Classic heavy metal band Iron Maiden have had quite a good year just pass by. Their latest double album Senjutsu (which apparently means “tactics and strategy“) was released last September and was their first album in almost six years. It reached number one in 23 countries, ranging from Germany to Italy and Switzerland, and reached number 3 on the Billboard 200 Chart in the US.
Senjutsu received a swathe of positive reviews, appearing in numerous best albums of the year lists. However, there’s still one point of soreness for the band. The album narrowly missed a number one spot in the UK, being up against Canadian rapper Drake’s album Certified Lover Boy, which beat the heavy metal outfit by a narrow 1,200 units.
Despite the apparent loss, Iron Maiden’s lead singer Bruce Dickinson seems to have lost no faith in his band’s latest release, having this to say about Drake: “I don’t really get what he does, though a lot of people do, but going head to head with him felt like, ‘No this is real music played by a bunch of old geezers who make no concessions to the times in which we live’. Seemingly sensitive to accusations of a ‘generation gap’ kind of thing going on here, Dickinson explained that “People say. ‘You’re dinosaurs.’ And we go, ‘Yeah and there aren’t too many of those left.’ This is who we are, it’s what we do.”
Dickinson seems quite proud of Iron Maiden’s rather old school approach to rock stardom, speaking recently on Anders Bøtters Tiny TV (a Denmark-based YouTube channel that interviews musical artists) where he noted the band’s lack of social media involvement in terms of growing their fan base, instead actually going out to people and playing for them.
The singer compared the band’s fans to a table, saying “Iron Maiden fans are a little bit like plywood — we get a new layer every year, and they all just stick together, so eventually we get a table that’s, like, ten feet thick… And, of course, we’ve got people that started in 1983, ’84, and we’ve got people that started in the year 2000, 2005, 2015 — generations and generations.”
So there you have it. If you fancy joining the ever-growing legion of Iron Maiden fans out there, you can make a start by purchasing their latest album right here. Also, they’ll be embarking on a new ‘Legacy of the Beast’ world tour later this year, with tour dates ranging from May to October on their website. If you’re interested in tickets, you can look here.
30 shows added to an updated Legacy of the Beast 2022 world tour in America, Canada, Mexico & Europe!
Critically acclaimed show to be even more spectacular with the addition of a whole new world around Senjutsu.
Get all the information > https://t.co/ngxxmcoSK0#IronMaiden pic.twitter.com/MZ6gyjTsff
— Iron Maiden (@IronMaiden) December 1, 2021
