IRON MAIDEN Singer: 'I Try To Avoid Listening To Music'

IRON MAIDEN frontman Bruce Dicksinson was interviewed by Sarah Montague of BBC's television progam "HARDtalk", about his decision to launch an aircraft maintenance business, Cardiff Aviation Ltd, which will be based at the Twin Peaks Hangar at St Athan, Vale of Glamorgan in Wales, United Kingdom. Dickinson, a qualified commercial pilot, and his company are leasing the 132,000 square-foot hangar from the Welsh government.

Two separate preview clips from "HARDtalk" are available for watching by following the links below:

* Bruce on how the UK government needs to be "courageous" in offering tax breaks for entrepreneurs (video)
* Bruce on how he, despite having spent over 30 years playing at sell-out tours, avoids listening to music and prefers speech radio (video)

When asked what he listens to when he is not busy performing and recording with IRON MAIDEN, Dickinson said, "I watch speech and documentaries and things like that. Music, I try to avoid listening to music unless I really, really, really consciously want to listen to music. I've been listening to music all the time. I prefer to either think it up or create it or do it on a piano or something. Every now and again you hear something and you sort of go, 'Hmmmm… That was nice. Who's that?' So I have to ask my kids. 'By the way, who's that?'"

On the topic of whether he has ever felt that IRON MAIDEN should update its formula and mature its image, Dickinson said, "Mature our image? Why? Inside this 53-year-old exterior — 54 in August — is a 17-year-old. Actually, probably mental age, probably slightly younger. But that's the core of why you do this thing. When you're a kid and you experience something that makes you feel, 'Wow, walking on air.' The first song you write, the first experiences, you have to ringfence those and guard them against what I can describe as the cynicism of the world, because the world eats into people and destroys those hopes and those dreams and things like that. And it's those things that people call childish, those are the things, actually, that motivate us and that keeps our creativity precious; that's what's inside people, and they lose it at their peril. I've seen people that have lost it, and it's really sad. So when I say I listen to [talk radio channel] Radio 4, it's not because I hate the Western world of music, it's just because I've got the confidence that I've got this little thing inside me, and if I see something and spot something and go, 'That's brilliant. I love that,' I know it's real."

You can watch the full interview on BBC World News on Monday, May 28 at 03:30, 08:30, 15:30 and 20:30 GMT and on the BBC News Channel on Monday, May 28 at 00:30 BST and on Tuesday, May 29 at 04:30 BST.

Cardiff Aviation will maintain airliners and other large aircraft for major and independent airlines. It will also have facilities to complete the full range of ancillary aircraft maintenance and training activities and has the expertise and approvals to certify aircraft from many jurisdictions, including the USA.