Wales Online recently caught up with Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, who discussed his work with Cardiff Aviation,  which was re-branded as CaerdAV in 2019. Following is an excerpt from the story. 

On juggling his monumentally successful music career with his other projects

Dickinson: "I'm juggling it constantly. The idea was to not be juggling it quite as much as I ended up doing in the early and middle years. I put a substantial amount of money into the company over the years and when it was known as Cardiff Aviation I think it's fair to say it had a few false starts. Two years ago we had to completely reorganise the company, we changed the name and completely rebranded it. Much of the workforce stayed the same and they have been fantastic, but I went from being one-third shareholder to 100% shareholder.

The crucial thing is to always communicate as a team. In terms of the business it's about running past ideas and representing the company as a chairman should do. You rely on a team and you just can't do it on your own. There have been quite a few occasions when there was a significant amount of personal pressure, but that does go with the territory. But the people who were around me in Wales were very supportive.

It's the same with Iron Maiden. We have a great team so when, as a band, we're thinking of doing music, we're not worrying about 'who's going to rent the truck' or 'who's going to sort out the permits'. We have a fantastic team who does that and we do the music."

Read the complete interview here.

BMG will release Iron Maiden’s 17th studio album, Senjutsu, their first in six years, on September 3. It was recorded in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by Steve Harris.

For Senjutsu – loosely translated as ‘tactics & strategy,’ the band once again enlisted the services of Mark Wilkinson to create the spectacular Samurai themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Steve Harris. With a running time of a little under 82 minutes, Senjutsu, like their previous record The Book Of Souls, will be a double CD/Triple vinyl album.

Steve says “We chose to record at Guillaume Tell Studio in France again as the place has such a relaxed vibe. The setup there is perfect for our needs; the building used to be a cinema and has a really high ceiling so there’s a great acoustic sound. We recorded this album in the same way we did The Book Of Souls in that we’d write a song, rehearse it and then put it down together straight away while it was all fresh in our minds. There’s some very complex songs on this album which took a lot of hard work to get them exactly as we wanted them to sound, so the process was at times very challenging, but Kevin is great at capturing the essence of the band and I think it was worth the effort!  I’m very proud of the result and can’t wait for fans to hear it.”

Lead singer Bruce Dickinson continues, “We’re all really excited about this album. We recorded it back in early 2019 during a break in the Legacy tour so we could maximize our touring yet still have a long set up period before release to prepare great album art and something special as a video. Of course the pandemic delayed things more - so much for the best laid plans – or should that be ‘strategies’!?  The songs are very varied, and some of them are quite long. There’s also one or two songs which sound pretty different to our usual style, and I think Maiden fans will be surprised -  in a good way, I hope!"

Senjutsu will be released on the following formats and is available to pre-order/pre-save at IronMaiden.com.

- Standard 2CD Digipak
- Deluxe 2CD Book Format
- Deluxe heavyweight 180G Triple Black Vinyl
- Special Edition Triple Silver And Black Marble Vinyl (Details to follow)
- Special Edition Triple Red and Black Marble Vinyl (Details to follow)
- Super Deluxe Boxset featuring CD, Blu Ray and Exclusive Memorabilia
- Digital album [streaming and download]

Tracklisting:

"Senjutsu" (8:20) - Smith/Harris
"Stratego" (4:59) - Gers/Harris
"The Writing On The Wall" (6:13) - Smith/Dickinson
"Lost In A Lost World" (9:31) - Harris
"Days Of Future Past" (4:03) - Smith/Dickinson
"The Time Machine" (7:09) - Gers/Harris
"Darkest Hour" (7:20) - Smith/Dickinson
"Death Of The Celts" (10:20) - Harris
"The Parchment" (12:39) - Harris
"Hell On Earth" (11:19) - Harris

"The Writing On The Wall" video: