BRUCE DICKINSON Hopes People Laugh A Lot During His Spoken-Word Shows

IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson discussed his current spoken-word tour in a new interview with Sara of the Philadelphia radio station 93.3 WMMR. Asked what fans can expect to see at each show, Bruce said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, I'm hoping that people go away from the show having laughed a lot and maybe having learned a little and mainly feeling, 'That was really worth three hours of my life, to go and have that experience and share some stories.'

"I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I try to get that across," he continued. "[The show] is rude — it's not for the faint hearted. We get some kids coming in, and I'm, like, 'Does you mum know that you're actually at this show? We're gonna be saying words like 'penis' or worse.' But people laugh. I get different audiences. It depends on the venue, actually, quite often. When I go into somewhere where it's pretty rough, the audience tends to be a bit more, [grunts] 'Hey.' But when you get into a nice theater, they get all the ironic touches and things like that. But every now and again, you say the 'P' word, and people are, like, 'Oh, he said the 'P' word.'"

Dickinson is considered one of the world's most storied musicians. Aside from decades spent delivering high-octane performances with his larger-than-life persona in IRON MAIDEN, Bruce has lived an extraordinary off-stage existence too. A true polymath, his accomplishments include: pilot and airline captain, aviation entrepreneur, beer brewer, motivational speaker, film scriptwriter, twice-published novelist and Sunday Times best-selling author, radio presenter, TV actor, sports commentator and international fencer — to name but a few.

Bruce's spoken-word show is split into two parts. The first section sees him take a humorous and often satirical look at the world from his own very personal perspective, treating the audience to private insights into his drive and ambition, peppered with plenty of MAIDEN anecdotes, and a myriad of other experiences encompassing not just the giddy heights but also the extreme lows, as told first-hand in his inimitable anarchic style, punctuated with photographs, videos and sometimes even erupting into song a cappella, to illustrate a point. The final section of the evening is devoted entirely to the aforementioned question-and-answer session, with the opportunity to pose questions on any subject whatsoever. As Bruce's answers are all completely improvised — the more left-field and quirky the question, the more interesting and compelling the response is likely to be.

Dickinson, who had a golf gall-size tumor on his tongue and another in the lymph node on the right side of his neck, got the all-clear in May 2015 after radiation and nine weeks of chemotherapy.