Bruce Dickinson took a chance nearly three decades ago by quitting Iron Maiden and clearly it worked out just fine.
Dickinson joined Iron Maiden in 1981 and quit in 1993. He put out four of his six solo albums between 1993 and his return to Iron Maiden in 1999, where he's been ever since. Dickinson said in a recent live Q&A that he wasn't expecting to quit back then, but did it so he'd be taken seriously in his musical endeavors outside of the band.
"Honestly, I was as surprised as anybody else. I don't think people really believed that at the time. I just thought that if I stayed with Maiden forever, all I would learn about was what it was like to be in Maiden. And in order to learn what it was like outside Maiden, you have to leave, because, unless you left, nobody would take anything that you did seriously.
"It would always be, like, 'Oh, bless him. He's doing a solo record. Let him have his fun and then he can go back to being in Iron Maiden.' I hated that. So I thought, 'Fuck it. I'll just leave.' And [people said], 'What happens if your [solo] career doesn't work out.' And I said better [to chance it] now and do something else with your life than sit there somewhere in fantasy world and end up just grumpy."
Dickinson is currently working on his first new solo album since Tyranny Of Souls in 2005. He said in an interview that he's working on the follow-up to Tyranny Of Souls with collaborator Roy 'Z' Ramirez and has "between 50 and 70 percent of the material for the album."
Shout out to The Metal Voice for the video.
