Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson released his new album “The Mandrake Project” last week, and it has been received well by both critics and the metal masses. The effort marked his first solo album since 2005’s “Tyranny Of Souls.”
During a recent appearance on “Talk Is Jericho,” Dickinson talked about making his mark with his solo career after initially leaving Iron Maiden. That time period wasn’t very kind to the heavy metal genre as a whole, but Dickinson still was able to establish and cement his solo career specifically with three records — “Accident Of Birth,” “The Chemical Wedding” and “Tyranny Of Souls.”
“The issue with those records was finding a label that had the clout to actually promote them, and it wasn’t really the best labels to be on, but we didn’t have much of a choice,” Dickinson said. “But the quality of the records was good. ‘Accident of Birth,’ I love that record, because it kind of put everything back on the map.”
Dickinson’s follow-up to that album, “The Chemical Wedding,” is largely regarded as his best solo album and has since became a heavy metal classic.
“‘Chemical Wedding,’ I think, moved the map,” he explained. “It really moved sound and everything into a whole new dimension. I think that record, without blowing smoke up our own butt, I think that record actually profoundly affected quite a lot of people in terms of its sound and darkness and everything. You could see ‘Accident of Birth’ was slightly more conventional than ‘Chemical Wedding’. But ‘Chemical Wedding’ took it to another level. Then the phone rings, and I get asked to re-join Iron Maiden. I ran that (idea) past everyone in the (solo) band. And they were like, ‘Yeah, You gotta go do it. The world needs Iron Maiden.’”
Dickinson said that “Tyranny Of Souls” was put together between Iron Maiden tours and is a “real little sleeper” of an album.
“’Tyranny of Souls’ was another interesting record,” he said. “It wasn’t as focused as ‘Chemical Wedding’, but at the same time is has some really beautiful side tracks on it. ‘Navigate the Seas of the Sun’ is a beautiful song. It’s real little sleeper, a gem, that record. Because we had no way of promoting. It just came out, and that was it. The new record is basically kind of a summing up of all three of those records put together but with a few new twists and turns as well.”
Listen to the entire interview here.
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