Iron Maiden Vocalist Bruce Dickinson Wants to 'Take People on a Journey' with New Album

Iron Maiden Vocalist Bruce Dickinson Wants to ‘Take People on a Journey’ with New Album

2021-08-28

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden performing live.

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden – Story by Anne Erickson, photo by Ken Settle

Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden isn’t convinced people have short attention spans, which explains the lengthy songs on the band’s new album

Iron Maiden are coming up on the release of their new studio album, “Senjutsu,” this fall. When the record hits, don’t expect a short, easily-digestible album. After all this is Iron Maiden, a band known for their epic song structures.

Even in an age when listeners are accustomed to quick, catchy singles, Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson says he feels confident releasing this gigantic set, which features songs as long as seven minutes. It might seem like a gamble, but he’s not sweating.

“I understand that people now have got allegedly short attention spans, but I’m not a hundred percent convinced that that’s true,” Dickinson told Revolver magazine. “Some people do, of course, but there are other people who can still understand drama and light and shade in a song. [What we did in] the early days of the heavy metal world, we’re not really doing that anymore; we did that with the first five or six albums, but we’re now on album number 17. We can do so much more now, and really take people on a journey.”

“Senjutsu” will mark Iron Maiden’s follow-up to 2015’s “The Book of Souls.” It’s been a long time in the making, mainly due to the pandemic.

“But I suppose we also got an unwitting and very unfortunate hand from COVID, because in the middle of the pandemic, nobody was talking to anybody about pretty much anything except that we were all stuck in various places around the world,” said Dickinson, who recently tested positive for COVID-19 and has been quarantining. “The album should have been out like a year and a half ago.”

Iron Maiden will release “Senjutsu,” which marks their 17th studio album, this Friday (Sept. 3) via BMG. The group recorded the set with producer Kevin Shirley. Iron Maiden bass player Steve Harris co-produced the album.

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Anne Erickson

Meet the expert - Author, writer and editor Anne Erickson is a Detroit-based reporter and radio host. She has written for the USA Today Network, Consequence.net, Blabbermouth.net, and many more. Anne holds a master's degree from Michigan State University. Contact Anne at anne@audioinkradio.com.