Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson blames promoters for lack of headliners

Bruce Dickinsonvocalist of Iron Maidencriticized concert promoters in an interview with Bandit Rock (via NME). He reported a conversation he had with a promoter during his last visit to Brazil, when he released his new solo album The Mandrake Project.

According to the artist, the promoter complained about the lack of headliners. Dickinson blamed “big corporations”, which would have “taken everything” to make money and “promote the big headliners, but don’t bring in the bands that create the drama to create the fan base”.

You don’t become a headliner overnight. You become a headliner by playing a lot of shows in a lot of places and when fans and people start following you and suddenly you’re at Wembley Arena thinking, ‘Oh my God, these guys are playing arenas’. And the next step is, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to be headlining a festival.’ And that’s when you enter that world.

Today’s promoters, for Dickinsonare different from those who helped to raise the Iron Maiden the fame. The British band started as special guests at shows in Chicago and New York, for example, and went through a network of promoters until they could headline a city.

Currently, however, bruce points out that promoters “bring bands in the same way”: “You find that the promoters, those individual promoters, were all taking individual risks.”

The singer warned that promoters offer a lot of money to musicians, “but you can’t do anything after that” and become dependent on a single manager. “I may be unfair, but I get the impression that the scene was much more vibrant in terms of upstart bands that could emerge and surprise people,” he added.