, yeah. Wow, great.

I'm in. He goes, let me work on it. Then he phoned me back. He said, you know what? It might only be a quarter. It might only be a couple of hundred hours of flying. I went, look, I'm game. And then two weeks later, the phone rang.

And he said, hi, it's John. Listen, what are you doing on Monday? And I said, you tell me, what am I doing on Monday? And he said, can you start full time at British Airways type rating on a 757 First Officer? I went... I mean, this is

typical Bruce Dickinson. Can you imagine if you're a passenger and you're boarding the plane and... Well, that's happened. I know that's happened. Wait, hold on. You're a pilot and also I loved your albums? Yeah. That has happened multiple times. I didn't realize it was BA. There was this other airline, Australia.

No, no, no. So the training was done by BA. I see. So the training, so I was trained by British Airways on their type rating on the 757 and the simulators. But I was going to be joining another airline. But in the meantime, when you're your first jet that you ever fly, you have to do a minimum of 40 sectors

before you can be assessed for a line check. And at that point, they take the training wheels off and you're a regular pilot. So a sector is a takeoff and a landing basically. So you've got to do 40 takeoffs and landings in various roles. So because the airline that I was going with had only one 757 and most of the time it was flying night flights to Africa, it was going to take me an awful long time to get 40 sectors. So they did a deal with BA whereby I would fly 20 sectors with BA as a first officer

because they could do a lot of short flights in Europe. So I did my 20 flights with BA and then rejoined my airline and went straight off on a night flight to Sierra Leone in the middle of a war. Not your first flight into a war-torn place. Oh, it was. Not your last is what I meant to say.

No, not my last. We were flying into Sierra Leone and there was still a curfew because the war was still officially not over. So they still had curfew because there was still, the war was still officially not over. So they still had curfews and stuff like that. So we would fly in and land at like around about seven in the morning overnight. And then we'd disgorge our passengers. And then a few of them, we couldn't stay there.

So we had to fly on up the road to the Gambia, which is just a couple of countries up. We'd stay there for 12 hours minimum rest during the daylight hours, then get back on the airplane at midnight, fly back to Sierra Leone, where the passengers had traveled there outside of the curfew hours.

They'd been waiting a couple of hours. We'd pick them all up, and then we'd fly back to Gatwick and get there at God knows what hour in the morning. And you're doing all of this while fully employed by Iron Maiden at the same time. I know. So at the time, I had six months to get all this done.

Now, 9-11, I'm in New York. I've got a simulator ride coming up with the airline that I was working with because I've now qualified as a first officer. I've got two little stripes, not three, just two, junior first officer. One of my first simulator checks coming up. So I'm sat on the roof in the hotel just by Central Park on Iron Maiden business. I'm supposed to be doing something

with MTV that day. And I've got my manuals out and I'm doing a bit of homework on the airplane. And all these people are coming up. I'm sitting on the roof and there was a pool and it used to be called the Park and Meridian, this hotel. So there was a pool on the roof. So I'm sat there, you know, and this woman comes up and says to the pool attendant, has anybody heard anything about an airplane crashing into the World Trade Center? And I looked up, I went, oh. Now, I happen to know that it's not uncommon

for airplanes to crash. I mean, the Empire State Building has had several airplanes crash into it over the years. I'm thinking it's some guy. Tiny little plane. Tiny little plane, Cessna or something. You know, I think,

oh, that's unfortunate. That's weird. And then more and more people come up on the roof and they're looking downtown and one of the guys comes out. I said, what kind of airplane was it?

Do you know? And the guy goes, it was an airliner. I'm like, oh, shit. Airliners don't crash into skyscrapers. This is weird. So I went on the roof and had a look. Couldn't see anything. It was too far downtown.

And then I heard military flying low down the Hudson unmistakable like military jets and I'm thinking I'm going to get off the roof and go down and see what the heck is going on in the world and I went down, turned on the TV one tower was down the other one was sadly

well on the way and I thought oh wow so I was supposed to be flying out that night out of JFK sadly, well on the way. And I thought, oh, wow. So I was supposed to be flying out that night. Out of JFK? Yeah. So I phoned down to reception.

I said, hello, I'd like to extend my stay if that's possible because nobody's going to go anywhere tonight. And then I tried the cell phone and to my surprise it worked because I thought the next thing, they're going to shut off all cell phones but they hadn't done it yet. So I got a phone call through to my airline operations in London and I said,

hey, it's me, you're obviously watching what's going on, I'm not going to be back on Monday but I am safe, everything is fine. If everything gets cut off, can you call my wife and let her know I'm fine if I can't get through? That's it. And I was there for three or four days walking around in that strange, strange, strange atmosphere. It was awful. Just odd.

Like you were in another world. Twilight Zone. Yeah. On the topic of, you know, flying for a purpose, at what point do you start doing these flights in conjunction with the British military? I know there was one flight where Sasha was telling me you took Jamaican gangsters back to Jamaica. Yeah. Like you started doing kind of these, they're sort of like missions, right?

It's what the airline did. This was part of the airline's business. Yeah, we had 11 airplanes. We had five 757s, five 737s, and a spare Airbus in the end. That airline that was in on 9-11, that went bust two weeks later. 9-11 paid to went bust two weeks later.

9-11 paid to everything. And then three months later, this other airline started out of, literally out of the ashes of that one. And they phoned me up and said, do you want to come fly a 737? So I retyped on a 737, went flying a 737, and then they got a 757. They went, hey, you're already qualified on that. So then I went back on the 75, which is my favorite bird. I love that airplane.

But anyway, that's another story. You retrieved stranded tourists from Egypt. Just a job. Retrieved troops from Lebanon and Afghanistan. I did 6,500 hours of heavy jet flying in 10 years, including the well-publicized Iron Maiden round-the-world trips. Sure. But that... Ed Force One.

Ed Force One. That was maybe... Round the world, that trip in my logbook was total maybe 50 hours each trip. That's all. Yeah. So all the rest of that flying,

those 6,000, 5,000 hours, was some days you would turn up in like a company like EasyJet. They would rent our airplane for the summer and we'd be flying to wherever EasyJet flew to. BA would be short of an airplane. They would rent us and we'd fly to regular runs to Bulgaria. We were in and out of Iceland as a low-cost airline. We were in and out of Iceland as a low-cost airline. We were flying to Newark, Boston, Winnipeg, and Florida. But you didn't keep the Iron Maiden logo on during those? Sometimes.

No. No, sometimes. Where is it? For people that don't know, 757 says Iron Maiden, you know, in gigantic typeface. That was one of them, yeah. Where is that plane now? Scrap. It's scrapped. Yeah was one of them, yeah. Where is that plane now? Scrap. It's scrapped.

Yeah, well, we had two. I forget which one is. One of them is flying for FedEx or somebody like that. It's a cargo airplane. The other one we used, that went to scrap. And the 747 that we ended up,

the very last incarnation of it, the fourth around the world, was a 747 that we ended up, the very last incarnation of it, the fourth around the world, was a 747. So I had to join the airline that operated that aircraft, Air Atlanta. So I had to join Air Atlanta as a captain. So do the type rating, their type rating and then do my 10 sectors of line training as a captain

before I could be, you know, officially let loose on it on my own. That was an ex-Air France machine. Very nice airplane. Very nice airplane. It is, unfortunately, also at the scrappers at the moment. But yeah, it's really well documented in the film Iron Maiden Flight 666, Sam Dunn and his partner.

It tells the story of one of those incredible tours with Bruce taking the band, Iron Maiden Flight 666 Sam Dunn and his partner it tells the story of one of those incredible tours with Bruce taking the band Iron Maiden and all their equipment and flying to places

that the band hadn't necessarily played before couldn't get to or what was that was that the concept sort of well yeah we had this

idea that it would be great to do you know a place like India South Africa and and and Australasia and and the accountants were like you know you can't afford to do, you know, a place like India, South Africa and Australasia.

And the accountants were like, you know, you can't afford to do that, guys, anymore because, you know, all this gear you've got to take and, you know, the transportation costs and things like that, you know, just do like North, South America and Europe. And I thought, well, that's a shame. So I did a bit of thinking about it. And the economics of, I mean, you can rent airplanes, you can rent airliners. And any airline, if they've got a spare airplane, will rent you their airplane for a price to do whatever you want it to do with

a crew and everything else. So how much does it cost to rent an airline or an airplane? Well, the answer is, you know, how much is the price of fish? If there's a lot of fish, the price goes down, you know. So, with airplanes, where my airline was, our peak season in the northern hemisphere is the summer. Everybody's going on holiday. So, consequently, renting an airplane is very expensive in the summer because you can't get them.

In the winter, airplanes are sitting on the ground. It costs half a million dollars to park an airplane for a month on the ground. That's what it costs. So any money you can get whatever to offset that is great. So airplanes in the winter are cheap. Where were we proposing to go? We're going to go in the Southern Hemisphere. Well, our winter is their summer, which is exactly when we wanted to go. So you can see here, I joined up the dots. Yeah, this is the entrepreneurial Bruce.

And I said, and I went to the chief pilot and said, I've got an idea where we could do like two months of work on one of the airplanes going around the world with our crew. And you just have all the equipment, all the crew, everything in that one plane. In that one plane. Now the problem is it won't fit in the hold. I said, so could we turn the last one third of the airplane into a combi, turn that into a cargo hold temporarily

and then put it back at the passenger afterwards for the summer. He went, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, we used to do that on the old DC-3 with a net. I went, okay. So that's how we started. And of course it was a hell of a lot more complicated than that, which involved doing like stress analyses.

Because actually we took out a space that normally would have 60 passengers and plus the seats, plus the galleys and all the rest of the gunk. And the equipment that we put in there weighed maybe five and a half tons. So we were basically replacing like with like. Volumetrically, we had much more volume than we did weight.

So the airplane was never overweight because in the front, we had probably a maximum of 50 or 60 people and the airplane's built for 220. So we were never going to be overweight. You could fill the airplane up and just shut the doors and off you go. But the certification

of all of that work and everything and also the issues of making it into a fire resistant compartment, all kinds of technical things putting in, plumbing in smoke detectors, cameras, everything else like that. It was a bit of faff, but it was quite an

adventure. It was so successful that we did it three times. Maiden did it three times around the world. Has any other band emulated that? Because it seems like a model. Well, not too many other singers. Well, they could get a different pilot. 747 pilots, yes.

But they could mimic. Well, that speaks to the question I was going to ask you. How was it like flying 10 hours, unpacking, and then doing a show? And then, I mean, you're not allowed to do that. So, what was the... did you have to wait a day or two? No, luckily, there's a raft of impenetrable legislation governing when pilots are allowed to do things and what they have to do after they've done flying

before they can fly again. So, basically, because we were governed by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, and they're quite strict, which is good, good to know. I said, well, basically, if I do a gig, we should really treat that as if I'd done a flight, a pilot sector. The rules say you have to have 12 hours minimum rest. a pilot sector. The rules say you have to have 12 hours minimum rest.

So when I'm off stage at 11, back to the hotel for 11.30, set the clock. You have 12 hours before you can get back on the plane. I can't do anything for 12 hours, which includes turning up to prepare the flight. So if we were departing at midday, I can't do that because you'd need to turn up an hour and a half before.

So what I tended to do is when we had a day break, I would do the, I tend to do a lot of the long haul flights. You know, five, six hours, the overnight bits and things like that,

which was fine. You know, I mean, it wasn't like I needed the loads of flying hours and stuff like that. We did have one or two, well, not amusing moments.

