Bruce Dickinson explains how Pete Townshend helped him understand abusive power
There are few singers with greater vitality and joy for live performance than Iron Maiden leader Bruce Dickinson. Across his now five decades with the new wave of British heavy metal pioneers, Dickinson has been able to command a stage like few could possibly imagine, with his operatic shrieks and ferocious physicality remaining intact as he ages gracefully into his mid-1960s.
But just because Dickinson gives his all during Iron Maiden shows doesn’t mean that he’s wielding total power over the audience. That’s something that he tries to avoid, as he explained during a recent interview with Dr. Kevin Dutton on the Psycho Schizo Espresso podcast. In fact, it was Pete Townshend, legendary guitarist and songwriter for The Who, who clued him into the idea that his role could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
“It was Pete Townshend, who knows a bit about abuse, I think, because he underwent quite a lot of it, and he said – and it clicked for me – he said, ‘the big moment is when you realise that you can manipulate people because of who you are,'” Dickinson observed. “Because when you first start out, you don’t have any realisation that people might want to sleep with you because you’re onstage.”
“You think they want to sleep with you because they want to sleep with you, because it might be nice and because they like you,” Dickinson said. “And often that’s true – it’s often that it’s true… And yes, there are some people that want you as a notch on the bedpost, just as some guys have that [same thing] with women, and, yeah, we’ve all been guilty of it, no doubt.”
Adding: “But there comes a point, which is incredibly corrupting and corrosive, in which you suddenly go, ‘hang on a minute. You can actually kind of click your fingers and make things happen.’ And that’s a really scary moment, to realise that that power exists. And that’s why the Harvey Weinsteins and all the rest of it, and the whole Hollywood thing…”
“So that awareness of that, that’s when it becomes really corrupting,” Dickinson concludes, even making reference to the abuse cases against R&B superstar R. Kelly. “I mean, the guy… What’s his name? R. Kelly, who’s been indicted, been convicted, I think. It’s the same thing for actors as well… And then when you throw in a bucket of mood-altering drugs into the equation, then the wheels really come off the bus.”
Check out the interview with Dickinson down below.
