Bruce Dickinson reveals Ian Gillan always forgets his words
Bruce Dickinson is one of the definitive metal titans. The enigmatic frontman of Iron Maiden for over 40 years has one of the most instantly recognisable styles of vocal delivery out there, and one of the most influential. His wailing style, which is the tip of the spear of Iron Maiden’s sharp sound has influenced many from Ghost to Lacuna Coil, and across the many different variations of the genre you can hear his spirit alive and well.
Notably, Dickinson can hit notes that are usually thought impossible, augmenting the sense that Iron Maiden’s music has an otherworldly essence, as the fast paced and dynamic music swirls around him. Aside from being a musical genius, he is also one of the more complex characters in the industry, and has been outspoken on a variety of topics such as politics, as well as authoring books and being a commercial pilot.
Dickinson has seen and done it all over his long career, and duly, he has his fair share of stories to tell that feature some of music’s other most lauded characters.
Speaking in an interview in the 1980s long after he’d cemented himself as one of heavy metal’s greats, Dickinson was asked if he ever forgets his words, and after immediately responding “no”, he proceeded to deliver a hilarious anecdote about one of metal’s other essential frontmen, Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, The Ian Gillan Band and briefly, Black Sabbath.
The Iron Maiden frontman expanded his point by inferring that he might sometimes forget his lines, by saying that if you’re “convincing” enough in forgetting them you can get away with it, as it’s something he “learnt from Ian Gillan, who’s always forgetting the words.”
He recalled: “It’s funny, ‘coz when I did my first ever, like, big tour, which was like nine years ago, something like that, ten years ago, with a group called Samson, right, and it was supporting Ian Gillan when he had The Gillan Band. He used to do this like thing of ‘Lucille’ or something like that, a rock ‘n’ roll number at the end of the show, and there was a section during the thing when all the band sort of stopped playing, and he’d just kind of do this thing and it ended up as something like…”
Dickinson continued: “Every night I’d watch him and every night it would be the same thing, and in the end I finally got a hold of him at the end of the tour and said, ‘Ian what is that stuff that you’re singing?’, he said, ‘I don’t know, I just make it up, there’s supposed to be some words but I always forget them.’”
