Iron Maiden received excellent commercial and critical reception with Senjutsu , so much so that it even competed for the top spot on the charts with one of the biggest phenomena in music today: rapper Drake , who also released the album Certified Lover Boy on September 3rd.
In a recent interview with Yahoo , Bruce Dickinson commented on his satisfaction at seeing Iron Maiden still relevant after so many decades in the business, especially for having built a worldwide fanbase in times without the internet or social media.
“We went head-to-head with Drake the week the album was released. I don’t really understand what he does, even though a lot of people do, but competing against him gave me a feeling of ‘No, this is real music played by a bunch of old guys who don’t compromise with the times we live in’,” said the vocalist. “People say, ‘You guys are dinosaurs.’ We reply, ‘Yes. And there aren’t many of those left.’ That’s who we are and that’s what we do.”
Regarding the building of their loyal fan base, Dickinson is proud of how Iron Maiden won over audiences. “Generally, our audience has stuck with us. The Maiden audience is like a table made of plywood; every year you add a new layer and it gets bigger and bigger. We grew organically – not through social media or anything like that. We grew by going out and performing in front of people,” he concluded.