In a recent chat with Joel McIver for the new issue of Record Collector magazine, Bruce Dickinson said he found out he was a better singer for Iron Maiden than Paul Di’Anno.
The vocalist revealed he first saw Iron Maiden perform live at the Music Machine in Camden while his band Samson was headlining. When Maiden hit the stage, he realized they had something special. Then, he talked about what he thought about their then-singer, Paul Di’Anno:
“He was okay, but he didn’t have a lot of flex to his voice. I thought his voice had come as far as it was going to get. I saw what the rest of the band were capable of straight away, and I remember thinking, ‘Good God, I’d love to front that band.’ And as soon as they finished playing, everybody in the venue left and we were headlining to about three people.”
Di’Anno Also Thinks Dickinson Is More Suitable For Maiden
Di’Anno fronted Iron Maiden between 1978 and 1981. Dickinson replaced him after a successful audition. In 2005, Paul was asked by Classic Rock Revisited editor Jeb Wright about his earlier statement regarding Bruce being a better singer for Maiden than him. The singer replied:
“Yeah, I did admit that Bruce is a better singer for Maiden than me. I still do think that but only related only to the Maiden albums that were made after my first two initial Maiden classic albums. My feeling is that I could never have stamped my mark properly on the Maiden albums that came after ‘Iron Maiden’ and ‘Killers’ because Bruce’s voice is much better suited to that material than my voice ever could be.”
Bruce Had Some Hard Time With The Band
Dickinson also previously revealed that his early years with Iron Maiden after replacing Di’Anno was a bit hard. The rocker explained why:
“When I first joined the band, I was a very different animal to the previous singer. When I joined, I said, ‘I know I’m the new boy, but here’s the deal: when I sing, I kind of stand in the middle of the stage at the front, I do the singing bit, and then I go somewhere else… You can go anywhere you like, but when I sing, I want to sing in the middle.”
Steve Harris objected to Bruce’s request in the beginning but they solved it later by using a bigger stage during the live shows. Iron Maiden will continue The Future Past tour into 2024, with upcoming shows in Australia and Japan in September.
