The guitarist that Bruce Dickinson said was his favorite

The vocalist Bruce Dickinson discovered his talent for singing as a teenager, when he was already in love with Rock and Roll music. By the late 70s, he had already achieved some fame as the vocalist of Samson, even appearing in a horror movie called Incubus in 1981. However, he was invited by Iron Maiden to join the group that same year, and everything went to the next level for him and the band.

During his time in the band, he had the chance to work with amazing guitar players like Adrian Smith, Dave Murray, and Janick Gers. However, as he once revealed, his favorite guitarist is from another band.

The guitarist that Bruce Dickinson said was his favorite

The band that influenced Bruce Dickinson the most was certainly Deep Purple which, for most of their career, featured Ian Gillan as the vocalist, who is Dickinson’s biggest hero. Naturally, it was expected that his favorite guitar player would be Ritchie Blackmore.

Dickinson confirmed that in an interview with Enfer magazine in 1983. “Steve Harris asked me (to join Maiden). I already knew Steve before I joined Samson. The first time I saw Iron Maiden rehearsing, I was immediately impressed by their music and mostly by Dave Murray. To me, he was a real ‘Guitar-Hero’ and his playing reminded me of Ritchie Blackmore’s, who’s my favourite guitar player. From then on, I was waiting for somebody to leave so I could replace him, ’cause I was crazy about that band,” Bruce Dickinson said.

“Speed King” was the first Deep Purple song he heard in his life

The first Deep Purple song Dickinson heard in his life was “Speed King”, from their groundbreaking 1970 album “Deep Purple In Rock”. In an interview with Double J back in 2018, he recalled the funny way he discovered the Hard Rock band.

“I was walking up and down the corridor at boarding school. (Then)  I heard this racket coming from behind a door. (Then) I thought, ‘Oh my god, what is that?!’ I knocked on the door and this senior boy opened the door. (He) looked at me with a big sneer on his face. I asked, ‘Who was that?’. He went, ‘Oh, it’s Deep Purple if you must know, ‘Speed King’’ and shut the door.”

He continued:

“That was that. I was hooked. We used to have little auctions in the boarding house. People would be short of money and wouldn’t have enough money to have enough to pay their bill at the school shop. So they’d auction their stuff off.”

“The second LP that I got was Deep Purple ‘In Rock’. Scratched to bits. So I paid 50 cents Australian for it. I loved it and played it absolutely to death. I think I might have blown up my parents’ stereogram with it,” Bruce Dickinson said.

At the time the band was formed by Ian Gillan, Jon Lord, Roger Glover, Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Paice. That record has songs like “Black Night”, “Speed King”, “Child In Time”, ” Hard Lovin’ Man”.

Besides “In Rock”, the Iron Maiden singer already revealed that the live album “Made In Japan” (1970) is also one of his favorites.

But Dickinson also loved Ritchie Blackmore’s work with Rainbow, his own group. He first discovered the band when he was listening to the radio in the 70s. He was really impressed by Ronnie James Dio‘s voice, who became one of his influences too. But he also quickly noticed that the guitar really sounded like Ritchie Blackmore.