Bruce Dickinson

Bruce Dickinson biography

Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, airline pilot, fencer, broadcaster, author, screenwriter, actor and former marketing director, best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden.

Dickinson began his career in music fronting small pub bands at school and University, including Styx (not the American band of the same name) in 1976, Speed, (1977-1978), and Shots in early 1979. He then joined the band Samson later in 1979, where he gained some popularity under the stage name, "Bruce Bruce." He left Samson in 1981 to join Iron Maiden as their new vocalist, replacing Paul Di'Anno, and debuting on their 1982 album The Number of the Beast. During his first tenure in the band, they issued a series of high impact releases, resulting in Dickinson gaining worldwide fame, and becoming one of the most acclaimed heavy metal vocalists of all time.

Dickinson quit Iron Maiden in 1993 in order to pursue his solo career, being replaced by Blaze Bayley, which saw him experiment with a wide variety of heavy metal and rock styles. Dickinson rejoined Iron Maiden in 1999 along with guitarist Adrian Smith, and with whom they have gone on to release four further studio albums. Since then, Dickinson has only released one more solo record, Tyranny of Souls. He is the older cousin of Rob Dickinson, former lead singer of British alternative rock band Catherine Wheel. His son, Austin, is the lead singer in metalcore band Rise to Remain. On 19 July 2011, Dickinson was presented with an honorary music doctorate from Queen Mary College, in honour of his contribution to the music industry.

Childhood

Paul Bruce Dickinson was born in the small mining town of Worksop, Nottinghamshire. His mother Sonia worked part-time in a shoe shop and his father Bruce was a mechanic in the army. Dickinson's birth hurried the young couple, then just teenagers, into marriage. Initially, he was brought up by his grandparents; his grandfather was a coal-face worker at the local colliery and his grandmother was a housewife. This is referred to in his song "Born In '58" from the album Tattooed Millionaire.

Dickinson started school at Manton Primary in Worksop while his parents moved away to Sheffield. Soon afterwards, when he was six, he was also despatched to Sheffield, where he attended "a notoriously tough local primary school" called Manor Top. After six months, his parents decided to move him to a small private school called Sharrow Vale Junior. Of this period he recalls, "I'm sort of quite grateful for the fact that I didn't have what you would think of as a conventionally sort of happy, uncomplicated childhood. It made me very self-reliant. I grew up in an environment where it struck me that the world was never gonna do you any favours ... And I had very few close friends, because ... I never really met anybody for that long. I was always moving." Dickinson has a younger sister named Helena who was born in 1963. He tried to isolate himself from her as much as he could when he was young, supposedly out of spite because she, unlike him, was a planned pregnancy and birth.

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