In a new interview with Sweden’s Bandit Rock radio station, IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson spoke about the lack of rock and metal bands who are able to ascend to an arena-level status to take the place of METALLICA, IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST upon their retirement. He said: “I was with a big promoter in when I was in Brazil last week. I was at Comic Con (CCXP23) in São Paulo launching my upcoming solo album ‘The Mandrake Project’…. So when I was there, one of the big Brazilian promoters was there and I was chatting away to him. And he goes, ‘It’s a real problem for us now, big festivals, promoters.’ He said, ‘There aren’t any headliners.’ You can count the headliners on the fingers of one hand, people who are capable of — you put them at the top of the bill and people say, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll go and see that.’ And, unfortunately, the reason for that, I believe, is the big corporations took everything over, and they’re interested in making money, so they propagate the big headliners, but they don’t bring on the bands that create the drama to create the fanbase, to create the dedication to bring it up. Because you don’t become a headliner overnight. You become a headliner by doing loads of gigs at loads of places and fans and people follow you and all of a sudden you’re at Wembley Arena and you’re thinking, ‘Oh my god, these guys are playing arenas. And the next step up from arenas is, ‘Oh, they’re gonna go and headline a festival. Oh, yeah, great. They’re a festival headliner.’ And at that moment you go take a step up into that world.”

Bruce continued: “In the USA, for example, when I was first touring with MAIDEN, all the arena shows we’d do, and we were like special guests or something else like that. But that’s the point — we were special guests on a three-act bill, building a band in Chicago. And it would be one promoter who did Chicago, and there’d be another one that did New York, and there’d be another one that… And the promoters in all those places would go, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna bring you back in. We’re gonna do this show with you. And then we’re gonna do this. And we’re gonna build you in Chicago. And we’ll build you up to the point where you’re gonna headline that place. And then when the reaction is, like, really cool, we’ll bring you back and we’ll headline something double the size.’ And every promoter would do that for bands. And then, unfortunately, fortunately — I mean, we get paid a huge amount of money by Live Nation — but what they don’t do is really bring on bands in the same way. You have to figure out that promoters, those individual promoters, were all taking individual risks. So they’d promote one show and they’d lose their shirt. And then they’d promote another show and go, ‘Oh, we made some money this week. That’s fantastic.’ So you can see the temptation when along comes — I don’t know where the money comes from, a hedge fund or something or whatever, venture capital, I don’t care. But you can see the temptation when somebody comes along and goes, ‘We’d like to buy your thing that you do in New York or Chicago or wherever, and we’re gonna give you a shitload of money. But the deal is, you can’t do anything after that. You’re kind of gonna work for us a little bit or just take a holiday, ’cause we’re gonna run the show from now on.’ And they just kind of hoovered everything up. I mean, they were smart businessmen. But artistically, for the health of the live scene, I think it was troubling. I mean, I may be unfair, but I get the impression that the scene was much more vibrant in terms of upstart bands that could come up and surprise people. And the other thing as well, which I think has, sadly diminished is the number of small venues where bands can just get up and do a gig. And that diminishes the grass roots of people who go out and go, ‘Oh, my God. I went to a live gig the other day. Whoa, it was cool. It was so much better than sitting in front of a screen.’ … And you’ve just got to have the places to do that.”

Elaborating on the need for the music industry to do more to support small venues for local and touring acts, Dickinson said: “I mean, there’s an argument in London at the moment, that somebody’s, they’re gonna try and build the Sphere venue, like in Las Vegas. I mean, what a waste of time. A waste of time, waste of money. You’d be much better off converting half a dozen old pubs into venues and saying to kids, ‘Hey, there’s a free venue. Go play.'”

Award-winning independent publisher Z2 has collaborated with Bruce Dickinson for an original comic series tied to his upcoming solo album “The Mandrake Project”, being released by BMG on March 1, 2024. “Bruce Dickinson’s The Mandrake Project” #1 arrives in comic shops and at Z2comics.com on January 17, 2024. The 12-issue limited series is an epic saga of opposing forces battling to use the powers of science and magic to gain control of immortality. It’s a story developed by Bruce over the last decade, and “The Mandrake Project” is brought to life through his creative partnership with iconic team of creators — including script by Tony Lee (“Doctor Who”, Marvel, DC),art by Staz Johnson (Marvel, DC), lettering by Troy Peteri (“Amazing Spider-Man”, “Witchblade”),coloring by Gabo (DC, Image), covers by multiple Eisner winner Bill Sienkiewicz (“Moon Knight”, “New Mutants”). Edited by Eisner and Harvey winner Rantz A. Hoseley, “Bruce Dickinson’s The Mandrake Project” 12-issue comic series is a vital component of Bruce‘s narrative and music experience. The excitement kicked off with the release of the single “Afterglow Of Ragnarok” on December 1, which contained an eight-page comic prologue, followed by the release of the first issue of the comic to retail shops on January 17.

Z2 is making 666 editions of “Bruce Dickinson’s The Mandrake Project” signed bundles available to fans. This uniquely curated collection comes with one (1) “The Mandrake Project” foil collector’s card, signed by Bruce Dickinson; one (1) felt trading card pouch; one (1) “Bruce Dickinson’s The Mandrake Project” issue No. 1; one (1) “The Mandrake Project” first printing certificate of authenticity; one (1) Bill Sienkiewicz-illustrated “The Mandrake Project” art print and will be sold as a set for $100 USD, only at Z2comics.com.

“The Mandrake Project” events continue with a comic preview inserted in the special deluxe CD version of the album with promotional appearances for the comic series as well as extensive worldwide touring through 2025.

“Early in the process of writing my new album, the idea of a companion comic book began to take shape in my mind,” says Dickinson. “So I approached Z2 who were recommended to me by Kurt Sutter (‘Sons Of Anarchy’, ‘The Shield’) and Sacha Gervasi (‘My Dinner With Hervé’, ‘Anvil! The Story Of Anvil’). I then found out that my management were already working with Z2 on the ‘Piece Of Mind’ MAIDEN graphic novel which I contributed the ‘Revelations’ story to! I then pitched them with a fully formed concept and written storyline which they immediately understood and enthusiastically started fleshing out plans and ideas with me! I knew right then that they would be the perfect creative team to help bring my own ideas to fruition…and here they are!”

Editor-in-chief Rantz A. Hoseley puts the series in context: “Z2‘s model has always rested firmly in the graphic novel space, but when we sat down with Bruce and discussed the story of ‘The Mandrake Project’, and the experience that he wanted the readers to have with it, we realized two very important things: first, that this was a story that we had to be a part of. It reminded us of reading the iconic titles from Vertigo. The second realization was that ‘The Mandrake Project’ had to be released as a comic series and, as anyone in comics knows, releasing a series is a different animal.”

“Since Rantz and I come from the same comic shop trenches,” adds Z2 president Josh Bernstein, “we made sure that our comic retailers feel supported and that they have great partners in Z2 and Bruce Dickinson. It’s our hope that the efforts of making the free pullbox preview available to stores, giving retailers the PDF of the first issue before they order, clearly conveying the release schedule and plans for the next two years, as well as making the first issue returnable, make it clear that we place immense value on comic shops in measuring the success of Bruce Dickinson‘s ‘The Mandrake Project’.”