I mean, we went to India. So we refueled in Baku and then finished up in India, as you do. We ran out of beer. I remember trying to negotiate with the Baku authorities to get cases of beer loaded onto the plane while we were refueling. With the skipper, you know, which didn't work because they wanted something like $200 a case of beers. It was like the hands-up deli, you know. I get to India and then from India we're going to Australia,

going to Perth with a fuel stop in somewhere just south of Denpasar or something just south of Singapore. So we do the gig in India. It's great. We're leaving the next day, so I can't do the flying, so I'm in shorts and a T-shirt, get on the plane,

sitting up front, and it's like a glass of white wine. I went, no, no, no, just have a coffee, you know, hey. Who knows what could possibly happen? And we've, no, no, just have a coffee, you know, hey. Who knows what could possibly happen? And we've got my two buddies, we're up front, two skippers, and stick my head in the cockpit. Everything okay, guys? Yeah, great. Bang.

And zip back. And about three hours into the flight, they said, could you come up to the cockpit? I went, yeah. What's wrong? They went, you need to come up now. So one of the captains has just turned green because he ate the breakfast sausage in India. These things happen. Which is why we always carry a spare pilot. In which case, in this case, the spare pilot

was me. So he went down the back and was basically continued to turn green and emit various multicolored substances from all orifices. And yeah, I sit in the seat, you know, shorts and T-shirt. We land it, refuel it, and then we fly to Perth. We get to Perth and it's whatever time it is. Actually, it was a nice sunny day when we get to Perth. We get to Perth, and it's whatever time it is. Actually, it was a nice sunny day when we get to Perth. We land at like seven in the morning,

and I'm still in my shorts and T-shirt. I'm just going to be high-vis on. And everybody's gone. Band have just, band crew, they've all disappeared. The gear's been unloaded. And I'm still sitting there with the skipper, who, funnily enough,

was the guy that gave me that job in the first place. John. John Mullen, yeah. So we're sitting there and I think, shit, how do we get to the hotel? And the customs guy comes on

and goes, hey, mate, all your mates have gone home. I said, what, no cars? No, mate, no cars, no nothing. They've all gone. I went, oh, nice. Oh, well, that goes with the job, I suppose. The perils of command. I said, well, but mate, I'll tell

you what. I've got the guy to open up the VIP suite for you and we'll try and get you a car. I went, oh, very nice of you. So we go to the VIP suite in Perth Airport. And it's about 11 in the morning now. So I go in there and we're the only people there. I said, John, good night's work? He goes, yeah, I think so. I said, beer? He goes, absolutely. Right, so we open the thing, a couple of VB bitters, down we go.

So we sat there and we hear this voice coming down the corridor going, hope there's no bloody musicians in there. I don't like bloody musicians. No spirits, one beer each, mate. That's bloody hell. Then we come in, he goes, who are you? I said, we're pilots. He looks at me, I said, no, no, really, I'm a pilot.

Honestly, look, high-vis everything. It's my bloody pilot. Yeah, you're not musicians, are you? I went, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. No, I don't like bloody musicians. I had that sting in there once doing some eco bollocks. I'm like, welcome to Australia. Oh my God.

When I think of aviation, I think about checklists and being very detail oriented. It's one side of the brain, right? Yeah. And then you have the artist Bruce who's deploying a very different side of the brain, creativity and being an artist, all that. What have you learned from aviation

that has informed your creative life or vice versa? Or do these things just kind of live independently of each other? They kind of live independently of each other? They kind of live independently of each other, but they meet, they intersect at the level of performance. By performance, I don't mean showing off. I mean getting the job done. So flying an airplane is an internal performance. Nobody knows what you did.

They just get on the airplane, they get off the airplane, and it's just like another boring day. So nobody knows if you saved the world in the cockpit or if it was, in fact, just another boring day. The only guy that knows that is the person sitting next door to you in the seat and the rest of the crew. And so my performance is purely gauged

by how forgetful people are of that flight. A successful flight is one where people don't even remember it. Exactly the opposite to my performance in Iron Maiden, where my performance is gauged on, everybody remembers it, and I'm just, everything is external. Wow, look at me, look at this. And I'm just, everything is external. Wow, look at me, look at this, look at that, look at the other.

And so I find both of those things intensely satisfying. That's so interesting. So let me tell you this interesting thing about the way my head works, or I think it works in some respects. So when I was 25, up till 25, I started fencing when I was 14, 15 years old. And I trained right-handed. And I was not too bad right-handed, you know.

I got to 25 and I changed hands. And I started to fence left-handed. I got my best results left-handed. I still fence left-handed. I right right-handed. Whoa. That's unusual though, right? Like people don't normally switch their dominant hand in fencing. It's weird. I'll agree with you on that. It's a little bit strange.

In fact, everybody thought I'd gone completely mad. And what it was, I wondered, because I kick a football left footed right, I favour my left foot I look at it, if I'm going to shoot at something I actually close the wrong eye so I I shoot with my left eye open

but I shoot right handed, that's weird and I wondered about that for a while, now my dad is left handed but ambidextrous but I'd injured my neck headbanging, right? In Iron Maiden. Of course.

So I herniated a disc, C4-5, in the middle of a tour on the Number of the Beasts tour and basically lost the use of my left arm on the tour. So there was nothing

you could do about it. I was just wearing a neck collar and toughing it out until I could get the tour over and done with and go see a therapist, osteopath, whatever, on a regular basis to try and fix it. And that prevented me from using my left hand a lot. So I continued fencing with my right hand. But I was curious.

So there was a professor, Professor Hans Heisenk, did a whole load of books on intelligence and IQ. And he did a book called Left Brain, Right Brain. And it was a series of questionnaires on left brain, right brain, how left brained or-brained are you? Most people being dominant in one over the other. I'm exactly in the middle. I use both sides of my brain equally, apparently all the time, which makes it difficult for me sometimes

to communicate with some people. So I have to think how they think before I talk to them. That is fascinating. So if I see somebody, I know they think a certain way, I realize there's no point whatsoever in talking to them with the other half of my brain. I have to talk to them with that side of my brain. It came in very useful in the cockpit. Because you'd get in with people who were in you know uh intensely left-brained very disciplined

order detail dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum and you go okay there's no point whatsoever talking to this person with allegory or anything about like art and music and things like that right none whatsoever you know um and other guys were were the other around, you know. Anyway, because I was bang in the middle, I thought, maybe, maybe I should be lefty. Maybe, I don't know. Because the other thing that happened was when I was in competition, I would get really angry. Like, unnaturally angry.

