Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson sat down with Conversa Com Bial to talk about his musical career. During their chat, the singer recalled the day Rainbow’s Ritchie Blackmore gifted him a signed guitar. The gift wasn’t with him for too long though, since Dickinson’s ex-wife ‘stole’ it. He explained:
“I toured with Ritchie Blackmore in Rainbow with Samson with Graham Bonnet on vocals. In fact, Ritchie gave me one of his smashed guitars, signed. He smashed up a guitar and on stage, which he did like every night, and then gave it to me, signed. It said, ‘To Bruce from Ritchie Blackmore, a guitarist.’ I was like, ‘Wow.’”
Apparently, Dickinson doesn’t know why his ex-wife stole the guitar:
“So my first wife stole it. Damn. What the heck, you know. I don’t know why she did it. That’s life, but no, it was incredible.”
Dickinson Was Inspired By Blackmore
‘The Number Of The Beast’ remains one of the best-known Iron Maiden albums today. But it appears that the album wasn’t just a case of sitting down just to make an album. Dickinson was highly inspired by Ronnie James Dio and Blackmore. In an earlier interview, Dickinson explained what really inspired him to do the album:
“I think the last album – well for me anyway – the last album that really was a big influence on me, before The Number Of The Beast was born is probably [‘Rising’ by Rainbow]. When you got to hear Ronnie in full, full throat, and Blackmore playing his pants off, and ‘Stargazer’, and you’re going, ‘Oh, my God, nobody’s done this in metal before! Wow, this is just incredible! Here’s somewhere to go.’ And then Ronnie joined Sabbath and, of course, Heaven And Hell is another classic. So, I think that Maiden, the ‘The Number Of The Beast’ album, offered a kind of a bridge between the two worlds.”
You can watch the recent interview below.