Last year, DREAM THEATER‘s James LaBrie confirmed to Canada’s The Metal Voice that he was asked to try out for the singer position in IRON MAIDEN when Bruce Dickinson left the British heavy metal legends back in 1993. He said: “At the time, we were being looked at to be managed by IRON MAIDEN‘s management. And so, MAIDEN‘s manager Rod Smallwood, at the time, we were playing darts, and he took me aside and he said, ‘What do you think about…?’

“You’ve gotta remember — I was in a very bizarre situation,” he continued. “DREAM THEATER, we had already recorded 1992’s ‘Images And Words’, we were looking for management, we were getting ready to try and set up a tour and get out there. And I remember him saying to me — he takes me aside, and the rest of the guys in DREAM THEATER were there too, playing darts, because we were looking at him for management. And he says, ‘I just wanna throw something at you.’ And he had his assistant with him too — Merck — at the time. And they were both standing there. They were going, ‘What do you think about being the singer with IRON MAIDEN?’ And I said, ‘What? What are we talking about here? I’m confused. Are you not here for the reason that you might start managing DREAM THEATER? Or are you here to get me to become…?’ And I had already recorded the DREAM THEATER album. Can you imagine how bizarre that was?’

LaBrie said: “Anyways, so I just said, ‘No. No way. You know what? I’m gonna tell you the reasons why I’m not going to do this.’ And they said, ‘What’s that?’ And I said, ‘One: DREAM THEATER. That’s it. Period.’ And I said, ‘But if I need to go any further with this, way back when I was 22 years old, I sang for a band called CONEY HATCH for a year. And I walked in as the replacement for another singer named Carl Dixon,’ and I said, ‘and basically what I felt like was a glorified jukebox.’ And I said, ‘Because I came into the band, I was able to sing all that stuff no problem — no problem — but there was never that ‘This is me. And this is what I created.’ It was about, ‘Are you looking at me for who and what I am?’ I don’t think so. And I don’t think you ever will.

“Bruce and I have mutual respect for one another. We’ve met several times. We’ve done several shows. I remember doing the BBC show with him. And there was that mutual respect between the two of us. And I remember just thinking, ‘I’m not gonna get out there and be singing MAIDEN every night — even though I think they’re a great band, and Bruce is a great singer. No, thank you.’ I need to create something that I can say, ‘No, this is what I created from the beginning.’ And we all know, okay, I wasn’t on the first DREAM THEATER album, ‘When Dream And Day Unite’.”

James added: “And the offer to audition for MAIDEN came and went. As fast as it was asked, it was dismissed. And they went, ‘All respect. Totally get it. No problem.’ Boom. And we moved on.”

DREAM THEATER won this year’s ‘Best Metal Performance’ GRAMMY for  the song ‘The Alien‘. The track was featured on the 2021 album “A View From The Top Of The World”.