Bruce Dickinson has unleashed a new single, Rain On The Graves, with an incredibly metal music video.
The Maiden legend’s new effort follows last year’s Afterglow Of Ragnarok, with both singles taken from his upcoming solo album The Mandrake Project (which is due out on March 1 via BMG).
Speaking about how Rain On The Graves came to be, Bruce shares, “I had the chorus lyric since I visited Grasmere for a wedding back in 2012, and it wasn’t difficult years later to create the rest of the song with so much rich imagery in my head!”
In our exclusive December Cover Story with the man himself, Bruce went into a bit more detail about Rain On The Graves, explaining that, “I wrote that song, or part of it, in a graveyard. I was standing in front of Wordsworth’s grave in the Lake District, I’d been on a bit of a pilgrimage to his house. I’m standing by the church and there’s his grave, and it was drizzle and it was grey. And that was it – rain on the graves. I thought, ‘I don’t know what this is about, but this is a moment, and I’ll figure out what it’s about when I write the rest of it.’
“That was probably 2008 or something like that. I’ve had all these things kicking around in drawers, bits of lyrics and things that can all surface at some point. It’s about a guy who meets the Devil in the graveyard and the Devil says, ‘Hey, who are you then? What are you here for?’ And that’s it, isn’t it? Why do we go into graveyards? What are we looking for? It’s full of dead people! But we go into graveyards and there’s something spooky or inspirational.”
The accompanying music video was filmed in Cornwall, and sees Bruce not only put his acting chops to good use as a preacher, but also introducing his ‘House Band from Hell’ – a live band comprised of guitarist Roy Z, drummer Dave Moreno, bassist Tanya O’Callaghan and keyboard player Mistheria.
Enjoy…