Bruce Dickinson Hopes For ‘Tea Break’ in Long Iron Maiden Song
Bruce Dickinson said he was looking forward to taking a "tea break” during performances of Iron Maiden's new song “The Parchment,” if it becomes part of their live shows.
No details have been revealed regarding tour dates in association with the band's latest album Senjutsu, but Dickinson mentioned the track during a discussion about why Iron Maiden have become associated with writing extended compositions. Only three of the new LP's 10 songs are shorter than seven minutes in length, while three are longer than 10 minutes.
Dickinson told SiriusXM that he and Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris were “partially responsible” for the epic-length works.
“Steve is a big fan of prog, as am I," Dickinson said. "Steve, for example, is a big fan of Jethro Tull. I'm also a big fan of Jethro Tull. He loves A Passion Play and Think As A Brick. I’m more Aqualung and the early stuff.”
Harris is also a “big Genesis fan, the Peter Gabriel Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, he loves all that," Dickinson said. "I’m not crazy about Genesis, but I loved Peter Gabriel's, I think it was his third solo album. And there was a band called Van der Graf Generator, who were contemporaries of Genesis, and in a way, they were even a bit more out there than Genesis. Well, I loved them. And I borrowed bits of Peter Hammill, their vocalist's vocal style.
"So we both have this prog thing spinning around our heads," Dickinson added, "along with Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple, [Black] Sabbath."
Dickinson more recently added Judas Priest to his list of influences, adding that he hadn’t thought much of them until a shared tour. “I went, 'Wow, they do some really cool stuff!’” Dickinson recalled. “So, those are all the kind of influences that are pinging around that end up with us doing all these great long songs.”
None is longer on Senjutsu than “The Parchment,” which clocks in at a hefty 12:39. "It's almost like self-hypnosis listening to that – it really is,” Dickinson mused. Should the track find a home on a reworked Iron Maiden set list, he joked that it would provide an opportunity to take a lengthy break from the mic.
“I'll be round the back having a glass of non-alcoholic water,” Dickinson said. “I get a five-and-a-half-minute tea break in the middle of ‘The Parchment!’”
Listen to Iron Maiden’s ‘The Parchment’