Bruce Dickinson
b. Paul Bruce Dickinson, 7 August 1958, Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England. Former public school-boy Dickinson left the heavy metal group Samson to join pioneering contemporaries, Iron Maiden, replacing Paul Di'Anno in 1981. By the following year Dickinson had fully established himself within the line-up through his performances on the road and on the UK number 1 album, NUMBER OF THE BEAST. 1990 was a busy year for Dickinson's solo pursuits. His aspirations to become a novelist were realized in his comic-novel, THE ADVENTURES OF LORD IFFY BOATRACE, a sub-standard attempt at the style of Tom Sharpe. However, legions of Iron Maiden fans propelled the book into the best-seller ratings. Also that year, Dickinson's solo album, TATTOOED MILLIONAIRE, reached number 14, while the title-track climbed into the UK Top 20. A version of Mott The Hoople's All The Young Dudes also reached the UK Top 30. A keen fencer, Dickinson had at one time been ranked seventh in the men's foils for Great Britain, serving only to embellish his reputation as metal's renaissance man. He finally quit Maiden in 1993, a year after releasing a second book, THE MISSIONARY POSITION. A second solo album for EMI also followed, a year later.