British filmmaker Sacha Gervasi (Anvil! The Story Of Anvil) is teaming up with Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson to co-write a screenplay telling the remarkable story of the concert Dickinson played at the height of The Siege of Sarajevo in 1994 according to a recent report from Rodrigo Perez of The Playlist. Dickinson and Gervasi sat down with award-winning podcaster Alex Ferrari for an exclusive discussion about their new collaboration and inspirations on Ferrari’s new podcast, Next Level Soul. Dickinson also shared stories from his career.

Dickinson on working with producer Martin Birch on "The Number Of The Beast"

"It starts off with some whispered spooky lines: 'I left alone / My mind was blank / I needed time to think / To get the memories from my mind...' I go in and deliver the lines and he goes, 'Yeah, no, do it again. I don't hear it.' We went around for a couple hours and I'm thinking 'Can we just get on with the rest of this song? I'm fed up with singing these first two lines.' I ended up throwing a chair across the studio and getting really angry. He came in and said 'I had the same problem with Ronnie (James Dio) on 'Heaven And Hell'. You're a singer, this is your entire life in two lines. You just have to surender and not even think about it...' and in the end that's what happened with 'The Number Of The Beast'. He was right, godammit, That's the moment of enlightenment when you go 'Oh my God, I think I'm beginning to get it.' Martin turned around my head in terms of singing."

Risking their lives, Dickinson and his band Skunkworks—Dickinson quit Iron Maiden in '93 for several years to pursue solo projects— were smuggled into the besieged city by the U.N. to play a concert for its beleaguered citizens amidst the chaos of war. The journey, and the violent chaos that ensued while the concert was happening, was captured in a 2016 documentary, Scream For Me Sarajevo, directed by Tarik Hodzic (see the following trailer).

"The few incredible days I spent in Sarajevo with my solo band pre-Christmas in 1994 were some of the most intense of my life," said Dickinson. "Crafting a story to bring the emotions, madness, tragedy, and triumph to the screen is no easy task. My own journey was as a long-haired heavy metal singer driving through firefights into a city that had been under siege longer than Stalingrad. Mine was not, of course, the only journey taken on that day, and afterward, at home in London, I left behind in Sarajevo traveling companions on the road of life. This movie is actually dedicated to their story, not mine."