Bruce Dickinson Reflects On Making People Laugh About His Cancer Treatment

Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson recently joined an interview with Bravewords and talked about his North American spoken-word tour. He stated that making people laugh about a serious topic like cancer feels like he is doing a good job.

As you probably know, Bruce Dickinson is more than just a successful musician and a great vocalist. He is a pilot, entrepreneur, author, actor, and storyteller. He indeed has a lot to tell the audience as he has had many life experiences. He started to deliver his solo performances after the release of his memoir, ‘What Does This Button Do?’ in 2018.

His spoken-word show named ‘An Evening With Bruce Dickinson’ is divided into two parts. In the first part, Dickinson talks about personal stories from a humorous perspective and gives some anecdotes about his music career with Iron Maiden. In the other part, he delivers a question-and-answer session, so the audience gets the opportunity to ask whatever they wonder.

He had announced his spoken-word tour a few months ago, and he started giving his performances on January 17, 2022. The tour will continue until the end of March 2022. Bruce Dickinson revealed during the conversation that the show is similar to stand-up at some points, although he even talks about battling throat cancer. In 2015, Dickinson had a tumor on his tongue and the right side of his neck. Then, he had surgery to remove them.

He recovered in May 2015 after radiation and chemotherapy. The Iron Maiden singer revealed that he talks about it during his shows and how he got over it. He said that he felt very good when he managed to make people laugh on a serious issue like cancer. Dickinson expressed that he feels like people feel better after his shows, so it is definitely worth it.

Bruce Dickinson speaking on making people laugh:

“There are some not exactly stand-up, but stand-up kind of techniques a little bit and the storytelling but all the stories are actually true as incredible as that may seem. It’s a sideways look at everything, including things that I’ve done as kind of extracurricular activities like getting throat cancer, for example, and getting over that and trying to do that talk about it in a way that doesn’t have everybody going like ‘Cancer, this is serious.’

When you get people rolling around in the aisles laughing about somebody getting over cancer, you know you are doing a good thing because people walk away with a feeling that ‘How I feel better after that?’ I learned a few things, but I think overall, that was like three hours of my life that was not wasted.

You can watch the full interview below.