Iron Maiden’s Retirement Plan: “We Will Probably Drop Dead Onstage”

It’s almost surreal that 1975 was 47 years ago, but that’s how long Iron Maiden have been around, and although the band is certainly old enough to hang up their instruments and call it a career, Bruce Dickinson revealed in a conversation with Full Metal Jackie that retirement is likely not in the band’s future.

Here’s what Bruce had to say, as transcribed by Blabbermouth:

“We’re not planning to retire at all, really. I think we’ll probably drop dead onstage. I can think of worse places to drop dead. But no, we’re not planning on retiring. We’re all still firing away [with] loads of energy and loads of enthusiasm, so I can’t wait to get back together [with the other guys to start rehearsing for the upcoming tour].

“With respect to our fans, we’ve got generations of fans now. Even at [my] spoken-word shows, I can crack jokes about the age of the audience only because half the audience is, like, my age, but the other half of the audience is often way, way younger. So it’s brilliant. We’ve got this whole intergenerational thing going. And, obviously, at the maiden shows, it’s even bigger, the emphasis on that. And huge numbers of women. It’s fantastic. ‘Cause it always used to be cliché, back when I was starting in the early ’80s, that heavy metal was just, like, misogynist, male-dominated stuff… But no, it’s not true. There’s loads and loads of heavy metal fans who are girls.”

It’s a safe to say that pretty much everyone is cool with Maiden never retiring. When you’ve been around for 47 years and have 17 albums to your name, no one can really blame you if the music starts to flame out a bit, but it never happened to Maiden, and we’re happy to have them play for as long as they damn well please.

You can check out the entire conversation below: