Bruce Dickinson on the influence of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin
Bruce Dickinson, the frontman of Iron Maiden has a pedigree like no other. An unrelenting force in the worlds of metal and music, what he brought to Iron Maiden in the wake of prior vocalist Paul Di’Anno, was a vocal power that is so otherworldly that it helped to take their music to the next level. Constantly wowling at the moon, the advent of Dickinson would see the band reach heights people never thought possible in their early years.
Dickinson can hit notes that are impossible to the average human, and is, ostensibly, the tip of the band’s spear, as the rumbling rhythm section and unrelenting guitars combine to create one crushing wall of sound behind him. As well as being a musical genius, Dickinson is also a colourful personality and one of his generation’s most outspoken. This personal complexity has led to him wading into the political discussion, becoming a commercial pilot and authoring books, meaning that we never know what he will do next.
“I don’t see any reason why we should ever retire,” Dickinson once explained when discussing the notion of him retiring. “As an airline captain, I was always told that nobody ever dies on an aeroplane. Even if the guy’s head is severed from his body, he’s not dead, because if the boss, the captain… If somebody says, ‘The guy’s head has fallen off.’ ‘Well, is he dead?’ ‘Well, he’s not dead until somebody legally says he’s dead.’
Espousing his wicked sense of humour, he concluded: “So, nobody dies until somebody stands up and says, ‘Yup. He’s definitely dead.’ ‘Ha! You’re responsible then. You killed him.’ It’s the same with rock and roll bands. We will never die. Even if we are actually dead, we will still never actually die.”
Brimming with opinions, Dickinson will never cease to entertain, and his thoughts on other musicians are some of the most interesting out there. When speaking to Loudwire back in 2015, he discussed the influence that two of the foremost heavy metal progenitors had on him, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.
“The early Robert Plant stuff, really early Zeppelin was unbelievable,” He said. “My favourite stuff from that era, they did like Danish TV shows and they did live. Wow, it is like completely unedited. Raw as it was and it’s just astonishing, it’s primal.”
Then, when asked to choose between Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, Dickinson maintained that he “was always a bigger Purple fan than Zeppelin. But I never saw either Zeppelin or Purple when I was a kid, when they were in their heyday. Zeppelin were adopted by American radio big-style. But I’ve got to confess that the thing I loved most about Zeppelin was their English folk roots. Not their copies of American blues tracks.”
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter
All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.