The first episode of the second season of “Psycho Schizo Espresso”, a video podcast from IRON MAIDEN‘s Bruce Dickinson and Oxford University psychologist and best-selling author Dr. Kevin Dutton, officially launched on June 8 and can be seen below. During the 45-minute discussion, Dickinson and Dutton touched upon a number of topics, including how Bruce has had a newly discovered species of spider named after him and how a recent study in Finland has shown that heavy metal is good for your mental health.

Speaking about the inclusiveness of the heavy metal community, Dickinson said. “There is definitely a strong sense of community, that’s for sure. And it’s nice because it transcends physical characteristics, it transcends racial characteristics and gender and all the things that we like to segment people and divvy them up. When it comes to heavy metal, nobody is bothered. If you’re a heavy metal fan, it’s just, like, ‘Oh, yeah. You’re a heavy metal fan.’ And if you think differently about something than me, we probably just won’t talk about that thing, but we’ll concentrate on the things that we agree on, which is that we love this music.

“Years ago, I said some quote in an interview, I said, ‘You know what? If heavy metal musicians were running the world, we’d be in a much better state. (Laughs)”

When Dutton asked Dickinson if that is a hint that he intends to one day if go into politics, Bruce responded: “No. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. You’ve got to be kidding. First of all, I’ve got a chin. Most politicians have got no chin, which has got consequences.” Kevin then suggested that Bruce would likely have to cut his hair in order to have a shot at being elected, to which Dickinson replied: “Well… or have no hair. Although, actually, very few people have ever been elected who were bald.”

Back in 2017, Dickinson addressed the fact that his autobiography, “What Does This Button Do?”, contains very few mentions of politics.

“There’s not really anything to say about politics during the period that hasn’t already been said by much more learned commentators than me,” he told Vice. “I’m a musician. Do I have political views? Yes. Is an autobiography a place to put them? No. What that does is that it attaches an inordinate amount of weight and self-importance to your own political viewpoint, which, if people want to hear your political viewpoint, then be a politician. Join a political party or do whatever. Stand up and say, ‘I think you need to hear my political views because I’m especially qualified to tell you why you should do what I think.’ I don’t have any of that special sauce. I’ve got no crystal ball. I’m no expert witness on stuff. If you want to hear about what I think about politics, I’ll tell you, but why does it matter? I’m just one citizen out of millions and I have one vote and so does everyone else. The fact that I’m famous for being a musician or doing whatever, sorry, it’s not enough reason other than salacious curiosity or an attempt to dig up a story which they can then immediately slap down.

“But I would fit somewhere,” he continued. “I’m right of center, but not very far. Put it this way. I’m not a socialist at all but I do believe in a nice humanistic approach to the way society should be run. I think there’s a difference between profit and greed. I think profit is a way of measuring how efficiently a business or a society is being run. Greed is just evidence of its corruption and fecundity. I’m not a fan of greed. For those reasons, some of the Thatcher years were appalling, but at the same time, what happened to the U.K. during those years was transformative. Because at the end of the ’70s, we were toast. The country was washed up. At the end of the ’80s, it was not. In between was a whole other thing, some of which I didn’t agree with, but every politician makes mistakes.

“When you get to the extremes, people exclude people. When you’re somewhere in the middle, people include people. I would agree with some statements. In America, I would be hopeless. I would have one foot in the Democratic camp and one foot in the Republican camp. Because I agree with some Republicans. I agree with some Democrats. Where do I fit? I’m a contrarian. I make up my mind on each individual issue what I think. That’s not necessarily in line with a political party, you know?

Dickinson went on to say that “in the middle is where healthy societies belong. Occasionally when things fail, they need a bit of a shock,” he said. “Hopefully, they will bring things back to the middle. What worries me as a guy who did history at college is looking at history and seeing how, when the middle disintegrates in different societies, how it has always led toward a polarization, which has in turn led to some unpleasant effects. It has happened in Europe on a regular basis. The one place it hasn’t happened, as a matter of fact, is the U.K. We’ve had one dictator, Oliver Cromwell. He lasted longer than he should have done and we got rid of him, and we asked for the king to come back, which may sound strange. But when we brought the king back, we said, ‘You can be the king because we like you, but if we don’t like you, you can’t be the king anymore.’

“We’ve had this weird checks-and-balances things for hundreds of years. The other thing we’ve never had is a written Constitution. As in written, set in stone. I get the impression that written Constitutions always end in tears because they have no possibility to change. It’s all written down and the way you change the Constitutions is so prescriptive and so prohibitive that it never changes. It’s not a living document at all. Its interpretive to an extent but nevertheless it’s still so prescriptive. To me, it feels like a burden.”

Back in 2018, Dickinson told the French news magazine L’Obs that he was “quite relaxed about the idea” of the United Kingdom separating from the European Union, explaining that he thought Brexit would make Britain “more flexible” and that “Brexit actually opens our borders, Brexit opens the United Kingdom to the whole of the world.” Three years later, Bruce, who admitted he voted to leave the EU, told Sky News that Brexit was making it harder for British acts to do tours and concerts in Europe and that the government should be doing more to help.