Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has once again called out singers who use teleprompters during live performances.
Dickinson brought up the topic of singers relying on teleprompters during his spoken-word performance on March 6 at CinemaxX Hamburg-Dammtor in Hamburg, Germany.
He said: “I don’t use an autocue on stage. A lot of singers now, they just have the words there. ‘Breaking the law, breaking the law, breaking the law, breaking the law, breaking the law, breaking the law, breaking the law.’ Breaking the what? ‘Breaking the law. Breaking the law.’”
Dickinson made comments about teleprompters first time in 2014 in an interview with The Guardian. “I never realized that people were using autocues,” he said at the time. “What the f*ck is that all about? People pay good money and you can’t even remember the sodding words.”
He continued: “The daftest one I ever saw was [Judas Priest‘s] ‘Breaking The Law’. It’s on the f*cking autocue.‘Breaking the law, breaking the law/Breaking the law, breaking the law/Breaking the law, breaking the law/Breaking the law’ — guess what? — ‘breaking the law.’ It’s ludicrous.”
A few weeks after Bruce‘s The Guardian interview was posted, Rob Halford was asked about the Bruce‘s comments during a chat with Australia’s AndrewHaug.com.
Rob said: “Well, the first thing I’ll say about that is Bruce Dickinson is a good mate of mine; I love him to death. I think he’s an incredible singer, he’s a great showman, he’s in a wonderful band, Iron Maiden, who are one of the biggest metal bands in the world. And as far as what people say about each other, I don’t think it really means that much, to be quite honest.
“We say whatever we say, depending on the day and the emotion that we’re at. I know Bruce‘s heart is in the right place, and he just said what he said, and that’s all there is to it to comment, in that respect.”
A teleprompter, or autocue, is a display device that prompts the person speaking with an electronic visual text of a speech or script, and it is often used by vocalists.
