Bruce Dickinson was born in 1958 in Nottinghamshire, England and started his musical career in 1976. So when he was young the future singer had the chance to see the evolution of Heavy Metal music and hear all the classic albums at the time they were released.
Obviously, the most important band at the time was Black Sabbath, which had created Metal music with their self-titled debut album released in 1970. But what is Bruce Dickinson’s opinion on Black Sabbath?
Bruce Dickinson’s opinion on Black Sabbath
Although Bruce was involved in a feud with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, which we will talk about further in the article, he loves Black Sabbath. But, recently in an interview with Qobuz in 2024 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), where he praised the album “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” (1973), he noted that the power of the band was always Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler.
“Oh yeah, I was a kid when I got this album and I was still a virgin. Which made me open it up and go ‘Oh my God, look at those women!’ But what a great record, what a great album. What a great comeback album. The first two (Sabbath) records are amazing, well no, ‘Vol. 4’ was incredible as well, you know.”
“What a consistent band and it’s Geezer (Butler – Bass) and Tony (Iommi – guitar). If you look at all the people, all the different vocalists, not just Ozzy, but they’ve all been… ‘Born Again’ (With Ian Gillan on vocals), what a great album. Everybody goes ‘Oh, forget that album’. No, it’s a great album,” Bruce Dickinson said.
The musician mentioned Tony Iommi, because the guitarist is the only one who was part of all the albums the group released. Geezer was the second original member who recorded with Sabbath the most.
How Bruce Dickinson reacted when he first heard Black Sabbath
Before Black Sabbath there was no band like them, doing that kind of sound with lyrics openly talking about the devil and evil. So obviously it would shock the audiences which were not really prepared to hear something like. It had a huge impact especially on young kids like Dickinson.
Back in 1998, the singer was promoting his solo career and was interviewed by Gastão Moreira on the Brazilian MTV show “Fúria”. During the conversation he talked about the experience of hearing Sabbath for the first time.
“Oh awesome, the rain in the beginning and stuff, and it was (released on) Vertigo (Records) as well. Because it was on a record you looked to the middle of the (LP) and you would go ‘Wow’.”
“I used to play it when my parents were out because I used to blow up their… In the old days they used to have these pieces of furniture called a stereogram. It was like a fucking couch, it was six-feet long and it had two pathetic speakers. They used to have drink babinets in it and it had the record player hidden somewhere. So you would go there and was like ‘Ok, they’re gone’, put the record and cranked the thing up the speakers would (not work properly anymore),” Bruce Dickinson said.
In 1994, when he was already a solo artist, Bruce was part of the Sabbath tribute album “Nativity In Black”. He covered the song “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” with the group Godspeed, but he really didn’t like that version. He later said it was terrible and he did it because they offered him a good amount of money.
Feud with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne
Back in 2005, Iron Maiden was invited to be one of the headliners of Ozzy Osbourne‘s festival Ozzfest. But, for a reason that was never revealed, Bruce started to make fun of Ozzy during Maiden’s concerts, since they would play there several nights.
Ozzy’s wife and manager Sharon was not happy with that and she ended up hiring people to throw eggs at Iron Maiden. The band’s manager Rod Smallwood wasn’t happy with what happened. He said at the time that he had never seen something so unprofessional and disgusting.
The Maiden founder, leader and bassist Steve Harris went on to apologize to Ozzy every night. But later on Sharon said that she respected the members of the band because they are really nice guys. However, she said that she dislikes Dickinson, who in her opinion has “a chip on his shoulder”.