BRUCE DICKINSON Really Appreciates Every Day After His Cancer Battle

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson, who was diagnosed with throat cancer back in late 2014, spoke about how his battle with the disease changed his outlook on life. He said: "I really appreciate every day, but that means that every day I have to do something, even if it's consciously doing nothing — at least do something consciously. When I did my series of one-man shows around the States almost two years ago, I made up as a T-shirt that said, 'Life is better than all the other options.' And if I had a mantra to live by, that would be it.

"I'm lucky that I can still sing," the 65-year-old British born musician, who is promoting his just-released solo album "The Mandrake Project", added. "So if I can somehow do anything that entertains people, makes people think more, feel more, do more things, then I'm doing something good. I'm big into trying to make people feel things now rather than being impressed with myself and going, 'Oh, look at me.' It's actually, 'No, no. Look at you.' If you can manage to listen to an album during 58 minutes of your life that you'll never get back again, it's a musical and emotional journey. That was really important to me because it's something that I never achieved explicitly ever with any band, including IRON MAIDEN. In IRON MAIDEN, the music does move people, but in a slightly different way. The emotions are slightly different. With this one, I've got a bigger palette to paint from.”

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 33 radiation sessions and nine weeks of chemotherapy.

Dickinson previously spoke about his recovery during the question-and-answer portion of his January 2022 spoken-word show in Orlando, Florida. Asked what advice he would give to anyone getting ready to start their own battle against cancer, he responded: "Here's the way I dealt with it… And people will deal with it in different ways. I embraced the treatment. So I went along to see the big radiation machine and I said, 'Okay, how does this work then? What does it do? And how much are you giving me and where? And how are you making a difference between this one and this one and this one? And you can do what with it? Wow, that's really cool. That's amazing. It's insane, the technology.'"

He continued: "I would say embrace the treatment and always remember the [likelihood]… I don't know what your cancer is. I don't know the individual circumstances. I'm not a doctor, so I'm not gonna make any predictions. I can't do anything like that, nor would I, 'cause it's very private. But I have to say that the therapies that people are coming up with now are so on the edge and successful that you really do stand a very good chance. 'Cause half of us are gonna get cancer, and it's not a death sentence anymore, and you can deal with it. And the things they have to do to your body to get rid of it are getting better and better and better as we go down the line. They did some nasty things to my body. I'm lucky I'm completely clear of it and everything.

"I only really talk about it when I come to do these shows 'cause people want to know," Bruce added. "I quite enjoy talking about it because you kind of demystify it a little bit for people. It's a scary thing."

Approximately 39.2 percent of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer of any site at some point during their lifetime, based on 2016–2018 data.

According to Healthline, the cancer death rate in the United States dropped by about a third (32 percent) from its peak in 1991 to 2019 — from about 215 deaths for every 100,000 people to about 146. Much of the reduction is due to the progress made against lung cancer, which remains the leading cause of cancer death in the country.

Bruce previously told iNews that he wanted to cover his cancer battle in his 2017 autobiography, "What Does This Button Do?", to raise awareness of the condition, which affects people who often have no or minimal history of tobacco or alcohol abuse. The individuals with HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer who undergo treatment have a disease-free survival rate of 85 to 90 percent over five years.

During an appearance on the Swedish TV show "Malou Efter Tio", Dickinson spoke about how his singing voice has changed following his cancer diagnosis nine years ago.

"[It's] a little bit different," he said. "Two things are slightly different. One is my saliva, which obviously lubricates your throat a little bit, is a bit less than it used to be. Although, back ten years ago, if I had the same cancer, I wouldn't be making any saliva. But now, I'm probably 70 percent, which is great. Thanks very much, everybody upstairs. [Laughs] And the other things is that I think that the shape of possibly the back of my tongue, which forms vowel sounds and things like that, might have changed shape slightly, because, obviously, it had a big lump in it, and the lump's gone. So maybe the surface has changed shape. So I notice a few differences. Funnily enough, the top end of my voice is maybe even a little bit better than it was before. [Laughs]"

Dickinson said that he was given "the all-clear" by his specialists following an MRI scan after a course of chemotherapy and radiology.

"I was amazed," he said. "My cancer was a 3.5-centimeter tumor in my throat and a 2.5-centimeter one in my lymph node, and that was the one that I could feel — that was the secondary one. But I did 33 sessions of radiation and nine weeks of chemo at the same time, which is fairly standard therapy for it. And it was gone. And I said to my oncologist: 'What do you mean it's gone? Where has it gone?' And he said, 'Well, your body just gets rid of it.' A body is an amazing thing."

"The Mandrake Project" is being released today (Friday, March 1) via BMG. Bruce and his long-term co-writer and producer Roy "Z" Ramirez recorded the LP largely at Los Angeles's Doom Room, with Roy Z doubling up as both guitarist and bassist. The recording lineup for "The Mandrake Project" was rounded out by keyboard maestro Mistheria and drummer Dave Moreno, both of whom also featured on Bruce's previous solo studio album, "Tyranny Of Souls", in 2005.