Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson will release his first solo album in nearly 20 years when he drops “The Mandrake Project” on March 1. The legendary frontman sports a fairly large and diverse solo catalog, and in a recent interview with Noise11.com, Dickinson surmised what his setlist will look like when he takes his solo tour on the road.
Dickinson was asked if he planned to play “The Mandrake Project” in its entirety. “No. I mean, it’s been God knows how many years since I actually went out on the road. I mean, it’s [19] years since [my last solo album, 2005’s] ‘Tyranny Of Souls’, Yeah, it’s a long time. So, given that, and given the fact that you’ve got seven albums to pick from now in terms of the setlist, I think it would be cruel and unusual punishment to have people listen to a brand new album start to finish.”
Dickinson went on to say he was going to limit his setlist to songs he had done with producer and bandmate Roy Z, which means that their likely won’t be any material played from “Tattooed Millionaire” or “Skunkworks.”
“We’re gonna do ‘Tears Of The Dragon’ [from 1994’s ‘Balls To Picasso’ album], we’re gonna do ‘Chemical Wedding’ [off 1998’s ‘The Chemical Wedding’], we’re gonna do ‘Accident Of Birth’ [off 1997’s ‘Accident Of Birth’], and all this, this stuff,” he said. “I’m gonna limit it, probably, to the things I did with Roy, because that’s stuff that we share, with Roy and Dave Moreno, the drummer, and Mistheria did keyboards on all my records. So, you’ve gotta have a little limit that goes some way. ‘Okay, where’s our starting point?’ And effectively, it’s gonna be from ‘Balls To Picasso’ forward. I’m probably not gonna put any ‘Skunkworks’ [1996] stuff — not because I hate it, but just because we’ve got so many other great songs. I’m sure this won’t be the last tour that we do together, so we’ve got we got plenty of opportunity to go and do stuff. There’ll probably be three or four off the new record, for sure.”
He continued: “Roy wasn’t on ‘Skunkworks’. That was a completely different band, and a completely different feel to everything. But there’s some cracking songs on there. And, obviously, Janick [Gers, Iron Maiden guitarist] was on ‘Tattooed Millionaire’. But, again, I’m not gonna do anything off ‘Tattooed Millionaire’ — not this tour. I mean, we might dig stuff up for future tours and things like that, but for now I wanna concentrate on the heavy stuff. And I think people will wanna hear stuff off ‘The Chemical Wedding’ because that was my little bit of a groundbreaking record in the ’90s.”
Dickinson’s entire interview can be viewed below.
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