Bruce Dickinson released his first solo album, Tattooed Millionaire, in May 1990. Still a member of Iron Maiden he left three years later the singer opted for a simpler and more direct sound compared to “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” (1988), his last album with the band to date.
After all this time, the singer is about to release his seventh solo effort, “The Mandrake Project.” Everything indicates that the work will be much more elaborate, starting with the comic of the same name that accompanies it.
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Aware of what Tattooed Millionaire accomplished after Maiden, Dickinson has a harsh opinion of her first solo album. This position was expressed in an interview with issue 323 (February 2024) of Classic Rock magazine when he was asked if he considered the work in question to be his beginning as an independent artist.
“No, there were a few successful rock'n'roll clichés. People liked it which I respect but if I wanted to do something that would be the start of a solo career, I wouldn't have done Tattooed Millionaire. It fell into my lap. After I did “Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter” (for the soundtrack to “A Nightmare on Elm Street”), a production guy said, “I really liked that,” and I signed with CBS in the US. I said, “Really?” We wrote the entire album in two weeks.”
Bruce was also asked to answer whether he believed it was possible to maintain a solo career and the position of frontman of Iron Maiden at that time, at the turn of the 80s and 90s. The musician finally gave an insight into his current situation in his career at the time.
“I was in a state of limbo. I thought: I have to go, otherwise everything I do won't be taken seriously by anyone. They'll just say, “Oh, look, it's his little side project.” I read a quote from Henry Miller in a newspaper that finally provoked me: “All growth is an inevitable leap into the dark without knowing where you will land.”
Bruce Dickinson and “Tattooed Millionaire”
Tattooed Millionaire was released on May 8, 1990. The idea for the album came about after Bruce was invited to compose a song for the film “A Nightmare on Elm Street V”, which would become “Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter”.
Interestingly, the track was only released as a single without appearing on the album. It was eventually reused by Iron Maiden in “No Prayer for the Dying,” released in October of that year.
“Tattooed Millionaire” was composed almost entirely in collaboration with guitarist Janick Gers, who also became a new addition to Iron Maiden shortly afterwards.
In addition to his own compositions, he recorded a version of “All The Young Dudes” composed by David Bowie and popularized by Mott the Hoople. It reached number 14 on the UK charts and placed four singles in the top 40.
Nikki Sixx, the tattooed millionaire?
Nikki Sixx claims the theme song from Tattooed Millionaire was included in her “tribute” after Bruce learned his wife had cheated on him. However, Mötley Crüe's bassist says the singer discovered it while reading the biography “The Dirt,” which was published eleven years after the song, making the supposed inspiration impossible.
Nevertheless, the band released the album New Tattoo in 2000 to poke fun at the situation, with the right to feature the dragon featured in the single of Dickinson's title track on the cover.
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