If he has acquired his status as a star by firmly holding the microphone within Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson does not have to be ashamed of his solo career. After nineteen years without following Tyranny of Souls immediately, the British jack-up artist operates a spectacular return with The Mandrake Project. Interview.
19 years old. This is the weather it took Bruce Dickinson to bring out a solo album. After tumultuous years shared between the British Heavy Metal giants Iron Maiden, for whom he ensures song, and the trials of life, he returns under his own name with the enigmatic The Mandrake Project. If he hammers that he “It's not an album concept”it has nevertheless been worked from every angle and even allows itself to be transmedia, since it is linked to a graphic novel also written by the Frontman. “The album can exist independently of the graphic novel to which it is linked. Some texts can be confusing for those who have not read history, but this is not a problem. The graphic novel allows you to know more.”
Thus, songs, like “Afterglow of Ragnarok” and “Many Doors to Hell”, the opening diptych, can be taken independently. Passionate about comics-evidenced by the Watchmen t-shirt which he proudly sports-, the British artist wanted to include this dimension from the first stages of the design of the disc. If the two works differ both in their nature and their content, they have been thought at the same time and include the same title. “I did research on the hallucinogenic effects of the Mandrake. So I found The Mandrake Project, a title that had never been used for an album before. It was the final stage of its design.” It is thus the result of a particular care given to a multiple work.
A thoroughness that is simply explained: “I don't want to get out of a solo album mechanically. In this industry, it is very easy to lock yourself in shackles and advance like a sleepwalker.” A vision that he rejects with irony: “19 years old is not a shackles!” (Laughs) This care taken to work is the result of a long gestation. “Roy Z (guitarist and producer, NDLA) and I are concerted to follow a follow -up to Tyranny of Souls in 2014. We assembled some demos and waited for an opportunity to finalize this disc, but it never came.” If the idea came ten years ago, some songs present on the disc are even older. “” “The last, 'Sonata (Immortal Beloved)' was born over twenty years ago. I forgot that I wrote it. Roy Z sent it to me, I listened to him with my wife. She convinced me to include it in the disc. ”
This period of time is also explained by various circumstances. “Roy Z and I were partly separated because of my schedule with Iron Maiden.” But the British sextet is not the only reason for the delay in the design of this album. “I had throat cancer (in 2015) from which I took a year to recover. We then turned a whole year with Iron Maiden to catch up with lost time. Then the world was confined, and that's it!” A long gestation that he summarizes with philosophy: “The wait was frustrating, but was still fruitful. It allowed me to enrich my writing.”
Bruce Dickinson's writing is also enriched by his many experiences. It multiplies the caps, whether that of a line pilot or a radio animator, but also handles the foil “Since childhood”. After a break taken around his 20 years, he resumed fencing after the tour of The Number of the Beasthis first album recorded with Iron Maiden – “If I didn't do anything other than music, I was going to lose my head”he remembers-before arriving at a level of competition. This discipline accompanies him in Iron Maiden, notably in “Flash of the Blade” which he signed in PowerSlave (1984), where he evokes the “Old fencing techniques”. He is also inspired by the famous Japanese fencer Miyamoto Musashi in “Sun and Steel” (1983). Beyond the compositions themselves, it “Incorporate fencing steps on stage. In 'Death of the Celts', I include certain exercises, which my master has immediately noticed!”
Find this interview with Bruce Dickinson in full in WECB n ° 160. It is available in newsstands and via our online store. Order it now with the cover you prefer. Choose between Eric Clapton and the singer of Iron Maiden.
