Bruce Dickinson, singer and swordsman, on why 'Life is better than all other options'

Bruce Dickinson brandishes a sword in an attack stance with a grin on his face. “This is super, super light,” he says. “It's really usable.”

Fortunately for those nearby, the Iron Maiden frontman knows the weapon is too valuable for simple murder, since the blade is a 400-year-old sword. Additionally, Dickinson keeps it safe inside the highly public Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with the curator of the museum's Arms and Armor collection watching nearby. “This sword is an excellent example of the more modern type worn by the gentry in England at the time of King James I,” he says. the placard inside the case from which it was uprooted. Dickinson finds both the weapon's history and its potential for bloodshed appealing, as he picks it up—with The Rolling Stones photographer's permission — like he's about to strike a malevolent member of the paparazzi.

As it happens, the typically upbeat singer is in high spirits. He even poses for a photo with a security guard who recognizes him in his street gear: a leather jacket, a gray jacket and a bag. Even when seemingly incognito, Iron Maiden's self-described “human air raid siren,” whose voice has shouted “Run to the Hills,” “The Trooper” and “2 Minutes to Midnight” more than a thousand times each in all the concerts around the world, it stands out. People also notice him because of the way he recites historical facts about ancient weapons, sounding like he could be a tour guide in a museum, even though this January afternoon is his first time visiting the institution.

“I've got one of those at home,” he says, pointing to a sword, as the curator safely places the cross-hilt. “And I have a left dagger like this. Mine isn't that nice.”

Dickinson fell in love with swords and fencing around 14, while attending an English boarding school and studying metallurgy. A teacher showed him how to forge a blade and, as the same man also taught fencing, he showed the budding singer how to use it. Dickinson now has “a very small collection” of antique swords, foils and other sharp, pointy things. Some of his favorites include a Spanish goblet hilt, a 15th century defensive left dagger and a Napoleonic cavalry sword. Fencing has long been one of Dickinson's many interests — in addition to flying planes, writing books and brewing beer — that he has explored over the past half century when he wasn't hopping around on stage.

He's in New York for a short visit to promote his new comic book series, The Mandrake Project, which ties in with his upcoming solo album of the same name. The singer, who now sports salt-and-pepper hair, turned 65 last August and has no interest in retiring, so he's looking forward to continuing to work.

Since he's no stranger to big, sweeping overtures when it comes to his music – this is the guy who still waves a Union Jack during “The Trooper” and dueles with Iron Maiden's zombie mascot Eddie during duration of 'Iron Maiden' – barely breaking a sweat as he soars to a 360-degree album, which includes dozens of tour dates with his solo band in Europe and America. He has arranged these, of course, except for one tour-2024-2024″ target=”_blank”>tour with Iron Maiden tour-2024-2024″ target=”_blank”>last the rest of the yearincluding US dates in the fall.

Managing such an intense schedule and many interests was never a problem for him. “My teachers at school told me, 'You have the brain of a grasshopper,'” says Dickinson. “They thought it was a bad thing. I thought it was a superpower to be able to just bounce from one idea to another idea to another idea.”

At this point in our visit to the Met, Dickinson has had his fill, at least temporarily, of examining the museum's centuries-old cutlery, so now we're off to a cafe to pick it up. His wife, looking amused as she balanced Jacobean's sword in his hand, lets us see the European paintings.

We are sitting at a table. The gold and marble statues patiently hold their poses in the hall around him, but Dickinson remains alive. “I learned to stimulate the grasshopper brain a little bit so you can jump on the lily pad and stay there with enough dwell time to actually accomplish something,” he says. “I'm endlessly curious.”

The Mandrake Project, both as an album and as a comic, is rich with allusions that reflect Dickinson's curiosity. Norse mythology appears in “Afterglow of Ragnarok”. there is a nod to the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley “Prometheus Unbound” in “Many Doors to Hell”; and the ghost of poet-illustrator William Blake is a character in the comic. (Dickinson also recreated Blake's illustrations and tombstone in the video for “Rain on the Graves.”)

Both Beethoven and Sleeping Beauty figure into the stunning “Sonata (Immortal Beloved),” an extended, 10-minute stream-of-consciousness meditation on death. “Save me now,” he sings mournfully, almost like a heavy metal Nick Cave, in the song. “Save me from this pain… bring me back.”

“Sonata” is the most moving and original song Dickinson has ever recorded outside of Iron Maiden. (“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew you'd say that,” he coolly replies when told.)

Dickinson has been sitting on the song for about 25 years now, and he almost gave it up on this album. He had forgotten he had recorded it until he went through his files for the album. His wife, Leana, “who has very good taste in music, luckily for me”, told him it was “the most emotional thing I've ever heard you sing”. When he told her he had never thought of releasing it, she politely asked him if he was crazy.

The song came about as a jam with longtime collaborator Roy Z, who has worked with Dickinson on nearly all of his solo releases since 1994. Balls to Picasso, home of the similarly impressive power ballad “Tears of the Dragon.” The guitarist and producer had seen the Beethoven biopic Immortal Beloved, and stayed up all night exploring the chord changes in the Moonlight Sonata. Neither he nor Dickinson knew what to do with it, but the singer decided to improvise a vocal line and lyrics.

He closed his eyes, imagined himself in a dark forest, and the lyrics poured out of him. “I thought I might make some melodic song sounds and then I'd write some words and then do it again,” he says. “But that didn't happen.” His visions Sleeping Beauty entered his mind followed by the Angel of Death. “It could very easily have been something outside Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but I got over that,” he says. Instead, he surprised even himself with his own words: “For love brought you here, and love will tear you apart.” (By the way, Dickinson says it is I'm not a fan of Joy Division.)

“That's life,” he says of those words. “This is a tragedy. That's all: love that should have been, but never was.”

Dickinson understands the tragedy, having averted it nearly a decade ago. In 2015, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer, which he describes as “a three-and-a-half-centimeter, golf-ball-sized tumor at the base of my tongue and a strawberry-sized tumor in my lymph. node.” She went through 33 sessions of radiation and nine weeks of chemotherapy at the same time. “I love the medical term,” she says. “They describe it [therapy] as “significant bodily harm”.

The insult was worth it. Dickinson is now cancer free. Sipping coffee and looking around the gallery, he is grateful to be alive. “I really appreciate every day, but that means every day I have to do something, even if I'm consciously doing nothing — at least consciously doing something,” she says. “When I did my series of solo shows in the United States almost two years ago, I made a T-shirt that said, 'Life is better than all other options.' And if I had one mantra to live by, this would be it.

“I'm lucky I can still sing,” he continues. “So if I can somehow do anything that entertains people, makes people think more, feel more, do more things, then I'm doing something good. I'm big on trying to make people touch things now instead of being impressed with myself and saying 'Oh look at me'. It's actually “No, no. Look at you.' If you can manage to listen to an album in 58 minutes of your life that you will never listen to again, it is a musical and emotional journey. That was very important to me because it's something I've never explicitly achieved with any band, including Iron Maiden. In Iron Maiden, the music does they move people, but in a slightly different way. The feelings are a little different. With that, I have a bigger palette to paint with.”

Now he wants to experience everything life offers and creates even more. Since reading the literary graphic novel Guards, appreciated comics as a way to tell a subtle story. So why not make one of his own? (Under his leather jacket, he wears an ironic Washman T-shirt, showing Dr. Manhattan in the bathtub, scrubbing.) He doesn't know if Iron Maiden will ever make another record (though he's not saying they won't), so why not record a solo album and tour the world and write a 12-part comic book series connecting the songs — and also tour with Iron Maiden? If he cansays, he I will.

After about an hour of talking about all the possibilities in life, Dickinson gets a phone call and remembers that he has to meet a friend who wants to show him some interesting fencing equipment before he catches a plane from New York. He picks up his bag, says hello to his wife as he walks back from the European paintings and we exit the Egyptian wing of the museum. “It's on my bucket list to go to Egypt,” says Dickinson, as we pass the Temple of Dendur. “I never was.” This is a curious fact, since Iron Maiden's 1984 album, Powerslave, famously featured Egyptian-inspired covers, and their tour set featured a sphinx-like Eddie. “I wanted to say, we should have gone then,” he says.

But Dickinson has a new resolve to appreciate life now. As he heads for the exit, what echoes through the great hall is something he said earlier, quoting William Blake's poem “Jerusalem.” “My job is to create,” remarked Dickinson. “That's what I do.”