Bruce Dickinson Recalls Accidentally Playing Unreleased Iron Maiden Album On Air Control’s Radio

Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has disclosed a rarely-known hysterical story during his latest spoken-word tour. Bruce, who played the unreleased Iron Maiden album Dance Of Death on the airline radio to give the flight crew a good time, realized that he was accidentally using the pilot and air traffic control’s communication radio.

Bruce Dickinson, who joined Iron Maiden in the early 80s and debuted with The Number of the Beast, achieved numerous success with the band. Bruce, who has been released thirteen studio albums as a member of Iron Maiden, has six solo studio albums. He also made fencing and writing as a hobby besides music and published two novels to date.

Iron Maiden, who is considered as one of the pioneers of British heavy metal, left their mark in the 80s. Empowering their line-up with the inclusion of Bruce Dickinson in 1983, the band has sold almost 20 million copies with the album The Number of the Beast alone. Releasing 41 albums during its ongoing career, Maiden has also released 47 singles and 20 video albums.

On the other hand, Dance of Death, the group’s 13th studio album, attracted great critics. The album peaked at number 18 on the US Billboard chart and peaked at number 2 on the UK Albums chart. Consisting of 11 tracks and over 67-min listening time, the album was certified gold by BPI. Even though the premiere of the album happened on September 2, 2003, there was a rarely-known fact about the album. The album was listened to by a plane crew and air control’s radio a bit earlier from its premiere.

Anyway, during his recent spoken-word show on February 24, Bruce Dickinson detailed those rarely-known moments. At first, Dickinson said that they listened to AC/DC because his first officer was a big fan of the band. And then, Dickinson offered them to play the unreleased Iron Maiden album.

“Once we were coming back empty from somewhere down in Egypt or somewhere, wherever the hell it was, but it was an empty airplane,” he said. “So the cockpit door’s open, the cabin crew are all in the back and they’re all chilled out or asleep or doing whatever, and we’re flying over Italy, in the cruise, autopilot’s on, thumb in bum, mind in neutral, you know.

“And my first officer was a big rock fan, a big AC/DC and Airborne fan, right? So he’s — wherever trip we were on — he’d bought his boom box with him and he said, ‘Hey boss, listen. Do you mind — we’re in a cruise — if I listen to music?’ I went, ‘Of course, it’s not strictly company procedure. Fuck it, yeah. Come on.’

“So on goes AC/DC, a bit of Airborne and we’re grooving away, and I said ‘you know what? I happen to have the just-mixed copy of the new Iron Maiden album on me, which nobody in the world has heard apart from the band and the management. Do you wanna hear it?’ He’s like ‘yeah, yeah cool!’ I went ‘yeah!’

“So out comes the blank CD, put it in the CD player as it was then, and put the boombox on the pedestal and we start playing it, and I shout back to the girls and boys ‘uh, anyone wanna hear the new Maiden album?’ They went ‘yeah!'”

Bruce Dickinson Admits It Was Great Because The Air Controller Wouldn’t Have A Clue Who It Was

When he plays the upcoming Iron Maiden album, Dance of Death, to entertain the flight crew, Bruce accidentally uses the Pilot and Air Control’s communication radio. When the air control worker said, “‘Who is transmitting? Who is transmitting the music?'”, Bruce mentioned that moment as a perfect situation.

“So I get the hand microphone … and I put it up [against the speaker], and you know wherever [in the album], probably ‘Rainmaker’ or something, it’s blasting out all through the cabin and they’re all [having a good time],” Dickinson continued.

“And it’s been about four minutes or so and I’m thinking ‘I haven’t said much on the radio recently.’ So I put the hand mic down and [think] ‘oh fuck,’ and then I finally get on to Rome, you know, and all I can hear is this bloke going ‘who is transmitting? Who is transmitting the music? What airline are you? Who are you? Own up!’

“And the great thing was he wouldn’t have a fucking clue who it was because the album wasn’t released yet.”

Bruce Dickinson’s Respectful Words For Iron Maiden Fans

Back in this past September, Bruce Dickinson had respected Iron Maiden fans. During his interview with Tiny TV, Dickinson had said that there is individual Iron Maiden fan in their community. He also added that Iron Maiden fans are a little bit plywood.

“I can’t speak for every individual Iron Maiden fan, obviously, and I can’t imagine what each of them is individually thinking and what kind of nuance they get out of what we do,” Dickinson says. “‘Cause I think people get different things out of different parts of what we do.

So some fans will really zone in on some bits. Some of the kind of rhythmic things that we do, some people will be big fans of that; some people will be big fans of Adrian’s guitar; some people will be nuts about vocals and therefore they’ll follow some of my solo stuff.

“You’ve got all kinds of shades of opinion, but they all congregate around a central core, which is, ‘Yeah, it’s Iron Maiden, stupid.’ That’s it.

“I would say that Iron Maiden fans are a little bit like plywood — we get a new layer every year, and they all just stick together, so eventually we get a table that’s, like, ten feet thick.”