During the Q&A session of his spoken word show on March 23, Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson stated that he left the band in 1993 because he wanted to learn what a solo career would be like outside of it.
When Dickinson entered the audition for Iron Maiden in 1981, the band immediately hired him. His recording career with the band started with the 1982 album, ‘The Number of the Beast.’ During the making process of the following albums, the singer began to have some creative differences with the rest of the band, and he was also discontent with the band’s busy tour schedule.
As an inevitable result of growing tensions, Bruce Dickinson left Iron Maiden in 1993 following the ‘Fear of the Dark Tour.’ After his departure, the band hired Blaze Bayley as their new lead singer. However, the new lineup didn’t bring the expected success to the band, and they approached Dickinson to rejoin them. The frontman agreed to return on the condition that he wanted a change in the band’s artistic direction. They accepted his requirements, and he was back in the band in 1999.
Bruce Dickinson has been currently continuing his spoken word tour that started in early 2022. During the Q&A session of his March 23 spoken word show in Montreal, Canada, he reflected on his departure from Iron Maiden. The rocker stated that he needed to understand what it was like to be outside the band. He wanted to prove himself also as a solo artist rather than staying with the band for the rest of his music career. The singer explained that it was a surprising decision for him too, like everyone else, but he wanted to be taken seriously in his musical efforts outside of the band.
Bruce Dickinson’s statements on his departure from Iron Maiden follow:
“Honestly, I was as surprised as anybody else. I don’t think people really believed that at the time. I just thought that if I stayed with Maiden forever, all I would learn about was what it was like to be in Maiden. And in order to learn what it was like outside Maiden, you have to leave because, unless you left, nobody would take anything that you did seriously.
It would always be, like, ‘Oh, bless him. He’s doing a solo record. Let him have his fun, and then he can go back to being in Iron Maiden.’ I hated that. So I thought, ‘F*ck it. I’ll just leave.’ And people said, ‘What happens if your solo career doesn’t work out?’ I said, ‘Well, that’s God or fate saying maybe that’s for the best.’ And I said it’s better to take a chance now and do something else with your life than sit there somewhere in the fantasy world and end up just grumpy.”
You can watch Bruce Dickinson’s Q&A session below.
