For the football team, see Rangers FC. For the annual GERS report, see Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland.

Gers
—  Department  —
Flag Coat of arms
Location of the Gers in France
Coordinates: 43°39′N 0°35′E / 43.65°N 0.583°E / 43.65; 0.583Coordinates: 43°39′N 0°35′E / 43.65°N 0.583°E / 43.65; 0.583
Country	France
Region	Midi-Pyrénées
Prefecture	Auch
Subprefectures	Condom Mirande
Government
• President of the General Council	Philippe Martin (PS)
Area1
• Total	6,257 km2 (2,416 sq mi)
Population (1999)
• Total	172,335
• Rank	89th
• Density	28/km2 (71/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Department number	32
Arrondissements	3
Cantons	31
Communes	463
^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km2

The Gers (French: le Gers, Gascon: Gers, pronounced: [ʒɛʁs] or [ʒɛʁ]) is a department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in the southwest of France named after the Gers River.

Inhabitants are called les Gersois or Gersoises.

History[link]

In the Middle Ages, the Lordship of L'Isle-Jourdain was nearby.

The Gers is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne and Gascony.

In 1808 it lost Lavit on its the north-eastern side to the newly created department of Tarn-et-Garonne.

Culture[link]

The culture is largely agricultural, with great emphasis on the local gastronomical specialties such as:

• Armagnac brandy,
• Côtes de Gascogne,
• Floc de Gascogne,
• foie gras,
• and wild mushrooms.

Also, some prominent cultivated crops are corn, colza, sunflowers and grain.

The Gascon language is a dialect of Occitan, but it is not widely spoken.The department is characterised by sleepy bastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south.

Alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersois d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer of The Three Musketeers. A museum to d'Artagnan is found in the Gersois village of Lupiac.

A horse race at the Auteuil Hippodrome has been named after André Boingnères, a notable local race-horse owner and the successful mayor of Termes-d'Armagnac between 1951 and 1976.

Politics[link]

The President of the General Council is Philippe Martin of the Socialist Party.

Geography and demography[link]

Located in southwestern France, the Gers is part of the Midi-Pyrénées region. It is surrounded by the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, Landes, and Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The Gers is often referred to as amongst the least densely populated, or most rural, areas in all of Western Europe.

List of the 10 most important cities of the département:

Climate[link]

The annual rain varies from more than 900 mm in the south-west of the department, to less than 700 mm in the North-East (Auch, Condom, Lectoure).

The winters vary, with only occasional freezing temperatures, but the climate remains mild and dry, the departement is one of sunniest in France.

The summers are very hot and dry, the temperatures often is exceeding 40°. Auch is together with Toulouse and Millau one of the hottest cities of France, with often more than 300 sunny days in the year.

Tourism[link]

According to recent data tourism represents annually:

• 610 000 tourists,
• 5.900.000 nights,
• 22.100 commercial beds,
• 2 400 paid employment related to tourism,
• the tourist represent an equivalent of 17.100 permanent inhabitants,
• their estimated expenditure is 141.000.000 €.

See also[link]

• Cantons of the Gers department
• Communes of the Gers department
• Arrondissements of the Gers department

External links[link]

• (French) General Council website
• (French) Prefecture website
• (French) Good Website on Gascony and the Gers
• (French) http://www.gers-gascogne.com/fr/default.asp
• Welcome to the Gers in Gascony http://www.tourisme-gers.com/gers-vacances/uk/home.asp
• (French) Gers net - Moteur de recherche gersois.

Guus Meeuwis
Background information
Born	(1972-03-23) 23 March 1972 (age 40) Mariahout, Netherlands
Genres	Pop
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1995-present
Associated acts	Vagant
Website	http://www.guusmeeuwis.com/

Gustaaf Stephanus Modestus "Guus" Meeuwis (born Mariahout, 23 March 1972) is a Dutch singer and songwriter. As part of the band Vagant, he scored several hits in the Netherlands and Flanders during the '90s and first decade of the 2000s.

