B - I have actually and funny enough here in England I was at a gig the other night, an Anthrax show here in England, and I was getting accosted by kids that were 18 or 19 years old, who were going on about The Chemical Wedding. I was like this is cool.

E - The last time I saw you was at Jaxx, in Northern Viriginia, which was a great show, but I did notice that there was a trend to fight at every show, from what I read, which I think you probably won most of them, at least that night you hit him pretty good.

B -(Bruce was laughing hysterically) I’m trying to avoid doing that these days.

E - How much of a disappointment would it be for you, if you reached a certain level of popularity, so to speak, and you were just headlining clubs?

B - If were headlining clubs and we were selling out, that’s no disgrace. Because if you ram a club and there’s 1200-1500 people in there or you play a theater and there’s 1500 people in there and it holds 3000, then I guess I would rather play the club. It’s such a tough one to call, because as soon as your into selling out clubs you are moving up, by default you are moving up. Having said that, the whole rock world has downsized. People who were once in arenas the equivalent level of band is now playing a theater of ballroom. So, the whole thing is downsized. As I’ve said before, rock music is no longer the only game in town. There is so much competition from other forms of media, the internet, playstation and everything else. In the seventies and early eighties rock music had it all its own way, there was nothing else to do on a Saturday night other than see a gig and now there is.

E - Speaking of your tour, your support act will be Pink Cream 69, for part of the tour.

B - We’ll be taking out Pink Cream 69, for part of Europe and a band called Killed to This, in England.

E - Who’s decision is this? Is this yours or management’s? Do you have any say so?

B - Absolutely. Ya I do. Pink Cream 69 is actually a pretty popular band in Germany. So, we put them on the bill because it made a lot of sense. And also they have come out with a really good record. The new record "Electrified" is actually a really good record, particularly for Germany and France, where they are fairly well known. In Scandinavia, I think we have a band called Black Shine going out with us, who are a Scandinavian band, who are fairly well known up there and in England we have a band called Killed to This, a pretty modernized sounding band and they are getting great press in Kerrang and Metal Hammer. Again, we look for a band that’s going to add value to the tour, for kids, who’s going to known in the markets that we are playing in and is not going to conflict with what we’re doing musically.

E - Do you have details for America yet?

B - I have an idea of what we may be doing, but unfortunately I can’t really go into it, because if it doesn’t happen I’ll look like an idiot. It’s gonna be February, basically. At the moment, we are looking at February and a package. We’ll be the middle act of a package.

E - So you’ll be playing arenas?

B - I don’t know what it will be. Theaters, Ballrooms or something.

E - Can you tell us what we can expect on tour? Last time I talked to you, you told me that you were gonna be playing a Skunkworks song on the next tour, maybe.

B - Oh yeah, well we're not doing it(laughs). We are gonna have a lot of Chemical Wedding stuff. If we’ve got an hour to play then we have to hit Chemical Wedding real hard. It’s going to be a blinding show. Cause were going to have an hour of wall to wall ripping songs. Of course, we’ll probably finish up with an old Maiden song and tear the roof of the place.

E - Last year you played an hour an a half. If you played three hours, I’d pay extra to see it, if that means anything.

B - If I could played three hours then I’d be doing two shows a week.

E - If you are headlining, like last year, are you going to be incorporating more songs from the different albums?

B - We have set list, at the moment. We are playing something off of every album, except Skunkworks. We’re playing seven songs off of Chemical Wedding.

E - I read during the Lynyrd Skynyrd tour, at one of the shows in England, that Nicko was backstage and said something to offend you.

B - Aw, No. It was just Nicko being himself. I was just like, ok. Thanks.

E - So, there is no ill will?

B - None whatsoever.

E - Tell me about the Lynyrd Skynyrd tour. Was it what you’d thought it was going to be?

B - It was the wrong tour. Nothing against Lynyrd Skynyrd, but it was the wring tour and the wrong audience. However, what it did do was get us out to promote us out everywhere in Europe, so people could see what we were doing and to that extent it worked, cause now we are now doing a 36 show headline tour.

E - Who is someone that you’ve always wanted to play with, like if Brian Johnson quit AC/DC and they said,Bruce will you sing with us. Is there some band that you have always wanted to do a show with?

