Curiosities
All the info contained in this section was taken from several sources, such as magazines, newspapers and websites. Once again I would like to thank Henrik from the wellbeing network for let me “stealing” some of his stuff. If you have a piece of curiosity about Bruce, let us know so we can put it here.
CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT TYRANNY OF SOULS:
Kill Devil Hill is not a simple name of a song on Bruce’s new album Tyranny of Souls. In case you’re not familiar, Kill Devil Hill is a town on the Outer Banks of North Carolina where they have the highest sand dunes in the US (if I’m not mistaken). It’s where the Wright Brothers made their first flight. There’s a huge memorial there and markers were they took off and landed. You can go there now and hang glide or fly kites.
The keyboard parts for his new solo album, Tyranny of Souls, were made by a guy called “Maestro Mistheria” who Bruce claims no one has ever seen…they emailed him tracks and he added keyboard parts.
CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT THE CHEMICAL WEDDING:
The low voices in the beginning of “Machine Men” on The chemical Wedding is Bruce reading extracts from the yellow pages!!!
The Chemical Wedding was the first album released by Bruce’s own label: Air Raid Siren
Roy and Adrian used a D bass string as an E guitar string in order to have a heavier sound, and aparently they did not use any effects. The guitars were plugged straight into the amp.
“The Chemical Wedding” was the working-title for a movie-script which Bruce was involved in writing back in 1992/93. It was based on the life of alchemist and black magician Alisteir Crowley.It’s also worth to note that “Man of sorrows” from the “Accident of birth” album was written during that period of time and intended for the soundtrack of the movie, hence the Crowley references in the lyrics.
Bruce’s all time hero Arthur Brown is reading pieces of poetry in between some songs on “The chemical wedding”-album. These are in fact excerpts from the poem “The Book Of Thel” by 18th century poet William Blake“By the pricking of my thumbs / Something wicked this way comes” from the second chorus of Book of Thel is actually a quote from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth.from the second chorus of is actually a quote from William Shakespeare’s .
CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT SKUNKWORKS:
The song “Solar Confinement” on the Skunkworks album was originally called “Astral parlour confinement” and “Headswitch” off the same album had the working title “Fastgarden”, since it was a fast song in the Soundgarden vein.
There actually was a “Slowgarden” as well but this song was never finished and since the Skunkworks has split-up it isn’t very likely to believe that the song ever will be finished.
While on the subject of working titles it is also worth mentioning that the track “Armchair Hero” (Back from the edge CD-single) was originally called “Share it or lose it” and was played on the 1995 part of the Balls to Picasso tour
The intro and outro tapes that was used on the Skunkworks-tour was lifted from the obscure “Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters” album by Robert Calvert. The intro was the track “Catch a falling starfighter” and the outro was “The Gremlin II”, which, by the way, has Arthur Brown on guest vocals.
Dickinson’s ensemble of guitarist Alex Dickson, bassplayer Chris Dale, and drummer Alessandro Elena made history as the first band to play a live rock show in Sarajevo since civil war erupted at the end of 1991. The band was invited to Bosnia by the British UN Forces.
During their stay in Sarajevo they became a much closer unit as a band and the whole thing inspired Bruce to write the song “Inertia”. He had seen this image (up left), on a placard for Radio ZID, which saw woman trying to push a wall with her head. Bruce got the idea for the song because he felt that the picture showed what really was inertia.
CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT BALLS TO PICASSO:
Balls to Picasso underwent a couple of title changes before it was released. At one point it was going to be called “Laughing in the hiding bush” after the track on the album and there even was a short lived idea that the album was going to be called “A thousand points of light” but Bruce thought it sounded too pretentious.
It was Austin, Bruce’s oldest son, who created the expression Laughing in the Hidding Bush while playing on the sofa. At the time Bruce didn’t understand what it meant, but he wrote it down thinking it was going to be useful. I wonder if he still doesn’t know what it means…
Bruce once said that the expression Laughing in the Hidding Bush was first said by his son Ausitn, while jumping on the sofa. Aparently his exact words were: “Look dad, I’m laughing in the hidding bush”. Bruce confessed that he didn’t know what that sentence meant, but he found it curious and wrote it down for a future use.
The film “The planet of the apes” (The original 1968 version, not Tim Burton’s) inspired Bruce and director Howard Greenhall to find a special place to shoot the video for “Tears of the dragon” in. Bruce wanted the same feel as in “Planet of the apes” where, in the very last shot, you see half the Statue of Liberty sticking out of the ground, and they ended up at shooting the video at the “Durdle door” in Wales.
CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT TATTOOED MILLIONAIRE:
On the B-side to the “All the young dudes” single there is an acoustic track called “Darkness be my friend”. Now, that’s all common knowledge, but what many people don’t know is that the flutelike sound in the “solo” is played by none other than Don Airey on keyboards, former member of Rainbow and other classic rock groups.
Bruce was inspired to write the song “Dive dive dive” based on characters from the BBC series “Captain Pugwash”. The names mentioned in the lyrics are all in that series. He also planned to use some samples from it as intro to the song but didn’t get the permission so he had to do the talking himself.
The Iron Maiden track “Run silent, run deep”, off the “No prayer for the dying” album, was also based on the series, and this song, though released half a year later, was the first of the two.
In the All the young dudes video, when Bruce jumps up from the table in the café, he actually spilled a whole cup of tea on bassist Andy Carr. Andy was not so amused.
MISCELLANEOUS FACTS:
Around 1992, Bruce bought a dalek from the BBC. If you’re familliar with the British TV-series “Dr Who” from the seventies you’ll know what I’m talking about. The dalek is this robot which was invented by this evil scientist called Davros. A really bizarre thing to have in possession, really.
Bruce was arrested once. It happened in Lubboc, Texas. It was a Maiden show and a security guard was punching the kids in the front how. Bruce was alleged that he looped his microphone lead around the guard’s neck and tried to strangle him.
Bruce likes to collect stuff. He has a silly hats collection and a rare sword collection. One of his swords is a Spanish rapier dated from the 1600s.
Back in 1983 when Iron Maiden was doing their legandery World PieceTour in Germany, Bruce got sent back to the hotel because he was being an arse and he was feeling lonley, so he lined up 50 beers along the bar because he thought there were a lot people coming back, then in walked Ozzy Osbourne and bruce asked Ozzy if he wanted a pint but, since Ozzy couldnt drink, he asked Bruce if he wanted to steal a taxi. Luckly Sharon Osbourne (Ozzy’s wife) over heard all the story and Ozzy was wheeled of to bed and Bruce was sent back for a 2 hours kip.
When Bruce was in Samson the band made a never released song/improvisation called “The Pig in Lipstick”. The song was about one of their groupies who apparently had a weight problem. Or at least Bruce had a problem with her weight… Bruce later used the lyrics for Iron Maiden’s “Nodding Donkey Blues” that was the b-side on the single “Be quick or be dead” from 92.This very sign (right) can be found at the front door of Bruce’s home:
“It is forbidden for vagrants, beggars, itinerant musicians and females of doubtful reputation to enter these premises.
-May 1901 -By Order”
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