The story of how Iron Maiden hired Bruce Dickinson as their singer
Iron Maiden had released two albums and been through two different singers before Bruce Dickinson was anointed as their leader. The group had been forced to remove their former frontman, Paul Di’Anno, after his alcohol and drug usage had worsened, leaving them searching for a new vocalist.
Following his removal from the band, Di’Anno said: “It’s like having Mussolini and Adolf Hitler run your band. Because it is Rod Smallwood and Steve Harris and that’s it. There can’t be anyone else and my character is too strong for that so me and Steve was always fighting.”
Before Di’Anno, they were fronted by Paul Day, who Harris sacked for his lack of stage presence. As the band’s chief songwriter, Harris wanted somebody charismatic to lead Iron Maiden and do his creations justice. However, it wasn’t until he found Dickinson that the guitarist finally felt full contentment with their line-up after finally securing the jigsaw’s pivotal piece.
When the vacancy became available in Iron Maiden, Dickinson was already in Samson, but he was already friendly with the group. They became friends when they recorded respective albums in the same studio complex, and he left a mark on his future bandmates. However, despite Maiden already being on their way to superstardom, it wasn’t an easy decision for Dickinson to leave Samson behind to join them.
From the first time he watched the band live at a club in London, Dickinson fostered an ambition to one day be their singer. In an interview with the BBC, he recalled: “Absolutely raging on stage! And I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got to sing for those guys! I know they’ve got a singer but they really need me! Oh my god, what we could do together!’ Anyway, it was going to be a year and a half before they parted ways with the singer who was there [Paul Di’Anno]. Obviously, we were all aware of each other”.
He added: “I mean, the drummer in Samson the previous year had joined Iron Maiden. So when we recorded an album next door to Iron Maiden, who were recording ‘Killers,’ we were in the same studio complex. So we were always having a beer and just chatting away, so we all knew each other.”
After Samson performed at the Reading Festival in 1981, Dickinson was approached to audition to replace Di’Anno. Although the singer was confident they’d select him if he auditioned, Dickinson also knew there was a good chance the band would throw him on the scrap heap as they did to his predecessors.
He continued:” ‘So the question is not whether or not I’ll do the audition, the question is – do you actually want me when I get the job? Because I’m not going to be like the other guy, I’m going to be completely different, I’m going to have my own rules, my own stuff, I’m going to do things my own way. If you don’t want that, just tell me now and I’ll walk out'”.
Adding: “Where did that come from? But when you’re 20, you’re fearless. I did, obviously, audition for the band, we went to a rehearsal room, we sang a load of Maiden tunes, and then we sang all of our favourite tunes that we all liked, that we all knew together”.
“And it was great! And then in the recording studio, they did a few checks that I actually did sound like what they thought I sounded like. And then that was it, came outside, handshake, none of this elbow bumping back in the day. Handshake and a hug, and then down to I think it was a UFO gig, and we all went down, we got absolutely blooded in the bar.”
Watch the footage below from Dickinson’s first concert with Iron Maiden.