B - I wouldn’t mind doing a show with Rainbow. Richie Blackmore would be cool.

E - Are there any other bands like, Black Sabbath or AC/DC?

B - Those bands have such characteristic singers. I don’t think I could do anything with AC/DC that Bon Scott has done.

E - Your version of "Sin City" on the Tattooed Millionaire tour was pretty awesome.

B - Yea, there are odd songs like that I could do, but AC/DC they’ve got their own world and the same with Black Sabbath, that’s Ozzy’s planet.

E - Are you planning for Derek Riggs to do any type of future art work.

B - It wasn’t any falling out or anything. It’s just that the William Blake stuff was so appropriate and just so instant and we were just like, wow, it got to be this stuff.

E - What are some bands that you like that may surprise some of your fans, For example, Radiohead or The Cure?

B - Radiohead, Garbage.

E - Are you a big Cure fan?

B - I am not a huge Cure fan.

E - Is there one group that you like that would really surprise us? Do you like KajaGooGoo or Culture Club?

B - (laughs) No I don’t like KajaGooGoo. I kind of like the Cheiftons.

E - The state of metal is coming back. How much do credit do deserve for bringing it back?

B - Wow! I have no idea. I’m just doing what I do. I think that probably a couple of records have come along at a time when people have been looking for a flag pole to stick their flag on and I think the last couple of records have provided it. In many ways The Chemical Wedding tries to unite all the various strands of metal and it seems to have done a very successful job. Ironically, my least successful record, which is Skunkworks, was trying to do exactly the same thing.

E - Skunkworks is probably one of the best records that I own or have ever heard.

B - Skunkworks is a very underrated record. I think people will discover one of these days but just for now, I’m not going to push it down people’s throats.

E - Before I die, maybe you’ll play one of those songs.

B - Yea, ok. (laughs)

E - As far as the Internet is going, do you have any internet broadcasts, DVD’s or anything coming up?

B - We’re just in the process, at Sanctuary . We got a girl doing a new web site for me. We canned the old people, that were doing the web site. Sanctuary is going to have a complete internet shop and what I am planning on doing is trying to do some little special deals. Because, I just went into our storage cave, where we keep all of our equipment and everything, and I realized that I have boxes of old stuff, like photographs, T-shirts, caps from all of the tours I have done. From Balls to Picasso to Alive in studio A. Loads of great shirts and I’m like what are we gonna do with all these shirts. So, what we are thinking of doing is trying to make it available to fans on the internet. We’d put like four T-shirt’s in a package with a signed photograph or something. We’d just do a bulk deal, so people can have classic archived stuff.

E - I have always been curious, financially, how much money did the Accident of Birth tour make?

B - We’re losing money. We’re losing money big ime.

E - How is that possible?

B - It’s simple arithmetic. We got pay the band, bus, road crew, drives, air fares, and yada yada yada. And the outgoings excess the incomings. On the American tour, to the tune of $100,000 dollars.

E - Who picks up that?

B - What happens is that the record company puts up tour support. In the case of CMC, they stumped up $100,000 dollars, but they deducted it from my record deal, or at part of it anyhow. They would put up some of it. In Europe, we have a short fall, at the moment, round about $60,000 dollars and I have to pay for that.

E - That stinks!

B - Yea, That’s just the way it is. If we sell out some of the shows and sell sh*t loads of T-shirts, maybe we can slash that by three quarters, but at the moment we are looking at $60,000 dollars plus.

E - If I was to join Iron Maiden back in 1987 or 1988. How much would someone make per show, per month?

B - That’s very difficult to say, because we weren’t actually paid on that basis. Basically, what happens is you do the tour and you do the albums and at the end of the whole deal, what’s left over at the end of the year is just divvied up.

E - So it’s not as glamorous as it seems. The Rolling Stones make $80 billion a show...

B - (laughs) Forget it. Forget that sh*t. Maiden, is a hard working band and we spent a lot of money on our productions and sometimes we spend so much money that we ended at the end of the tour people have made a decent living out of it, but nobody was like millionaires or bullsh*t like that.

E - From all of the royalties and money you’ve made from Maiden, are you financially set?

