I’ve been to the Reading festival twice before-as a punter, though I stayed backstage in the hospitality tent!
I was an accident – my mum was only 16 when she had me.
The mystical poetry of William Blake’s artwork also forms the basis for the album cover.
My son is in a band, and he’s a singer, and his vocals they’re screaming-growling stuff and he’s got a pretty reasonable voice. Yet he practices really hard to get the screaming-growling thing without losing that voice every five minutes. So I’m, like, ‘Hats off to you.’
Anybody auditions for X-Factor it’s because they want to be famous, not because they are artists.
When I was in employment as a regular line pilot, I used to take unpaid leave to go on tour with Iron Maiden. I got lucky – they let me off.
I guess that the salary that they get when they are working with me is, like, it beats working at McDonalds, so it has got some things going for it.
Don’t ask me to put up a shelf, but I love engineering.
With the Internet, bands can come and go every five minutes and the music looks disposable.
A few of these interviews have gone slightly awry, because every now and again there has been the odd conflict of interest between interviews because of the Iron Maiden record, and I am a bit long-winded.
In my teenage years I was put off the idea of a career in flying, because I’d convinced myself that you had to be a boffin with degrees in maths and physics, which were my weakest subjects.
My aim as a frontman is always to try and shrink the venue, if you can, to turn that football stadium into the world’s smallest club. At least you have to try.
If it all just happens like this for the rest of my life, it’s going to be one endless Groundhog Day. I determined that I was not prepared to submit to this regime, so I thought I had to do something about it.
I do like Marylin Manson, actually. I think, he’s very talented and he did make some great music.
Tyranny of freedom is do what you like. There’s a world gone crazy, cause it can’t say no.
South Wales is a hub of aviation.
Major labels blow all their money massively and blame it on the band.
I’m not going to do any more solo touring.
I find that fencing and training give me more stamina and help me deal with the craziness of being on the road so much.
I enjoy making solo albums because over the years it’s evolved into more of a genuine personal expression of story-telling and day dreams, and I work in a way that has more control.