Biography[link]

Guus Meeuwis was born at a monastery in Mariahout, a small village in the municipality of Laarbeek where his parents were living temporarily. He attended Stella Maris College, and went on to study jurisprudence in Tilburg. It quickly became apparent that Meeuwis was musically talented while at school. Following a romantic weekend in Bruges with his girlfriend Valérie he wrote the song Het is een Nacht ("It is a Night"), with which, in 1994, he won a prize at the AHC-Studentensongfestival in Leiden. He and his backing band were awarded a record contract, under the name "Guus Meeuwis & Vagant", after a café they frequented. Marc Meeuwis, Jan Willem Rozenboom, Hugo van Bilsen, Robin van Beek en Dirk Oerlemans. At the end of 2001 the group decided to split and Meeuwis continued on as a solo artist.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Live Albums[link]

Compilation albums[link]

Singles[link]

External links[link]

• (Dutch) Guus Meeuwis official website

Janick Gers
Janick Gers at Ottawa Bluesfest 2010
Background information
Born	(1957-01-27) 27 January 1957 (age 55) Hartlepool, England
Genres	Heavy metal, progressive rock, hard rock
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Guitar
Years active	1975–present
Labels	EMI
Associated acts	White Spirit, Gillan, Gogmagog, Bruce Dickinson, Fish, Iron Maiden
Notable instruments
Fender Stratocaster

Janick Robert Gers ( /ˈjænɪk ˈɡərz/; born 27 January 1957 in Hartlepool, England) is an English musician, best known for being one of the three current guitarists in Iron Maiden, along with Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, as well as his earlier work with Gillan and White Spirit.

Career and Personal Life[link]

Janick Gers began his career as the lead guitarist of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal band White Spirit, before joining Gillan, a group formed by former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan.^[1] After Gillan disbanded, Gers undertook a Humanities degree before joining Gogmagog, which included former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di'Anno and drummer Clive Burr.^[2] The project came to nothing,^[2] however, and Gers went on to work with Marillion vocalist Fish before being asked to record a song called "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter" with Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson.^[3] The project expanded into an album, Tattooed Millionaire,^[3] and during its recording Gers was asked to join Iron Maiden in place of Adrian Smith.^[1] He has remained with the band ever since, even after Smith rejoined the band in 1999,^[4] contributing to a total of eight studio albums.

Gers' main influences are Ritchie Blackmore, Jeff Beck and Irish blues guitarist Rory Gallagher.^[5] He is noted for his energetic stage presence,^[6] which often involves performing tricks with his guitar, such as throwing it into the air and catching it.^[7] He is also left-handed although he plays guitar right-handed; he can be seen signing autographs with his left hand in the Rock in Rio DVD.

He has two children with his wife Sandra, Sian and Dylan Gers,^[8] and lives in Yarm, Teesside.^[9] His father, Bolesław,^[10] was an officer of the Polish Navy before he came to England and joined the Royal Navy.^[11]

Gers had an uncredited part in the BBC drama The Paradise Club in 1990, appearing as the lead guitarist of a band called Fraud Squad.^[12] He appeared in the 2010 fan-made Iron Maiden documentary Maiden Heaven.

Musical equipment[link]

Gers is a long-time proponent of the Fender Stratocaster. His guitars are typically black or white with rosewood fingerboards and Seymour Duncan JB Jr. and Hot Rails pickups.^[7][13] His favourite guitar over the years has been a black Stratocaster, equipped with JB Jr. pickups,^[13] which was given to him by Ian Gillan.^[14] Gers uses four different Fender Stratocasters, as well as a Gibson Chet Atkins semi-acoustic model for songs such as "Dance of Death".^[15] Gers is currently endorsed by Sandberg Guitars, and he uses a California ST-S tobacco hc-aged and a California ST-S creme hc-aged model on stage.^[16]

Like his bandmates, Dave Murray^[17] and Adrian Smith,^[18] Gers currently uses the Marshall JMP-1 preamp through a Marshall 9200 power amp.^[19][20] Preferring not to use foot-switches while playing, Gers' roadie operates his MIDI Foot Controller offstage.^[19] Favouring cables, Gers only uses a Shure UR4D wireless system when he throws his guitar around.^[20] He uses Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Nickel-wound guitar strings, although he does not use the B strings.^[14]

Discography[link]

Iron Maiden Main article: Iron Maiden discography 1990: No Prayer for the Dying 1992: Fear of the Dark 1995: The X Factor 1998: Virtual XI 2000: Brave New World 2003: Dance of Death 2006: A Matter of Life and Death 2010: The Final Frontier

White Spirit 1980: White Spirit Gillan 1981: Double Trouble 1982: Magic Gogmagog 1985: I Will Be There EP Fish 1990: Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors Bruce Dickinson Main article: Bruce Dickinson discography 1990: Tattooed Millionaire Ian Gillan 2006: Gillan's Inn

Gers (right) performing with Adrian Smith and Dave Murray in Costa Rica.

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Iron Maiden portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Janick Gers

• Janick Gers at the Internet Movie Database
• Iron Maiden's official website

Bruce Dickinson
Bruce Dickinson performing live in Costa Rica on the Somewhere Back in Time World Tour, 26 February 2008.
Background information
Birth name	Paul Bruce Dickinson
Also known as	"Bruce Bruce" Dickinson (in Samson years)
Born	(1958-08-07) 7 August 1958 (age 53) Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England
Genres	Heavy metal, hard rock
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter, author, pilot, marketing director, screenwriter, actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1976–present
Labels	EMI, Sanctuary
Associated acts	Iron Maiden, Samson, Tribe of Gypsies, Ayreon, Godspeed
Website	www.screamforme.com

Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, airline pilot, fencer, broadcaster, author, screenwriter, actor and former marketing director, best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden.

Dickinson began his career in music fronting small pub bands at school and University, including Styx (not the American band of the same name) in 1976, Speed, (1977–1978), and Shots in early 1979. He then joined the band Samson later in 1979, where he gained some popularity under the stage name, "Bruce Bruce." He left Samson in 1981 to join Iron Maiden as their new vocalist, replacing Paul Di'Anno, and debuting on their 1982 album The Number of the Beast.^[1] During his first tenure in the band, they issued a series of high impact releases,^[2] resulting in Dickinson gaining worldwide fame, and becoming one of the most acclaimed heavy metal vocalists of all time.

Dickinson quit Iron Maiden in 1993 in order to pursue his solo career, being replaced by Blaze Bayley, which saw him experiment with a wide variety of heavy metal and rock styles. Dickinson rejoined the band in 1999 along with guitarist Adrian Smith, with whom he released four subsequent studio albums. Since his return to Iron Maiden, Dickinson issued one further solo record in 2005, Tyranny of Souls. He is the older cousin of Rob Dickinson, former lead singer of British alternative rock band Catherine Wheel.^[3] His son, Austin, is the lead singer in metalcore band Rise to Remain.^[4] On 19 July 2011, Dickinson was presented with an honorary music doctorate from Queen Mary College, in honour of his contribution to the music industry.^[5]

Childhood[link]

Paul Bruce Dickinson was born in the small mining town of Worksop, Nottinghamshire.^[6] His mother Sonia worked part-time in a shoe shop and his father Bruce was a mechanic in the army.^[6] Dickinson's birth hurried the young couple, then just teenagers, into marriage.^[6] Initially, he was brought up by his grandparents; his grandfather was a coal-face worker at the local colliery and his grandmother was a housewife.^[6] This is referred to in his song "Born In '58" from the album Tattooed Millionaire.^[7]

Dickinson started school at Manton Primary in Worksop while his parents moved away to Sheffield.^[6] Soon afterwards, when he was six, he was also despatched to Sheffield,^[8] where he attended "a notoriously tough local primary school" called Manor Top.^[9] After six months, his parents decided to move him to a small private school called Sharrow Vale Junior.^[9] Of this period he recalls, "I'm sort of quite grateful for the fact that I didn't have what you would think of as a conventionally sort of happy, uncomplicated childhood. It made me very self-reliant. I grew up in an environment where it struck me that the world was never gonna do you any favours ... And I had very few close friends, because ... I never really met anybody for that long. I was always moving."^[10] Dickinson has a younger sister named Helena who was born in 1963.^[11][12] He tried to isolate himself from her as much as he could when he was young, supposedly out of spite because she, unlike him, was a planned pregnancy and birth.^[13]

Dickinson's first musical experience was dancing in his grandparents' front room to Chubby Checker's "The Twist," back when he still lived with them in Worksop.^[14] The first record Dickinson recalls owning was The Beatles single "She Loves You," which he managed to persuade his grandfather to buy him.^[14] From then on, he became more interested in music, saying "I remember thinking I liked the B-side better than the A-side, and that's when I started listening to music and deciding what I liked and what I didn't like."^[14] He tried to play an acoustic guitar belonging to his father, but it blistered his fingers.^[9]

By the time he moved to Sheffield, Dickinson's parents were earning a good living from buying property, refurbishing it and then selling it for a profit.^[11] As a result, a lot of Dickinson's childhood was spent living on a building site, until his parents bought a boarding house and a bankrupt garage where his father began selling second-hand cars.^[9] The income from their business success gave them the opportunity to give Dickinson—then 13 years old—a boarding school education and they chose Oundle, a public school in Northamptonshire.^[9] Dickinson was not opposed to moving away from home, as "I didn't particularly enjoy being with my parents, so I saw it as an escape ... I think it was because I hadn't built any real attachment to them when I was very, very young."^[9]

At Oundle, however, Dickinson was picked on and routinely bullied by the older boys of Sidney House, the boarding house that he belonged to,^[15] which he described as "like systematic torture" and meant that he became "aware that I was this outsider."^[13] His interests at Oundle were often military; he co-founded the school wargames society with Mike Jordan, and he rose to a position of some power in the school's cadet force,^[15] with which he was allowed to handle live ammunition, which he used to create explosions as booby-traps.^[16]

Oundle was where Dickinson became attracted to heavy rock, after hearing Deep Purple's "Child In Time" being played in another student's room.^[16] As a result, the first album he ever bought was Deep Purple's In Rock, "all scratched to fuck but I thought it was great, and that's what started me off on buying albums and getting into rock music."^[17] After In Rock, he went on to buy Black Sabbath's debut, Jethro Tull's Aqualung and Tarkus by Emerson, Lake & Palmer.^[17] Every term, a band would play at the school, the first of whom Dickinson would see was called Wild Turkey, featuring former Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick.^[17] After that, he saw Van der Graaf Generator and Arthur Brown.^[17]

Dickinson initially wanted to play the drums,^[17] later obtaining a pair of bongo drums from the music room and practised.^[18] He remembers playing "Let It Be" with his friend Mike Jordan, during which Dickinson discovered his singing voice while encouraging Jordan to sing the high-notes.^[18] Shortly afterwards, however, Dickinson was expelled from Oundle for urinating in the headmaster's dinner.^[18]

Returning home to Sheffield in 1976, Dickinson enrolled at a local comprehensive school, at which he joined his first band.^[19] He had overheard two other pupils talking about their band and that they needed a singer and so volunteered immediately.^[19] They rehearsed in the drummer's father's garage and the band were impressed by Dickinson's singing, encouraging him to buy his first microphone.^[19] Their first gig took place at the Broadfield Tavern in Sheffield.^[19] Originally called "Paradox," the band changed their name upon Dickinson's suggestion to "Styx", unaware of the American act with the same name.^[20] They made local newspaper headlines when a steel worker was awoken by their performance and tried to smash the band's drumkit.^[21] Soon after, the band split up.^[20]

University[link]

After leaving school with A-levels in English, History and Economics, Dickinson confesses "I didn't really know what I wanted to do."^[20] The first thing he did was join the Territorial Army for six months.^[20] Although he enjoyed his time in the TA, Dickinson realised that "this is not really a career choice" and so he applied for a place to read history at Queen Mary College, in London's East End.^[20] His parents wanted him in the army, but he told them that he wanted to get a degree first; "that was what they wanted to hear, so that was my cover story. Then, when I got down there, I started immediately finding and playing in bands."^[20]

In college, Dickinson got involved in the Entertainments Committee; "one day you'd be a roadie for The Jam, the next you'd be putting up the Stonehenge backdrop for Hawkwind or whatever."^[22] In 1977, Dickinson met Paul "Noddy" White, a multi-instrumentalist who owned a PA and other equipment, with whom Dickinson, along with drummer Steve Jones, would form a band together called "Speed."^[22] Dickinson explains, "It had nothing to do with taking speed, we were a completely drug-free band. We just used to play everything ridiculously fast!"^[22] In Speed, Dickinson began writing his own material; "I got Noddy to give me a few guitar lessons and I just started writing stuff straight away. He showed me three chords and I'd write stuff just from those three chords."^[22]

Although Speed would play several gigs at the Green Man pub in Plumstead, the band did not last long, but it encouraged Dickinson to continue to work to be a musician.^[22] Dickinson spotted an advertisement in Melody Maker with the caption "Singer wanted for recording project" and replied immediately.^[22] He "wailed and wolfed and hollered and just made noises" onto a tape and sent it with a note which read; "By the way, if you think the singing's crap, there's some John Cleese stuff recorded on the other side you might find amusing."^[22] They liked what they heard and invited Dickinson down to the studio to make "Dracula," the first song he would ever record, with a band called "Shots,"^[22] formed by two brothers, Phil and Doug Siviter.^[23] The song would later appear on the second disc of The Best of Bruce Dickinson compilation. The brothers were impressed with Dickinson's vocal abilities and asked him what music he liked; "I started saying 'Ian Gillan, Ian Anderson, Arthur Brown,' and Doug goes, 'That's it! Fucking Arthur Brown, man! Sometimes your voice is a dead ringer for Arthur!' He said, 'We've got to form a band.' I was, like, 'Bloody hell,' you know? 'This guy's got a studio and he wants to form a band with me.' I was like 'Yes!'"^[24]

Dickinson played pubs with Shots on a regular basis "to about five people."^[24] One particular night, Dickinson suddenly stopped in the middle of a song and started interviewing a man in the audience, heckling for not paying enough attention.^[24] He got such a good response he started doing it every night until it became a regular routine; "suddenly everybody was paying attention, 'cause they might be next! The first time I did it, afterwards the landlord of the pub was, like, 'Fucking great show, lads! See you next week!' So we started sort of building this bit into the show. And that was when I first started to get the hang of not just being a singer but being a frontman, too."^[24]

The next step in Dickinson's career was taken in a pub called the Prince of Wales in Gravesend, Kent, where Shots were playing regularly, when Barry Graham ("Thunderstick") and Paul Samson paid a visit.^[25] Impressed with his stage-act, they talked with Dickinson afterwards, about which he recalls, "Paul Samson gave me his number and basically said, 'Listen, we've got an album out, we've got a record deal, but we need a new singer and we'd like you to be it.'"^[26] Dickinson agreed to join their band, Samson, but only once he'd finished taking his History finals two weeks later.^[26] Until that point, he had been neglecting his University education, having "done absolutely fuck all work, got pissed, got laid and just generally had a pretty good time."^[26] As a result, the University had tried to kick him out for failing his Second Year exams and not paying his accommodation fees, but was saved because of his role as Entertainments Officer.^[26] After writing 6 months worth of essays in the space of two weeks and some last minute cramming for his exams, Dickinson achieved a 2:2, "which is what everybody else got anyway."^[26]

Samson: 1979—1981[link]

"In my naïvety, I thought people who were in rock 'n' roll bands were great artists, and it was a huge shock to the system to realise that they weren't, that they didn't even aspire to be, really. Some of them did, maybe, but some of them, like Samson, were very frightened of the idea."

—Bruce Dickinson.^[27]

After meeting Paul Samson and Barry Purkis at the Prince of Wales, and while still undertaking his final university exams, Dickinson joined Samson onstage at Bishop's Stortford to perform one of their songs, "Rock Me Baby", cementing his role as their new lead vocalist.^[28][29]

The band had already released their debut album, Survivors, in 1979 on an independent label, two months before Dickinson joined.^[26] Immediately following the completion of his University work, he met up with the band at Greenwich's Wood Wharf studios to learn the Survivors album.^[30] Although the tracks did not suit Bruce's vocal style,^[31] the band soon wrote the majority of the following Head On album in their earliest rehearsal sessions,^[32] some of which were immediately incorporated into their live set.^[31]

It was during these early rehearsals that the nickname "Bruce Bruce" came about, derived from Monty Python's Bruces sketch.^[32] The name became very tiresome as the band's management continually wrote dud cheques, made payable to "Bruce Bruce", as a joke.^[33] Dickinson later commented "it just stuck. I mean, I wasn't entirely happy with it, but it was, like, 'Oh well, OK. It's a sort of stage name, isn't it?'"^[33]

Dickinson was shocked after finding out that not all rock performers were "great artists," as some, such as Samson, only wanted "to have a good drink, a good shag, and take some drugs," which he found "really, really difficult to relate to."^[27] Although he had smoked joints before,^[27] Dickinson discovered that it was impossible to communicate with other band members if he was sober.^[33] He deemed it, "the price that had to be paid", believing it to be "just another step towards my goal of just wanting to be a singer in a rock n' roll band."^[33]

While fronting the band, Dickinson also came across Iron Maiden for the first time, who were supporting Samson at the Music Machine in 1980.^[34] As Dickinson recalls; "I was watching them, and they were good, really fucking good, and at that moment, I remember thinking, 'I wanna fucking sing for that band. In fact, I'm going to sing for that band! I know I'm going to sing for that band!' ... I just thought, 'This is really me. Not Samson.'"^[34]

Dickinson remained in the band for another year, recording two studio albums with them - Head On and Shock Tactics.^[33] However, Samson soon ran into difficulties with their record label, Gem, who went out of business and failed to finance their European tour in support of Iron Maiden.^[35] The band was turned over to RCA, "who did not give a shit about this unknown band from England," Dickinson explains, and so the band promptly fired their management team and the resulting injunction meant that their equipment was reclaimed and they could not be paid for their concert performances.^[35] The band's last gig was at Reading Festival, after which Bruce was approached by Iron Maiden's manager, Rod Smallwood, who asked him to audition to be their new lead vocalist, about which Dickinson recounts; "It wasn't like, 'We want you to do the job.' It was more like, 'We'd like to offer you the chance of an audition.' ... I remember being very self-confident at the time, though, and saying, 'But when I do it, I'll get the job, so let's talk about what's gonna happen when I get the job.'"^[36]

Iron Maiden[link]

Beginnings and success: 1981—1985[link]

"Maiden worked to a time table. A table that wasn't absolute but it had to be stuck to. "Now you'll write for six weeks, now you'll make a record for three months, now you're rehearsing for two weeks, now you'll tour for eight months." It was organised like that and that seemed to suit the style of writing of the band."

— Bruce Dickinson at Gino, Stockholm.^[37]

Bruce Dickinson, left, performing on his first world tour with Iron Maiden in 1982

Dickinson went to audition for Iron Maiden at a rehearsal room in Hackney in September 1981, about which he describes, "As soon as I walked in, I knew this was something entirely different from anything I'd known up till then ... They had proper, professional roadies; they had a proper monitor system; they had cars laid on. They had everything! I thought, 'Right, there'll be no smoking dope in the back of the tour bus any more, then.'"^[38] In the practice rooms, the band played through "Prowler", "Sanctuary", "Running Free" and "Remember Tomorrow", before asking Dickinson to sing the same songs again in a recording studio, and "that was it. We all went out and got roaring pissed and I was in Iron Maiden."^[38]

Iron Maiden had a strict and organised routine that suited the band's writing style, which Dickinson described as a "time table".^[37] After a few gigs, they began writing new material for their third album, The Number of the Beast, released in 1982. In the wake of Samson's contractual problems, Dickinson could not legally be credited on any of the record's songs,^[39] having to make, what he called, a "moral contribution", later revealing that he had contributed limited creative input to "The Prisoner", "Children of the Damned" and "Run to the Hills."^[40] The album was a major success, topping the UK charts,^[41] and the band embarked on a supporting tour around the globe.

On the following albums, 1983's Piece of Mind and 1984's Powerslave, Steve Harris's song-writing monopoly was pushed aside in favour of other members' ideas, with Dickinson contributing to a number of tracks, including the singles "Flight of Icarus" and "2 Minutes to Midnight".^[42] Throughout the World Slavery Tour, as part of the new theatrical elements incorporated into the band's stage-show, Dickinson wore a feathered mask during "Powerslave".^[43] This was the band's longest tour to date, during which Harris and Dickinson considered going home mid-tour, due to the high number of shows.^[44] Iron Maiden's management were continually adding dates, until Dickinson demanded that they stop "or I was gonna jack it in. I guess it was the first time I really thought about leaving. I don't just mean Iron Maiden, I mean quitting music altogether. I really felt like I was pretty much basket-case material by the end of that tour, and I did not want to feel that way. I just thought, 'Nothing is worth feeling like this for.' I began to feel like I was a piece of machinery, like I was part of the lighting rig."^[45]

Growing tensions and departure: 1986—1993[link]

After a six-month break, which Dickinson mostly spent practising fencing,^[46] Iron Maiden began writing their next album, Somewhere in Time, but Dickinson was unhappy with its synthesised bass and guitars and the progressive rock-influenced style.^[47] He has no writing credits on the release, as his material, based on his own suggestion that they should "make a more acoustic based album," was rejected by the rest of the band.^[48] As Dickinson explains; "If I'd had my way, the album would have sounded very different. Powerslave, for me, felt like the sort of natural rounding off of Piece of Mind and Number of the Beast ... I felt we had to come up with our Physical Graffiti or our Led Zeppelin IV ... It wasn't so much that it had to be acoustic; I just felt that we should be leading and not following ... the time was right for us to do something audacious, something vast and daring, and I didn't feel that we did that with Somewhere in Time. We just made another Iron Maiden album."^[48] Steve Harris, on the other hand, stated, "I just thought he'd lost the plot completely. Bruce just wasn't himself at the time. We didn't realise it at first, but he was probably more burnt out than anyone at the end of the last tour ... he just couldn't seem to get himself together with any of the writing or anything ... It wasn't 'cause it was acoustic, necessarily, or even that it was very different sort of stuff; it was just that we didn't think it was good enough, really. And I could see he would feel bad that his songs were rejected, but he seemed to accept it quite readily at the time."^[49]

After a subsequent tour, Iron Maiden started working on their next studio effort, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, which became their second release to top the UK charts.^[41] Unlike Somewhere in Time, Dickinson was much more enthusiastic about this album and has several song-writing credits; "I remember Steve rang me to tell me about this idea he'd had for the next album, all about this seventh son of a seventh son stuff, and I thought, 'What a great idea! Brilliant!' And of course I was really chuffed, too, because he'd actually rung me to talk about it and ask me if I had any songs that might fit that sort of theme. I was like, 'Well, no, but give me a minute and I'll see what I can do.'"^[50] After the following tour in 1988, the band decided to take a year off.^[51]

During the next album's writing stage, Adrian Smith left Iron Maiden, and was replaced by Janick Gers. Iron Maiden's eighth studio release, 1990's No Prayer for the Dying, had a raw sound that did not "hold up well" compared to past efforts,^[52] as it was recorded in a barn which Steve Harris owned, with a mobile studio owned by the Rolling Stones.^[53] The record featured Dickinson's "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter", originally composed for a film soundtrack, which despite receiving a Golden Raspberry Award for worst original song in 1989, became the band's first and only single to top the UK singles chart.^[41] By 1992, Harris had converted his barn into a proper studio, and the new album, Fear of the Dark, was recorded there,^[54] resulting in a better overall sound than No Prayer for the Dying,^[55] although Dickinson still claims it had "big limitations" due to its size.^[53]

After the Fear of the Dark Tour, Dickinson decided to leave Iron Maiden to concentrate on his solo career; "I think I realised that I had reached a creative fork in the road, you know? I thought, 'If you want to, you can stay with Maiden, but things are sure not gonna change.' Or I could take a chance and go somewhere else."^[56] At that point the band had already booked a following tour in 1993, which Dickinson did not enjoy; "I thought it wouldn't be a problem to go out and do the shows at all ... but it wasn't a good vibe ... we walked out onstage and it was like a morgue. The Maiden fans knew I'd quit, they knew these were the last gigs, and I suddenly realised that, as the frontman, you're in an almost impossible situation. If you're like, 'Wow, this is really fucking cool tonight, man,' they're all gonna sit there going, 'What a wanker. He's leaving. How can it be cool?' Or do you go on and say, 'Look, I'm really sorry I'm leaving - not to put a damper on the evening, but I am quitting'? I mean, what do you do?"^[57]