B - Certainly, it’s not to the point where I can put my feet up and say, ya know I’ll just go live at the beach. No, I can’t go do that. If I wanted to do that hmm…I probably couldn’t do that even if I wanted to do that. If I wanted to sell my house and sell everything and live in a shack somewhere, yea I could probably live in the beach. But I don’t want to do that, I like living in London. I have three kids to put through school and I’ve got another 12-15 years of that.

E - So you think you going to be music another 12-15 years?

B - NO! I’ll be in music probably until I croak. This is not something that is affected by that. I think even if I’d quit music completely, for any reason, I would only have stopped playing the commercial music game. I wouldn’t stop singing, in actual fact, I’d probably just be learning to play the acoustic guitar better and just being doing acoustic on my own, It’d be fun.

E - I have questions from some fans on the internet.

E - If there was a movie about your life, who would you want to play you?

B - Oh, let me think about this.(a long pause)

E - Bruce Dickinson, speechless?

B - Yea, speechless. Gary Oldman.

E - Do you think Steve Harris released the 12 enhanced, reissued albums on the same day as "The Chemical Wedding". Is there anything to that?

B - They did what? I had no idea.

E - In America they did.

B - Did they. Not a clue mate,I had no idea.

E - Some people in Italy and Australia wanted to know if you were coming their way this year?

B - We are doing a show in Milan, next month. I came very close to going down to Australia, for some promotion, but it didn’t happen. I am very keen to get down there. Maybe next year.

E - How did you learn to sing?

B - I just taught myself.

E - No formal teachings?

B - No.

E - Is there a history of voices in the family tree?

B - My dad use to sing in the choir, but that's it.

E - What's your opinion of the music scene, as side from metal?

B - Um, it's kind of interesting, actually. There's a lot of interesting music wondering around. As I said, the whole thing has kind of down sized. And I think that may actually be very good for music. because, if that means that big commercial corporations take less interest in music, cause there's less obvious money to be made out of it, then I think it will be good for music.

E - How difficult was it to study for your final exams when you had learned that Samson wanted you for their frontman?

B - I must confess I was pretty excited. I just had to try and put this to the back of my mind. Studying for an exam is a bit liking putting a stone in your shoe. It felt good when you took it out, in the end.

E - Was "Return of the King" suppose to be on the American version as well as the Japanese version? Who determines the B-sides?

B - I just gave them those extra tracks. The Japanese always like extra tracks, because they usually get hammered, by imports, from the USA, so we give them extra stuff and they release it a week early.

E - With Adrian only having two songs on The Chemical Wedding was that because his songs were good but the other ones were better?

B - We only wrote three songs together.

E - Is that because of his Psycho Motel commitment.

B - No, it just kind of turnedout this way.

E - You were was flying from gig to gig in the states. Will you be doing this again?

B - Well, it just depends of the routing, the time of year, availability and stuff like that. It’s a purely practical thing. Its a great way of getting some sleep and not bouncing around on the bus. And it also a great way of avoiding drinking too much beer, because you are bored out of your mind.

E - Will Psycho Motel or Tribe of Gypsies be touring with you.

B - Nope!

E - Are there ever plans to have Psycho Motel play with you?

B - Not at the moment. I discussed it with Adrian and we did a tour, Tribe of Gypsies and me, in Japan, and it nearly killed them. Doing two shows back to back is brutal. I think Adrian saw that and said, not for me sir.

E - What was the reaction of the rest of the band when you decided to go heavy?

B - Everybody thought it was great.

E - How does it feel to be the undisputed King of Metal?

B - I’ll take that has a complement. But whether its true or not I have no idea.

E - How do you feel about Marilyn Manson, and what does he think about his bizarre style in the heavy metal society?

B - I kind of like Marilyn Manson. I think Marilyn does what he does with a lot of class. Obviously, Marilyn is like Alice Cooper for this generation and I think he does it very well. Obviously, he’s got a lot of classic influences. His new stuff you can hear T-Rex and Bowie clear as day. But when he borrows stuff, he borrows it very well. He does it very well. It doesn’t sound inappropriate or cheesy. I think he does a pretty good job.

E - What are you religious beliefs?

B - Oh, I believe in everything.

E - Are you a certain denomination?

B - I’m every denomination.

E - I appreciate all of your time and look forward to seeing you on tour.

B - Great. Thanks.