Rock music should be gross: that’s the fun of it. It gets up and drops its trousers.

When I write with Maiden, then I write only with the guys in Maiden, we don’t do songs from outside people.

Best two rock voices I’ve heard in a last few years both have been from grunge bands: it’s Eddie Vedder and the other one is Chris Cornell from Soundgarden.

Well, it’s a nice quiet time for Iron Maiden, and I’ll be releasing a new solo album next year, so this is a really good time for the managing out my solo career, which is quite well.

Iron Maiden is an institution, and I’m delighted that I’m involved in it, but there was a time that I wasn’t delighted so I quit.

A guy called Arthur Brown… was a big influence of mine… and also Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull.

The mystical poetry of William Blake’s artwork also forms the basis for the album cover.

I do like Marylin Manson, actually. I think, he’s very talented and he did make some great music.

I don’t like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I enjoy making solo albums because over the years it’s evolved into more of a genuine personal expression of story-telling and day dreams, and I work in a way that has more control.

I shall refract myself, yes, I shall no longer be known as the prism.

I am taking a break, but not a huge break because the Maiden record is actually happening right now, and I am recording it as we speak, well not right as we speak, but close.

Rock music should be gross: that’s the fun of it. It gets up and drops its trousers.

If it all just happens like this for the rest of my life, it’s going to be one endless Groundhog Day. I determined that I was not prepared to submit to this regime, so I thought I had to do something about it.

The more guitars we have onstage the better, as I’m concerned.

Life on the road can get a little one-dimensional. I didn’t want to reach 40 and have to say all I’d done was look out the window of a tour bus and get drunk.

I’m not going to do any more solo touring.

Major labels blow all their money massively and blame it on the band.

There are a lot of stuff on the record that I am thinking is generic but actually it is just as good as everybody else who is putting stuff out at the time.

A few of these interviews have gone slightly awry, because every now and again there has been the odd conflict of interest between interviews because of the Iron Maiden record, and I am a bit long-winded.

Well, yeah, sometimes I get a little too creative.