Bruce Dickinson Recalls The Misty Sides Of ‘The Number Of The Beast’

Bruce Dickinson Recalls The Misty Sides Of 'The Number Of The Beast'

Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson recalled the time they recorded the band’s classic album The Number Of The Beast and revealed the misty sides of it, saying he recorded the album in a dilapidated kitchen.

Bruce Dickinson came to world prominence as a member of Iron Maiden during the early ’80s. Before Dickinson joined Maidens, he was a member of Samson, with whom he recorded two different studio albums and gained the stage name, Bruce Bruce. In 1981, he had left Samson to join his current band, Iron Maiden. At this period, no one ever knew that one of the most historical bands in heavy metal history had been created.

When Dickinson joined Maiden, they were yet to taste success at a worldwide level. Before he joined the band, the band had already released its first two albums, the self-titled Iron Maiden and Killers. Shortly after he joined the band, Dickinson contributed to the band’s third and his debut album, The Number Of The Beast, which is still the band’s highest-selling studio album of all time.

As you know, The Number Of The Beast was released on March 22, 1982. Consisted of eight tracks in its original release, the album had met with critical and commercial success. Being the first album of the band that made the top on the UK Albums Chart, the album features the band’s hit songs such as Run To The Hills and the self-titled The Number Of The Beast.

However, recently, Bruce Dickinson made an appearance on Consequence to mark the album’s 40th anniversary. Explaining the recording process of the album, Dickinson said sincerely that they had such good ideas of what it should be heard like. According to him, they had great times during the recording process of the album.

“We had most of the songs and we were rehearsing them,” Dickinson said. “So, we thought we had a fairly good idea of what they should sound like.

“[Producer] Martin Birch showed up for a couple of days of rehearsals, nodded his head, and went, ‘Yep, yep. OK. Fine.’ And then we started recording it.

“There was kind of a big party atmosphere throughout the whole thing. In fact, we actually made a wall of those 7-pint beer cans — the entire wall of the control room was a pyramid of kegs of beer that we had drunk during the proceedings.

“We would be up until 4 or 5 in the morning, after we had finished recording, listening back to what we had recorded, until basically the producer said, ‘Right. You need to go to bed, because you’re going to come back and do this all again tomorrow.’ There was a really great vibe.”

Bruce Dickinson Reveals He Made His Vocals In A ‘Dilapidated Kitchen’

Later then, Dickinson touched on the misty side of the album. Admitting that he made huge parts of his vocals in a dilapidated kitchen, Dickinson added that it was nothing in there except for his natural echo sound.

“I did most of my vocals in a dilapidated kitchen,” he admits. “It had been stripped out, and there was nothing in there, except a lot of wet plaster on the walls… and me.

“So, to say there was a natural echo would be an understatement!”

Back in his March 1 spoken-word show at Orpheum in Los Angeles, Dickinson had shared his thoughts on his singing technique over the years. Saying that his voice has not changed since its first years, Dickinson had also discussed the tones he reached over the years.

“Well, I’m not sure it has changed that much,” Bruce said. “When your voice is very young — I discovered my voice, when I was young, as being quite tinny; it didn’t have a lot of [depth] to it.

“And your voice, it thickens a bit as you get older. And obviously talking for two and a half hours doesn’t help. But when you get to hitting high notes… My high end…

“When I was in the early days — Samson and stuff like that — I used to go into my little falsetto thing, but that got blown out of the water when I did ‘The Number Of The Beast’, because I pushed up into my high register, which is not like a cash register; it’s a bit that actually happens in your voice. But it is a kind of high register.”

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