Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson on ‘Lunatic’ World Leaders: ‘There Isn’t One of Them That Isn’t F—ked Up in the Head’

A couple days ago, Iron Maiden landed on North American soil to continue the band’s The Book of Souls world tour. On June 4, vocalist Bruce Dickinson addressed the Philadelphia crowd, talking about the fate of the ancient Mayans and linking it to the current world as we know it.

Iron Maiden’s 16th studio album, The Book of Souls, is heavily influenced by the ancient civilization and notably the Mayan Book of the Dead. A lot of the new stuff is being performed on the road, so before the album’s title track, Dickinson drew some parallels between the Mayans and our 21st century globe.

“It’s pretty incredible, really, when you look at all the stuff they built, all the temples and the pyramids and the big lumps of rock and everything and the language that nobody can still manage to translate,” Bruce began. “How on earth did they just vanish? [It’s] a little bit like us, because we all think that everything is going to stay as it is.”

The Maiden legend continued, “We all figure the lunatics who are in charge of the world at the moment, all of them, all the f—king lunatics that are in charge of the world at the moment… there isn’t one of them that isn’t f—ked up somewhere in the head. A lot of them have their own little fingers on their own little buttons to f—k up millions and millions of people, so it just might be that all the safety and security that we think we have could vanish just as quick as the Mayans. In a few thousand years, somebody might dig up the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and say, ‘What the f—k happened here? How did they f—k it all up?’”

Dickinson isn’t the only musician using his stage to address today’s political climate. Over the weekend at Tool’s Governor’s Ball performance, Maynard James Keenan implored the audience not to label President Trump, among other things, as their enemy, but ignorance itself as the enemy.

For Iron Maiden’s full list of 2017 North American tour dates, click here.

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