“It’s a big, festering, open sewer – it’s nothing to do with music”: Watch Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson eviscerate hair metal in a 1990 interview

Iron Maiden’s frontman didn’t mince words when talking about the hedonism of certain ’80s metal bands

The hair metal scene of 1980s Los Angeles gave us a plethora of chart-smashing rock anthems, from Mötley Crüe’s Girls Girls Girls to Warrant’s Heaven. But, let’s be honest: that’s not the only thing people remember that trend for nowadays. Equally as noteworthy as glam’s music was its wildman indulgences, obsessed with sex, drugs and a bit more sex.

It’s an ideology that Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson took vocal issue with as he went solo in 1990. And this is a man with pipes so impressive that he’s been dubbed the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal’s “Air Raid Siren”, so said vocals are pretty hard to ignore.

Granted, Bruce never called the likes of W.A.S.P. out by name, but his venom for the scene still oozed from his work regardless. Tattooed Millionaire, the title track of his 1990 debut, raged against “tattooed boys with expensive toys, living in a bubble of sin” who are “out on the strip”. If that wasn’t an open-and-shut enough reference to L.A.’s bad boys, the music video punctuated it by depicting a big-earringed, long-haired, bandana-donning rocker speeding down a runway in a sports car.