Like, angry like I actually wanted to physically kill the opponent. And not joking. And I thought, this is weird. This is wrong. This feels wrong. I can't go around in this state. This is nuts. What's going on?

It was like just something wasn't working. My coach at the time was the Olympic, still is the Olympic fencing coach, Zamek Wachowski. He's a Polish world champion. And I was having lessons with him, like one-on-one. And I went up to him and said, Zamek, listen, you're going to think I'm nuts. I think I might be left-handed. He went, oh, okay. All right. Fine. Okay. Put the weapon in your left hand. No jeopardy. Just stick your arm out, hit me, okay.

Now stick your arm out and just step forward and hit me. Okay, let's do that a couple of times. Yeah, he said, you're immediately better with your left. And how long had you been doing it with your left? Ten years. So he said, now do another little... He said, let me try this now. He said, okay.

He said, so here's a piece of paper. Here's a Sharpie. With your right hand, draw an irregular polygon, four or five sides, however, whatever shape you want. Just draw it. Now look at it. Now close your eyes. Take the pen in your left hand

and now draw it again now look at it, now close your eyes, take the pen in your left hand, and now draw it again with your eyes closed. And I drew an exact mirror image in the same dimensions, not even, you know, as that. And he went, well. Have you had like an MRI or like has anybody studied your brain for this? No. Is this an abnormal thing?

Are there other people who are equally balanced between the hemispheres? I have no idea. I have no idea. So I then sort of went and said I must be probably left-eyed. So I'm assuming I'm now left-eyed. So fast forward. So now I'm fencing and my left arm was pretty useless. So I thought, well, that's one way of doing rehab on it. It's getting it back to strength. My left arm will

never be as strong as my right because I've used my right my whole life and obviously had this problem with the nerve and stuff. So I've lost a bit of muscle. But nevertheless, when I started fencing with it, it was a completely different game. A completely different game. it was a completely different game. A completely different game. I'd never understood timing before. Like the timing being the space in between movements that didn't exist with my right brain, with my right hand.

In most combat sports, they think of a one-two, whereby you do a feint with one fist or whatever it is, or a sword. You do a feint, you wait for the opponent to react. And as he goes to block it, he opens himself up and boom, and that's when you hit it. I'd never understood. I'd done them frequently in lessons, but it was monkey see, monkey do. I wasn't waiting to see the space. I wasn't waiting like McEnroe when he does the ball toss to wait until the last possible moment to return that ball.

So this was fascinating. And as I said, I've got all my best results left-handed. I still fence left-handed. And I assume, therefore, I must be left-handed. And I assumed therefore I must be, um, left-eyed. Uh, and then when I go for my airline pilot medical, the very first airline pilot medical you do, they send you down to this big center in Gatwick and they, they basically give you like a, the full works. Uh, and it's the only time you'll go down there. And then after that, you just get your local medical, aeromedical doctor to give you the once over.

So they gave me a full eye test. And they give you a thing called an eye balance test, where they show you like a vertical line. And you say, oh, yeah, tell me when it's in the middle. And then a horizontal line. So what you should be seeing, just bash your microphone, is something that looks like a telescopic sight. And that's, you know, that's the combination of both of your eyes saying that's where the focal point is.

So we got done with that. And I'm in like my early 30s at this point. And the guy went, well, he goes, you're very unusual. I said, why? He said, you have no dominant eye. I said, what? I said said I thought it was left eye he said no you're

bang in the middle stereoscopic both the same I said is that good he said well you made a you made a hell of a fighter pilot and I went wow

that's a trip and I was just like, now you tell me. It's so interesting. I've never heard of anyone who had no dominant side and can toggle in between. But the idea that you would have made for this optimal fighter pilot, like in a alternate reality or like a parallel universe

or in some kind of sliding doors situation you know are you not like a special forces operator you know there is a there's a sort of james bondian kind of like mythos around you with all of these different interests you're fencing and you're you know flying these missions and you're on these stages and traveling the world and all of that like it's very rich but remember special forces maybe Forces... Maybe he is, right? No, no, no. Special Forces never tell you... It's the ultimate undercover. No, no, no. Here's the thing.

Special Forces never tell you they're Special Forces. Sure, of course. My personal theory is that Bruce is playing the role of Iron Maiden lead singer. This is my point. But he works for MI5. That is my personal theory. No, actually, I'm six. No, no, no.

He's ambidextrous. Five and six. There's a very, you, I'm six. No, no, no. He's ambidextrous. Five and six. There's a very, you know, kind of Tinker Taylor soldier spy. Tinker Taylor soldier singer? Yes, there we go. That's the title of the podcast. I'm working for Zowie. He is working for Zowie.

I'm working for Zowie. So, I was watching on one of those retro shows this morning was Our Man Flint, right? James Coburn. And Zowie is the, whatever the acronym is. And what made me laugh was I now know where Marjorie Taylor Greene gets her information. Because the plot was that there is a secret organization controlling

the weather. So James Coburn knew about this and Zowie all those years ago. Hollywood, Hollywood, Hollywood. Maybe she's watched Iron Man Flint and thought it was real. I don't know. Here's what's happening. Bruce is trying to distract us

from the fact that he is one of British intelligence's leading assets. This whole Iron Maiden singer fencing. I know. Do you know what he's really doing? He's studying nuclear facilities on these trips. He's doing aerial reconnaissance when he's teaching. This is the real movie.

I know you're working on the Sarah Havo story. We're going to talk about that. But here's the real movie, Sasha. He is. He's first desk. Well, if you look on the cover of the Skunkworks album. Right. Skunkworks, you see, was named after Skunkworks.

Kelly Johnson wrote Skunkworks and his design philosophy. Yeah. Which people absolutely didn't get. That's his solo album. But I didn't really care. You're feeding this myth. But here's what's happening. That is what's called a non-denial denial. Yeah. He's basically solo album. But I didn't really care. You're feeding this myth. But here's what's happening. That is what's called a non-denial denial.

