Bruce Dickinson says his eighth solo album stands apart from The Mandrake Project, which will now continue only as a comic series.
Bruce Dickinson spent close to 17 years building The Mandrake Project into a record and a 12-issue comic run. His next album will barely touch it.
Speaking to “VSX” at San Diego Comic-Con last month, the Iron Maiden singer traced the project back to a promotional idea that grew far beyond its brief, then made clear the music side of it has run its course.
“It started out 14, 15, 16, nearly 17 years ago. I was writing material for a solo album. I was thinking about a comic as a way of promoting it, effectively. ‘Cause, to me, it struck me that a lot of people that like the kind of music that I do probably dig comics as well. So I thought I’d come up with a very simple story, and it would just be one comic. And so I wrote the characters into some of the songs. 14 years later, The Mandrake Project comes out, but in the intervening period, it had turned from one comic to two to 12. We have this structure of three four-part episodes. So book one was last year, book two is now done, and book three will be the conclusion of the story. So that’s how the music got involved. I’ve got a new record coming out next year, new solo album. It’s kind of standalone. There’s one song that has a bit of something to do with Mandrake. Now, the album is heavy as s**t. I’m not digging into Mandrake. I think Mandrake has a life now on a comic book level, so it can just go on the basis of story and everything else. I don’t need to associate music with it unless it’s a really good idea,” Dickinson said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
Asked whether his back catalogue weighs on him when he writes, Dickinson reached for an analogy about seeing something familiar under different lighting.
“I try to not repeat — not because it’s bad,” Dickinson continued. “You want to move on and put different nuance on things. It’s like, I would say, if you have an amazing girlfriend and you start thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m getting a little bit bored,’ or something else like that, just turn the lights down and turn it a different way, and you see a side that you think, ‘Oh, my God, she’s absolutely incredible.’ Just the red light there or the green or whatever, and you see, you see the same person in a different day, in a different light.”
He acknowledged the limits of that: “Music is something which you try not to stick too much of a format, but you are still within a particular… I’m within a particular style, for sure. But I try and vary it as much as I can.”
The record is his eighth solo album and is tentatively set for early 2027 through BMG. Most of it was tracked in January and February at Dave Grohl‘s Studio 606 in Northridge, California, with Brendan Duffey producing. Duffey handled the partly re-recorded and remixed version of Balls To Picasso, reissued in July 2025 as More Balls To Picasso, and is now mixing the new album at his own studio in Jupiter, Florida.
Vocals were finished on July 31. Dickinson marked it with a photo from the booth, writing: “Finished vocals for the new album today, me and @brendan_duffey_audio , the producer, having a selfie in the vocal booth ! Now he’s off to mix it in Florida. @declercq_official @davedrums1221 @brendan_duffey_audio and me saying farewell to the doom room … for now.”
The sessions were fast and deliberately old-fashioned. He told Rolling Stone in April that the band cut 16 tracks in 21 days: “I just finished a solo record: We did 16 tracks in 21 days, all 100 percent live. It’s like the anti-A.I. generation.”
In the same interview he catalogued the wear and tear he is carrying: “I got two metal hips, I got a busted Achilles I had stitched back together five years ago, various contusions and lumps and bumps. But I’m still running around like a lunatic, and the voice is doing great.”
Dickinson recorded with his touring band, keyboardist Mistheria, drummer Dave Moreno, bassist Tanya O’Callaghan and guitarists Chris Declercq and Philip Näslund, the same lineup he has said will take the album on the road in 2027. Andreas Kisser of Sepultura added percussion during the February sessions, and Jeff Scott Soto and Sepultura vocalist Derrick Green both visited the studio.
Kisser wrote at the time: “What a privilege! Truly an honor to participate on the new album of the great master of metal @brucedickinsonhq a gentleman and a f**king legend! Thank you for letting me play some percussion on the album! Obrigado @brendan_duffey_audio pelo convite! And @daveghrol what a studio you created, simply magical. Hope you like the distortion from the new pedal @fuelmusicaudio Heavy Metal rules.”
Soto recounted the visit: “How lucky am I? I went to say hello to my dear friend Mistheria who I worked with on his Vivaldi Metal Project and of course is part of Bruce Dickinson‘s solo endeavors these days.”
“Arrived at Dave Grohl‘s studio right as Bruce was doing some final vocals to his new album. He finished and came out to chat/hang a little but then asked if I wanted to hear a few of the songs…umm, YEA!!”
“I must say besides the fact that he is still singing at the top of his game, the songs, performances, and the overall vibe I got from all was beyond impressive, I think this outing will be one of his strongest ever outside of the Maiden camp.”
“To add frosting on the cake, I got to try a prototype for a new Trooper beer, this one is a nice IPA which I’m normally not a fan of, but this was really good, it’s not out yet so I feel pretty lucky to have tried it before the rest of the world haha”.
One track features his eldest son. Austin Dickinson, 35, previously fronted Rise To Remain and As Lions.
Speaking to Steve Harkins of “TalkShopLive“, Dickinson said material would surface before the album itself: “Tracks will be out this year, a little bit, so people can hear a little bit of it. At some point this month, I’m shooting four or maybe five videos for it.”
He also left a broader tease hanging: “I’m pretty busy in ’27. And I think everybody’s gonna be very happy with what I’m busy with —in every sense of the word.”
The Mandrake Project arrived in March 2024 through BMG, ending a gap of nearly two decades since 2005’s Tyranny Of Souls. The comic series is published by Z2 Comics, with the concept drawing on science, the occult and the fate of human souls across both formats.
