We are one of the last heavy metal bands. Iron Maiden has always been unique.
Only two to three per cent of an audience is interested in words and pays attention to lyrics; most of the rest of it is about image or the beat or the sound, or else it's a tribal thing - country & western, rap, heavy metal, with historical folk rock off in some kind of cult.
The misunderstanding out there is that we are a 'hard rock' band or a 'heavy metal' band. We've only ever been a rock n' roll band.
For me, Gothic is something from my youth, when I had a heavy metal phase.
It's a heavy weight, the camera. Now we have modern and lightweight, small plastic cameras, but in the '70s they were heavy metal.
I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.
We've played all sorts of weird and wonderful places. You do all kinds of venues from heavy metal places in Germany to big ornate churches, and everything in between.
I always wanted to merge heavy metal with pop music, but I think that because I grew up more with pop, the Beatles and the Stones, I tended to affiliate myself with those projects.
What music I listen to day to day changes very, very much. I can go from bluegrass to heavy metal, to blues, to classical and big band and then go to pop and rap.