He's basically telling us that what we're saying is true. Back to tradecraft. So Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. He's still on it. Plant 42, there is part of the album cover is actually the NOA airport chart of Plant 42, Palmdale, Lockheed's manufacturing plant, is on the album cover.

And if you look at the figure that's on the inside, you can see it's actually unmistakably based around the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. So what are we supposed to make of this? What you make of this is that Storm Thorgeson of hypnosis and I had a blast doing that cover. All right. Before we get off fencing,

you were like seventh in Great Britain? At one point. Yeah. And what did they take, two or three for the Olympic team? Three. So pretty close. And then you were saying before-

Close but no cigar. I know, I know. But like, just for context, like you're not fucking around. Like you're for real with this. And you were sharing before the podcast that you competed in the Commonwealth Games even just a couple of years ago.

Is that in Masters or is that for everyone? I mean, you're 66 now. That was Masters. Masters, okay. There's a big Masters thing now. I mean, you know, World Championships and European Championships and all kinds of stuff. Right, but you're still in it, right?

I know like you went and played a show and Sasha called you the next morning and you were out at 6 a.m. I'll tell a story. The story is that at last, there was a thing called Power Trip. Iron Maiden played with Guns N' Roses. And so I took my friend Atticus,

who's a part of Nine Inch Nails, great composer, friend of mine, introduced him to Bruce. Bruce said, meet me in Burbank. I think we flew on the jet. We flew into India, got in these little carts. Bruce came out with Iron Maiden, played to about 75,000 people.

We got back in the carts, back in the plane. We got back to the airport in Burbank. And Bruce said, can I give you chaps a lift home? Then the next day, do you remember? In the Mustang. Was it in the Mustang? Yes, you had the convertible Mustang. the Mustang was it in the Mustang yes you had the convertible Mustang yes you gave us

was it in the Mustang yeah yeah yeah because we took the Uber there anyway so he gives us he drops us having played to 75,000 people he drops us off at the house

and then I call the next day to say Bruce that was incredible thank you and I get his tremendously charming wife Liana and I said can I just

I just was calling to say thank you is Bruce there I'm sorry but he left to train fencing at 6am I'm like this is amazing his tremendously charming wife, Liana. And I said, can I just, I just was calling to say thank you. Is Bruce there? I'm sorry, but he left to train fencing at 6 a.m. I'm like, what? This is amazing. What? Yeah. Like most people would be sleeping for a week after.

This is what I'm here for. It was like, I was like, yeah, of course. Anyway, but it was an incredible, that was an incredible experience, just those few hours. Coming with you, watching the show, coming back, and then getting dropped off home, both of us, by Bruce at like three or four in the morning. Well, my cousin was with us as well.

That's right, Rob Dickinson. Also a singer. Your two sons are singers, and your cousin is the lead singer in this alt-rock band, right? Actually, yeah. So my eldest, Austin, who's the screenwriter, he was in two bands. He was in Rise to Remain and had a couple of albums out.

And then he did As Lions. And he had a top ten radio track with them, you know. But the label were kind of rubbish. As labels are. Generally terrible. But he's just had his first film made. He is just, yeah. And I'm in it for three minutes. And he's doing a cameo. made. He is just, yeah, and I'm in it for three minutes.

And he's doing a cameo. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's called Bjorn of the Dead. It's a very, very funny film. Very script. You've read it, haven't you? Yeah, it was great. It's a great script.

Bjorn of the Dead. It's about a failed ABBA tribute band. I think they're called Abattoir. Yeah, yeah, Abattoir. So they're on their way. And one of the reasons they're a failed ABBA tribute band is they don't play any ABBA material. That'll do it. So anyway, but it involves, they're on their way to a tribute band festival in Hull in England, which is going to be their last ever show. But little do they know that it might be their last

ever show on earth, because what they end up with is a room full of the undead it's very it's like sure that that means which is brilliant it's really a brilliant clever script so speaking of uh filmmaking um i watched the uh scream for me sarah hayvo documentary last night. And I know that this event is sort of what reunited the two of you, right? Like, you saw the movie and you guys reconnected. Briefly, I met Bruce as a fan when I was a kid. It was a very brief meeting. And then we reconnected around the time

I made this film Anvil and Bruce and I kind of connected and hung out. And that was the time when we had that incredible dinner with James Caan. And I had to try and explain Iron Maiden to James Caan, which was just like, uh-huh, uh-huh. James Caan had never heard of Iron Maiden? Well, he didn't really understand anything that was going on.

I happened to know him. Why was he at the dinner? Because I was working with him at the time. And so Bruce happened to be in town and we all had dinner together. And it was like Bruce Dickinson and James Caan, a pretty good fucking dinner, I have to say. Because James Caan was completely clueless about anything. But it was really, we had a wonderful, wonderful night.

And we kind of reconnected then. But then some years later, this incredible story of Bruce's solo band and their show at Sarajevo, sort of at the height of the scene. It was made into a very good documentary called Scream for Me, Sarajevo. And it was on BBC.

And I hadn't seen Bruce for a while, and I just thought, oh, fuck, I wonder if his email works. And I emailed him, and that was several years ago. And we're now sort of, we've spent a little bit of time working on it. You know, everyone's busy doing crazy shit,

but it's a really, I think, a fantastic project. Right, so basically creating a narrative feature film from this extraordinary story in which you and your bandmates visit Sarajevo in 1994 in the midst of the war to perform this concert that basically unites the city

and creates hope in a very hopeless situation for a lot of people. Yeah, and I was... nothing to do with it, I mean, in terms of the documentary. So the first thing I knew that they were even making a movie was I was in my pub in Chiswick, in London,

and this girl comes up with a laptop and says, ah, you're Bruce. I went, oh, oh my God, what's this? You know, help. I just want to have a quiet beer. And she goes, no.

And she opens the laptop up and says, I'd like you to see this. I'm from Sarajevo. I went, okay. And it was the raw footage of the interviews with the guys who get interviewed, who were there at the show, and about how it changed their lives. And I went, this is amazing.

What is this? She goes, oh, we're making a documentary. Would you be interested in being interviewed? And I said, well, of course I would. I said, but who's doing this? And she goes, well, Adnan in Sarajevo is doing it. He's a local film director. I went, what an amazing project.

I mean, my God, what else stuff have you got? And they've got so much stuff. So I was a passive contributor to that. But you kind of come on as an executive producer or whatever? No, I just said, look, I'll help in any... Maybe that isn't executive producer, but I mean, look, no. I said, look, I'll help in any way that you need, you know, for this. Just tell me.

It's your film. It's your city. It's your country. It's your film. It's your city. It's your country. It's not mine. I just, we did something that was actually far more dangerous than all of us realized. And having done it, we thought, wow, that was a pretty stupid thing to do.

Well, basically it gets sort of offered to you and you're like, I'm in, maybe without fully thinking it through. And before you know it, you and your bandmates are like in split expecting these helicopters to kind of take you into Sarajevo. The helicopters don't arrive. And that's the moment where

most people would have said like, alright, we're going back home. And you were like, we're going in. We're finding a way. No, no, no. Is that wrong? No, no. The UN told us to go back home. So the UN, we were supposed to get there. No, no, no. Is that wrong? No, no. The UN told us to go back home. So the UN, we were supposed to be there

sponsored by the UN, but when we got there and there were the UN blue helmets and the flak jackets and all sitting there, they were for us. But this guy came up, he said,

oh, you're the band for Sarajevo. Yeah, I said, okay, here's your boarding pass. He said, is it a plane that you came in on? That one's going back in about an hour, so you're going to be on that plane, and the next one is not for a week.

So, yeah, anyway. And what was it in you that said, no, we're going to figure this out? The UN negotiator, whose name was Akashi, frankly didn't cover himself in glory in several ways, but they didn't want to upset the Serbs, the opposition, as it were, because they thought they would be upset if somebody went in and cheered people up. What we didn't know was that the Serbs had just shot down one of only two Sea King helicopters in the theatre.

They'd just shot it down with the commander-in-chief, Sir Michael Rose, on board. It had done an emergency landing into Croatia, into Kislyak, its base, but it took a half a dozen.50 calibre anti-aircraft rounds in and out of the fuel tank and hit one of the main rotors. So the pilot did an amazing job. That would have derailed the peace process.

Shooting down that helicopter would have derailed the peace process overnight. Because Carter was supposed to come in a month or so after we left. I think it was after Christmas or something. It was just before Christmas. We didn't know any of this at the time. So we were sitting there going, oh, that's a bit of a blow. Wow. Gosh. And there was a cameraman there from Reuters and he was a local guy from Sarajevo. So he came up and said, oh, this is a bullshit. I said,

and said, oh, this is bullshit. I said, there's a tunnel. We can get you in. I went, whoa, what are you talking about? There's a tunnel? He goes, yeah, there's a tunnel. We used to resupply the city. We'll get you in.

We can get you in through the tunnel. I went, okay. Well, how do we get permission? He goes, well, I'll call the president. He's a mate of mine. I went, what? You're going to call President Isambegovic? He went, yeah.

I went, well, go ahead. So he goes in the payphone. He got a payphone booth. And he's putting money in. To call the president. And he's talking away and talking away. And we were going, he's calling the president. Shit.

And he comes out. And I said, well, what did the president say? And he goes, he wasn't in. I left a message on his machine. I was just like, oh, my God. I said, okay, look, we've got like. This is a scene in the movie, obviously. Well, that's a great scene in the movie. So I said, okay, look, guys, we've got like 10 minutes to decide.

Should I stay or should I go? Next flight back, is it a week? The beer is cheap. The weather is nice and split. Maybe we can find a cheap hotel motel and stay here for a week. If we get in, we get in. If we don't, no jeopardy we'll find somewhere we'll find some pub

and do a gig to the hell of it you know but I don't know otherwise we all go home if anybody thinks it's too risky then

we all go we all we all go back home it's as simple as that and nobody's going to think any of the worst for anybody for saying that

because I completely understand. And we had a publicist there, I called Roland Hyams, who's passed away now, sadly. And Roland was like, and I said, Roland, if you want to go home, you can go home, because we don't need you. You know, if you want to go home, I said, you know, I said, no, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. I went, okay, fine. What I didn't know is that Roland had a huge piece of dope in his mouth at the time that he'd brought in on his cheek.

And that's why he didn't want to go back. Oh, my God. So this has now turned into apocalypse now. So we said, everybody said, yeah, go on, then we'll stay. So I gave the boarding passes back to this guy who was a volunteer reserve officer from, he was a teacher in Manchester normally. He was working for the UN.

He was working for the British Army. British Army. Representing the UN. So then I gave him back, I said, no, we decided we're going to stay. He went, right. In that case, you are no longer anything to do with the UN.

I went, correct. He said, in that case, you must therefore be anything to do with the UN. I went, correct. He said, in that case, you must therefore be guests of the British Army. I went, I see where you're going with this. He said, so in that case, we should take you down the mess, give you a cup of tea, and see how we can get you into Sarajevo.

Fast forward to you in the back of a truck with sleeping bags. Pulled up at midnight, Unimog truck driven by a 17-year-old architecture student volunteer with Felix the cat, Asterix the ghoul and Roadrunner painted on it and painted bright yellow. Who's going to shoot at that? Giant moving dog. Right.

Yeah. So we drove for seven, eight hours through the fog and mist in winter into Sarajevo over a 7,000-foot mountain, through the end of an active firefight. And, I mean, I know what star shells are because we're down at the bottom of this mountain. I went, those are parachute flares and star shells.

There's some shit going on the top of that mountain. Is that where we're going? Yeah. Right, okay. So we got there, got to the top, and it was freezing cold and the storm was coming up. Incredibly beautiful. Incredibly beautiful terrain.

