{"id":224244,"date":"2025-10-25T07:20:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T07:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/224244\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T07:20:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T07:20:14","slug":"bruce-dickinson-the-story-of-tears-of-a-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/224244\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Dickinson: the story of Tears Of A Dragon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bruce Dickinson<\/a> hadn\u2019t planned on going solo. Frontman for Iron Maiden<\/a> since late 1981, it certainly wasn\u2019t like his day job wasn\u2019t fulfilling \u2013 or demanding \u2013 enough. But during a rare Maiden break in 1989, he was approached by publishing company Zomba to provide a song for the soundtrack to the fifth Nightmare On Elm Street<\/a> movie. The song, Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter would ultimately be re-recorded by Iron Maiden in 1990 and became the first metal song to top the UK singles charts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all by accident!\u201d Bruce attests with the amiable dismissiveness of someone used to tripping and landing in gold mines. \u201cA guy from Colombia records heard it and was like, \u2018Oh my god, I love that song! Do you have more like it?\u2019 So I lied and went \u2018Oh yeah, loads.\u2019 Suddenly, I had an American record deal for an album we hadn\u2019t even written!\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bruce was hardly agonising about writing, though. Bring Your Daughter… had been written \u201cin about five minutes\u201d by Bruce and soon-to-be Maiden guitarist Janick Gers, so the pair teamed up again to rapidly write the material that would become 1990\u2019s Tattooed Millionaire. Bruce\u2019s first solo effort, the record was good times rock\u2019n\u2019roll in the vein of AC\/DC<\/a> with a dash of Led Zeppelin chucked in for good measure. It was a big departure from the theatrical bombast of Maiden, but still broke the top 20 in the UK Albums Chart.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEverything was sweet,\u201d Bruce recalls. \u201cBut then, it was time for the next album. The problem was, now I had to think about what I\u2019d really do on a solo record. Because [Tattooed\u2026] wasn\u2019t really a solo album. If I died and people went, \u2018The last thing he did on this Earth was Tattooed Millionaire,\u2019 I\u2019d be like, \u2018No, no, no!\u2019 It was just a bit of fun, I wanted something with a bit more weight to it emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was certainly no shortage of emotion to draw from. In 1993, Bruce announced he planned to leave Iron Maiden to focus on his solo career full-time. In turn, that meant his solo work had gone from something fun he did between Maiden tours to his main artistic output. But where his previous solo work had been almost effortless, album two was a tortured process as he tried to figure out what he wanted to be.<\/p>\n

First, Bruce hooked up with guitarist Myke Gray of British rockers Skin. Bruce had already worked with Skin for a cover of Alice Cooper\u2019s Elected in 1992, which also featured comedian Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean and had broken the UK top 10 singles when released as part of charity Comic Relief. Unfortunately, they weren\u2019t able to replicate that success while writing together. \u201cMyke is very talented,\u201d Bruce says. \u201cBut I realised he was very much in metal world. Which is great, but I wanted to sidestep some of that and go outside it while still being heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrapping those sessions, the next suggestion came from longtime manager Rod Smallwood, who suggested he work with producer Keith Olsen. \u201cKeith had reinvented David Coverdale and turned him into the image of this big American radio artist,\u201d Bruce recalls. \u201cHe sounded a little bit like Led Zeppelin and didn\u2019t sound like the David Coverdale I\u2019d loved with [early] Whitesnake. So I was a little sceptical. It was like, \u2018I know it\u2019s working, but it ain\u2019t Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues<\/a>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Heading out to LA, Bruce found himself working with session musicians for the first time to achieve a vision of something that could be heavy without feeling too obviously indebted to metal. \u201cOne of my favourite albums is Peter Gabriel\u2019s third solo album [aka Melt],\u201d Bruce explains. \u201cEmotionally, it\u2019s so dark and heavy, and I thought, \u2018Can I get that level of heaviness?\u2019 We kicked out the heavy metal<\/a> cliches and the crass stuff because I\u2019d done it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unsatisfied with the result, Bruce scrapped the sessions for a second time. The LA trip wasn\u2019t a total bust, though. The engineer at Olsen\u2019s studio \u2013 and eventual producer of Balls To Picasso \u2013 Shay Baby suggested that while Bruce was in town, he should go check out the band Tribe Of Gypsies, featuring guitarist Roy Z. Blown away by their performance, Bruce had finally found his new co-conspirator.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was chatting to Roy at Shay\u2019s house one afternoon and we knocked out the basis for three or four songs right there,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

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One of the songs that Bruce and Roy worked on had actually existed for the better part of a decade. After Maiden had released Powerslave<\/a> in 1984, Bruce had suggested to the band they do something completely leftfield for their next release; an acoustic album. The suggestion went down like a lead balloon. \u201cLook, that\u2019s not what Maiden does,\u201d Bruce says diplomatically. \u201cWe do the unexpected, but roughly in the same direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruce Dickinson – Tears Of The Dragon (Official HD Video) – YouTube
\n\"Bruce<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The first version of Tears\u2026 Bruce describes as \u201cJethro Tull-y and a bit witchy-woo\u201d, written around Powerslave. A second version was written while Bruce was working with Keith Olsen, which he describes as \u201cvery dark, all keyboards and sequencers, stuff like that\u201d. But the final, released version of Tears Of The Dragon felt more like connective tissue to Bruce\u2019s tenure in Maiden: a grand epic with twists and turns that, in part at least, proved a little divisive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reggae bit in the middle \u2013 for some reason I can never quite figure out \u2013 is \u2018controversial\u2019,\u201d Bruce concedes with a grin. \u201cRod [Smallwood] was like, \u2018Eugh! Get rid of that fucking reggae thing.\u2019 But we kept it in and still play that live. It\u2019s cool and different, it takes us somewhere else, like a dream world. It\u2019s a palette cleanser after the insanity of everything that\u2019s gone before. I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first single from Balls To Picasso, Tears Of The Dragon was also Bruce\u2019s first release since he\u2019d officially left Maiden. Naturally, people assumed the song was about his departure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit deeper than that,\u201d Bruce contests. \u201cFarewell to Maiden sounds like I was thumbing my nose at them. It was more introspective; it\u2019s about self-doubt. I had a lot of that. When I embarked upon the solo album thing, I really didn\u2019t have a clear idea of what I was doing. Creatively, I just felt lost. I found that really disturbing. It worried me that being in Maiden had maybe disabled some of my critical faculties. I was experimenting with things and it came to me, \u2018Maybe I should leave \u2013 find if I have anything to give back to the world creatively.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While it might\u2019ve been the best decision for Bruce creatively, not all Maiden fans were happy, feeling he\u2019d just hamstrung one of British metal\u2019s big success stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps I was a bit na\u00efve,\u201d he concedes. \u201cI had no idea [me leaving Maiden] would be such a catastrophic event in some people\u2019s lives. I thought, \u2018I\u2019m just a singer! There\u2019s other singers!\u2019 My wife put it as, \u2018When you left, it didn\u2019t matter if you\u2019d made the best record in the world. Nobody could listen to it because it was just so overwhelming that you weren\u2019t in Maiden anymore.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, released on May 16 1994, Tears\u2026 managed a respectable placement in the charts, hitting number 28 in the UK and 36 on the US Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks. They weren\u2019t Maiden numbers, but it was proof enough that Bruce hadn\u2019t thrown the baby out with the bathwater. But even after rejoining Maiden in 1999, Bruce didn\u2019t give up his solo ambitions completely. When he resurrected his band last year for The Mandrake Project, he also decided to dust off the tapes of Balls To Picasso for a complete overhaul, titled More Balls To Picasso, naturally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with the original version was that it was tentative,\u201d Bruce explains. \u201cIt\u2019s taken all these years to go, \u2018Can we make this as full on as it should have been?\u2019 It wasn\u2019t a sin of commission, it was a sin of omission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the song that benefits most from this remaster is Tears, the original single now given lush orchestration by composer Antonio Teoli. \u201cIt\u2019s grown in stature with Antonio\u2019s orchestration,\u201d Bruce says. \u201cIt\u2019s the full mango; juicy! Before it was a little more melancholy, this one has a real sense of triumph.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Triumph\u2019 certainly sums up what Bruce achieved both as a solo artist and since his return to Iron Maiden in the 21st Century.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019d just stayed where I was\u2026 I\u2019m not sure Maiden would be anything like it is now,\u201d he admits. \u201cI almost cut my solo career off at the knees, rejoining Maiden, because it was obvious I wouldn\u2019t have the time to do anything with all the touring and writing we were doing. Now I\u2019m comfortable with the Maiden situation because we\u2019ve got this amazing theatricality going on, and the songs have become more progressive. That might not make some people happy, but that makes the band happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

More Balls To Picasso is out now via Sanctuary. Iron Maiden: Infinite Dreams: The Official Visual History is out now<\/p>\n

Iron Maiden legend Bruce Dickinson on going solo, making Balls To Picasso and much more – YouTube
\n\"Iron<\/p>\n

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