During a recent conversation with Beat, Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson discussed the approach he took when writing his 2017 autobiography “What Does This Button Do?”, saying:
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“The book is not one of these kiss-and-tell stories about sex and drugs and all the rest of it. There are so many books like that and they’re kind of boring. They don’t have a great shelf life and I thought there’s enough going on in my life.
“Over the years, I’ve been a professional airline pilot, I’ve gone into war zones and played shows in the middle of the war in Bosnia, I thought, ‘Well actually, there are probably some more interesting stories than just doing some, I-went-out-and-got-drunk-and-couldn’t-remember-where-I-was: chapter one. Chapter two, I went and did it again, chapter three: I woke up and I didn’t know who she was.’
“I thought there had to be something more in terms of content and to try and write it with some degree of wry amusement at the world in which I’ve ended up working in these past umpteen years.
“The world of rock ‘n’ roll is actually quite funny – I talk about singing and the voice and how it works for me, but also there’s lots of funny stories about how we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the music seriously.
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“There’s far more sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll going on in the average rugby club on a Saturday night than on the entire Iron Maiden tour put together. There are other ways to have fun.
“We really enjoy what we do, which is play music, running around. I like to really squeeze life for all it’s worth. One chapter is about when I got diagnosed with throat cancer. It’s reasonably graphic, I suppose.”