How Jimi Hendrix “inspired” Bruce Dickinson to fly with Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson is one of the most intriguing characters in rock. He might be a titan of the metal genre, complete with a distinctive wail, but he’s very much a Renaissance man. Whilst he has had many endeavours, including authoring, brewing beer, and competing at fencing, his most well-known extra-musical activity is that he is a qualified commercial pilot.
His love for aviation is so intense that it has converged with his position as Iron Maiden’s frontman. Notably, after moonlighting as a pilot for the now-defunct Astraeus Airlines, Dickinson has captained Iron Maiden’s converted charter aircraft, Ed Force One, on their world tours in what is a remarkable feat. What makes this aspect of his career even more fascinating is that, according to Dickinson, he was inspired to fly the band around by none other than the late Jimi Hendrix.
The metal vocalist revealed this when speaking at the Campus Party festival in Brazil in 2019, as reported by Iron Maiden’s Brazilian fan club website, Iron Maiden 666. During this talk, he explained that it was a book about Jimi Hendrix that “inspired” him to fly Iron Maiden everywhere for ease.
Dickinson explained: “I read a book about Jimi Hendrix when I was learning to fly and discovered that early in his career, people in America used to travel in old DC-3s, something a little faster than walking, but not as reliable. Then came the Boeing 727 and suddenly America was full of jets. Travelling was easy as gas was so cheap that tickets were also very cheap and remember, before ‘9/11’, if there was a time before ‘9/11’, when there was no TSA, you could take your dead grandmother, cans of lighter fluid or gasoline, chainsaws or whatever the hell you wanted on a plane because no one cared.”
He continued: “Then Hendrix’s manager said: ‘Hey! Why don’t we just grab a pair of guitars, some drumsticks and suddenly, you can be in San Francisco one day and New York the next? This will only cost us something like $500! Wow!’ Okay, but of course, someone asked: ‘What are we going to do with the amplifiers and the PA?’ Then the manager said: ‘You can just rent them, it’s simple!'”
Describing how this anecdote “inspired” him, Dickinson realised that flying Iron Maiden everywhere would remove obstacles other bands face and help them play for as many fans as possible. He said: “I read this and was inspired because I’m basically a big 60-year-old kid, so I thought, very romantically, I could also fly around with a band and do shows because I would fly the plane and I could do it singing. But of course, it wouldn’t be that easy because it never happens that way.”
“The accountants said we couldn’t do it, that we didn’t have the money to go to South America, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa,” he added. “So what would we say to our fans? That we didn’t go to them because our accountants said no? What happens if we don’t show up there? Let’s turn our fans into customers, and then they would become Metallica fans! We can’t let that happen!”
The Iron Maiden frontman concluded: “I then came up with this crazy idea because I was working as a pilot at an airline, and I knew that in the winter in Europe, plane rentals were much cheaper. Why not have our own magic carpet? Then the accountant looks at you and says you must be taking too many drugs. Nothing like that; I had just been bitten by the creativity bug. With our own plane, we could take some equipment, our team and get out around the world faster. And this is what happened.”
