IRON MAIDEN Singer Discusses 'Flight 666' Movie

U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine recently conducted an interview with IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson about "Iron Maiden: Flight 666", the feature-length documentary film which follows the IRON MAIDEN bandmembers on the first leg of their "Somewhere Back In Time World Tour" in February and March of 2008. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Metal Hammer: Film…tour documentaries are small, fan-based kind of thing…but the scale of this thing, it's a completely different beast…was that the intention?

Bruce: I don't know what it was intended to be because the…all we did was be in it.

Metal Hammer: No reservations about the movie?

Bruce: I probably had less than the other guys because I'm used to doing lots of interviews and things like that. Adrian [Smith, guitar] was a little wary but I think he kind of warmed to them because they were nice guys and they did just join in and became part of the crew. So, just as if somebody… we're all arsing around dressed as transvestite Scotsmen wearing Ken Dodd wigs and some of the crew got out their mobiles and started taking pictures, you don't say, "No pictures!" because they're your mates and everyone's having a laugh, so it was actually the same with the documentary crew, which could've been a dangerous thing if they'd decided to fuck us over…but it was their impressions telling the story.

Metal Hammer: The story of the movie is about the fans and their connection with the band, right?

Bruce: I think that is, by and large, the real story of MAIDEN. None of us go around courting celebrity for the sake of it. It is frankly, occasionally useful as a device to get attention for the band but it's only ever used very, very sparingly, even then. So really the story is about the band and the fans, because that's what's created everything. All the media that's been focused on MAIDEN over the last few years would be utterly meaningless if it wasn't for the fans responding to it.

Bruce on the live footage: "Well, they filmed enough of it! What's great is that they just used excerpts. I think there's an amazing atmosphere, and a fucking amazing live DVD that could come out of it. We never allowed anybody… I'm renowned for almost Ritchie Blackmore-esque hatred for cameramen on stage because I find it a real intrusion and you get locked into this fantasy world of music and visions and you're in the middle of being the Ancient Mariner and this fucking bloke's sticking his camera in your face and you just want to deck him. It's like, 'Get out of my dream!' So you really have to know somebody quite well to trust them. If I see McMurtrie's head sticking up above the parapet, I don't throw anything at it these days, but if I didn't know he was I'd murder him! So you really have to trust people who get up on stage with you because it's our little world."

Read more from Metal Hammer.

Professionally filmed video footage of IRON MAIDEN performing the song "Run To The Hills" — taken from "Iron Maiden: Flight 666" — can be viewed below.