I remember driving through it and thinking what an amazingly beautiful place this mountain was and how completely fucked up it was that they were all fighting. As you do. And then we got to the road that goes down into the city and it was like a road on the side of, it was like a dirt track going down the mountain. And they wouldn't let us down initially.

The idea was that the UN armoured personnel carriers were going to come up, pick us up, put our gear in the back and then they were going to go down the track. But the Bosnian guys wouldn't let them up. And then they discovered that there was a Reuters film cameraman in the back, and then they definitely weren't going to let them up.

So we had to drive down. So we drive down this ravine, and I'm looking over the river. While there's a firefight going on. No, no, no, that was gone. It was gone, okay. It was quiet. It was absolutely quiet now.

You couldn't see Sarajevo because the mist was in and it just looked like a big top of a cappuccino. I mean, it was beautiful. Sun was coming up, you know. And I'm looking down in this ravine and there's all this twisted metal, you know, and I'm thinking, there are terrible drivers here. Well, no, this was the stuff they'd blown off the road

because the whole of the rim surrounding Sarajevo was basically Serb territory. The only bit that was accessible was over the top of Igman and down this road. So you were like in a barrel and potentially a fish. The only way in and out. Yeah, and so you're surrounded by potential... So we're driving down this ravine.

I'm in the front seat because I'm thinking, if anybody gets it, it better be me because I've got them all into this bloody mess. And coming the other way, the most surreal thing is a Coca-Cola truck. I'm thinking, hold on a minute. There's a war. Coca-Cola gets everywhere.

And of course, it's a single track road. So we have to stop and we have to back up. So I get out and I'm like okay so yeah back up back up back up and this is and i just couldn't get the image out of my head of the gary larson cartoon with the deer with the big target on his chest saying hey bummer of a birthmark hal so we get in and we drive down the bottom. We put our stuff in the armoured personnel carriers and they take us through the city, which was harrowing. And finally, we get to our sandbagged,

concrete sandbagged bunk for the next few hours before the gig that night. We're there for, I don't know, three days, four days. But it felt like a lifetime compressed into four days. You can imagine, I can see how people who were there for six months, the effect it would have. Because I came home, eventually got home, kind of long story short though,

and we came home on a Hercules RAF transport, got home, and then we got on the train to London. And we're sitting there on this train on Sunday night going, I've just been, and you're all getting ready for Christmas and you're all drunk, and I've just been where? And then we get to the end of the line at Paddington and I went and I sat on a park bench outside the train station.

It was freezing cold and I sat there going, this is not real. That's a traffic light. Traffic lights just looked absurd to me. People are living their lives by traffic lights in this road. They stop at a red light and they go at a green light.

That's absurd. Where I've been in Sarajevo, there are no traffic lights. It just might be a bullet. That's the red light. And they went into the middle of a war zone at the height of the war to do this show. And in fact, when they heard that Bruce was coming, a lot of soldiers came from the front height of the war to do this show. And in fact, when they heard

that Bruce was coming, a lot of soldiers came from the front line. One of them did. Yeah, several of them did. They came back to see this show because it was

a sort of single point of hope of something to believe in in the middle of this. They shut the schools. They shut the schools so kids could make their way to the show

because they couldn't go all at once because if they went all at once they were a target for the snipers. So they could go in dribs and drabs and get there and the place was full by the time we got there. I don't know how many but six, seven, eight hundred people or something like that.

I'm not sure. Yeah, the documentary has this like shifting perspective. You kind of experience it through the experiences of the band members. And then there's the people who live there and the anticipation of this event happening. And they're like, Bruce Dickinson, Bruce Dickinson.

There's like whispers and people are like starting to freak out. And there's this tension between, you mentioned your publicist, like you need to kind of get the word out, right? You gotta let people know that this is happening. But if you don't do it the right way, then you're going to notify the opposition and then you become a target and becomes even more dangerous than it already is.

So I was just hoovering up all these stories of experiences of other people, you know, that I'd had before and after the show, while we were there. And then when Sasha and I met up and we said, you know, that would be a great thing to do a movie, I said, you know what, it would, but I do not want to do the movie about the rock star that went into Sarajevo. No, it's from the perspective of the people there.

I said, we need to follow the journey of somebody who, a local person who makes the journey, it's the road movie, his road movie of getting to the show and everything else. So our representation in it is incidental, almost. There is another subplot. Yes. Which is based around the hideous... The snipers.

Yeah. So basically, people were selling tickets in USA for people to go and kill people in Sarajevo. This is a real thing that is just, you can't believe it. Wait, explain that. I don't quite understand. Well, if you were of a certain ethnicity,

you could pay to go shoot people. To be on the top of that rim of the mountain with a gun, literally picking on you. Well, no, you were in the block of flats. In the block of flats, right. In the block of flats opposite. I mean, one of the best snipers on the Serb side was a female who had been in the biathlon event

in the Winter Olympics. In the Olympics, yeah. In Sarajevo. It was her town. She was shooting her own people. Wow. Yeah. So that is another...

Wow. So that's an amalgam. We're not trying to do a historically correct... No, I understand. But that raises the intensity. Well, it falls under the world we live in right now, whether it's Ukraine or obviously the Middle East, which is an expanding and explosive and seemingly limitless war now.

But it's speaking to the madness of war in this specific instance, but it applies to just another story about these unexpected things. And I really related to that thing you said when you came home and you just sat on a park bench and you were like, that traffic light is ridiculous. Because when you've been in that kind of situation, which hopefully we can take an audience into, they will have that experience of these two worlds

living simultaneously that don't even make sense. Like we're sitting here now, we can't, I'm sure, compute what it would be like to be in the Middle East or in parts of the ukraine or whatever but you've sort of been there in that experience and you i mean that's why it's so interesting working with bruce on the project because it really is being in that perspective which we can't imagine and funnily enough i mean i can't be there because i'm in brazil and coming back from Brazil. But on December the 14th, I think it is, it's like 30 years or something else like that. So they've got the big anniversary there.

The guy that was our security guy there in Sarajevo, Trevor Gibson, who was working there. He really wasn't exactly a spy, but he was, you know, something akin. Someone who works for Bruce. Yeah. So Trevor happened to be in Japan on holiday

when we were in Japan recently. And he was there with his wife. So the four of us, Leanne and myself and Trevor and his wife, all went out and had a dinner and a reminisce, and he's going to the event. To the 30th anniversary. But some of his stories are incredible. As in the movie, for detail and additional strands

to the lunacy that take place, and some of the lunacy that take place and some of the funny things that take place. Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing. It's the way you've described it for people who haven't seen the documentary. Like it's dire, it's super intense, it's tragic and all of these things. But there is a levity to it

because these guys in Sarajevo are like funny. They're characters. And that kind of speaks to your style as a writer also like finding those really rich personalities in the midst of very difficult circumstances but what about the clowns?

There was something about the clown circus I can't remember So the truck that took us in to Sarajevo was part of a group, an NGO, non-governmental organization. And they were founded by a New Zealand, it's like a hedge fund activist, whatever guy,

made a load of money and thought, I'm going to do something with this money. So he bought a bunch of old trucks and they were called the Serious Road Trip. And the Serious Road Trip went where the UN said it was too dangerous to go. And they delivered the aid and medical supplies and everything else. They're all volunteers. One of the things they did was buy a London bus, paint it up as a clown school

and drove it in the middle of no man's land on the front lines and had kids from both sides learn to be a circus. Oh my God. Wow. I mean, yeah. So they had a clown school.

The Serious Road Trip is in the documentary but not that piece. Yeah. Yeah, well, because that piece is not necessarily relevant to the documentary. However, I mean, artistic life. That's incredible. God damn it.

What an image. There's a traveling clown school in the middle of a war. Oh, my God. And children from both sides are learning how to be clowns. I mean, it's just so rich and completely insane and totally real.

And it's the reality of it, I think, that lands. Well, I got to let you guys go. You've been more than generous with your time, but I can't let you go, Bruce, without closing with a few thoughts about this incredible life that you've lived and the kind of lessons that you've accumulated along the way. What is your message to the aspiring artist

or the person who's trying to build something, you know, from the heart? Like, what have you learned that you could share that might be helpful to somebody who's trying to think about their way forward with their own voice? Just be authentic. And that's really hard to do.

It's really hard to be authentic because there's so many pressures that people put upon themselves. You know, commercial pressures, this pressure, that. Just think whether whatever it is that you're trying to do, whether it's a painting, if it's a play, if it's a screenplay, if it's music, it's whatever it is, does it actually represent you?

What part of you is in that piece? And really it should be a piece of you is in it. Maybe not all of it, but some of it. It's got to have a piece of you in it. And that's its meaning, if you like. That's it. And if that's there, it will have a force and a power that people can detect because it will be unique because every person is unique,

you know, despite the efforts of AI and the internet to make us all homogenous with, you know, J-Lo's butt and somebody else's mouth and everything else. No, even in our desire to disfigure each other, we're still unique. And so that level of authenticity is really important. desire to disfigure each other we're still unique and so that level of authenticity is really important and the other one

is actually a quote from do you know the do you know the artist Damien Hirst yeah of course so I do a podcast with my psychologist Dr. Kevin Dutton

called Psycho Schizo Espresso he's an expert in psychopaths. So we interview a lot of doctors. Not joking, we do interview a lot of doctors. But Damien Hirst is a buddy of Kevin's and we were discussing over dinner one day definitions of art because obviously some people's definition of art

is like a banana stuck on the wall, other people's is whatever. And Damien Hirst has a very simple definition of art, which is art is anything that is done well. I went, yeah, I can't, that's as good as you're going to get, you know, without getting into massive detail. Anything that is done well is art.

So as your music, your painting, your whatever, has got a piece of you that's authentic, do it well. It's like make it personal, make it excellent, basically. Make it uniquely you and authentic to who you are. Because you may only have one life to live. We don't know. I really hope I'm surprised. But in the interim, live this life.

Life is better than all the other options you have. So live it, squeeze it until the pipsqueak. Because that's what we're here for. And let a little bit of joy into other people's lives with what you do. That's it. Beautifully put. Bruce, I think you landed today's flight on the 757. I don't know where we took off from and where we landed, but it was definitely a journey. But what we did, we discovered one

major thing, which is it's very clear that Bruce Dickinson is Britain's most important leading intelligence asset. I just would like to say that. He's been blown. I don't know what happens. Cover blown. We'll leave him to deal with the repercussions of that.

I'm secretly a member of Zowie. There you go. I didn't even get to one one-hundredth of the many things that I wrote down that I wanted to talk to you about. I would love to hear more about Psycho Schizo Espresso. We're going to do a new one. No, we're doing a new one. We're going to do a new one.

We're doing a new podcast. We will be doing a new podcast. And when we do it, I'd love to try and get Kevin on here because you and him would just, boy, you know,

you, me and him would have a great, but we're going to call it, we're going to call the podcast and we've already got it down. We're going to call, we're not going to call it Psycho Schizo Espresso.

When we go back down the track, it's going to be Heavy Mental. That's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heavy Mental. What better place?

I mean, I mean, he landed that shit. Yeah. He landed that shit. Now it's, now we've officially landed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What better place? I mean, come on. He landed that shit. Yeah. He landed that shit. Now we've officially landed, right? You're an absolute legend. I just want to acknowledge the incredible gift that you share with the world. It's a beautiful thing.

And again, I'm really touched that you would come here today and share with me and us and everybody who's listening and watching. Well, I'm off to Sacramento Mendo tomorrow to insult people. I know. Yeah, there you go. You boring bastards. Yeah. All right. Peace.

Yeah. Thanks, man. Thanks, Rich. Yeah. This episode was brought to you by Seed. Visit seed.com slash richroll and use the code richroll25 to redeem 25% off your first month of Seed to DS01 Daily Symbiotic. We're brought to you today by 8Sleep. today by 8sleep. If you're ready to revolutionize your sleep, head to 8sleep.com slash richroll and use code richroll to get up to $600 off your pod for ultra purchase when bundled. This offer

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