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    What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography
    What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography
    What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography
    Audiobook11 hours

    What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

    Written by Bruce Dickinson

    Narrated by Bruce Dickinson

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    A long-awaited memoir from the larger-than-life, multifaceted lead vocalist of Iron Maiden, one of the most successful, influential and enduring rock bands ever.

    Pioneers of Britain’s nascent Rock & Metal scene back in the late 1970s, Iron Maiden smashed its way to the top, thanks in no small part to the high-octane performances, operatic singing style, and stage presence of its second, but twice-longest-serving, lead singer, Bruce Dickinson. As Iron Maiden’s front man—first from 1981 to 1993, and then from 1999 to the present—Dickinson has been, and remains, a man of legend.

    But OTT front man is just one of the many hats Bruce wears. In addition to being one of the world’s most storied and well-respected singers and songwriters, he is an airline captain, aviation entrepreneur, motivational speaker, beer brewer, novelist, radio presenter, and film scriptwriter. He has also competed as a world-class level fencer. Often credited as a genuine polymath Bruce, in his own words (and handwritten script in the first instance!), sets forth many personal observations guaranteed to inspire curious souls and hard-core fans alike.

    Dickinson turns his unbridled creativity, passion, and anarchic humour to reveal some fascinating stories from his life, including his thirty years with Maiden, his solo career, his childhood within the eccentric British school system, his early bands, fatherhood and family, and his recent battle with cancer.

    Bold, honest, intelligent and very funny, his memoir is an up-close look inside the life, heart, and mind of one of the most unique and interesting men in the world; a true icon of rock.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateOct 31, 2017
    ISBN9780062695123
    Author

    Bruce Dickinson

    Bruce Dickinson has been the lead singer of Iron Maiden for more than thirty years, and has pursued a successful a solo career, as well as a host of interests beyond music. Iron Maiden has sold over 90 million albums & performed over 2000 shows worldwide, making them one of the most successful rock acts of all time. He lives in London, England.

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    Reviews for What Does This Button Do?

    4/5

    128 ratings15 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      What an enjoyable share! Mr. Dickinson did an excellent job of choosing events throughout his life, and which aspects of those events were the the parts that would keep the book fun yet important. Important because the author is a man of honor and intelligence, who seemed fearless of being emasculated when sympathetic. The book doesn’t leave you wondering and wishing he could have embellished more. He does not seem to exaggerate, or beat anything to death, in order to get a point across. Bruce was very generous in opening up so the reader can almost feel what it’s like to be down to earth rock star, traveling this wild world. I am very impressed with Captain Bruce as a person. Thank you for sharing your story of an amazing life. Dan - Santa Barbara CA 8/26/2020
    • 5/5
      A very fun experience, especially for an Iron Maiden fan. Very fitting to have Bruce himself telling it.
    • 4/5
      It's ok. Dickinson is a good writer, and in this case, also a good narrator. He has a pretty interesting life and this book highlights those less known aspects of it.

      If you are looking for something heavy focused on Maiden's story and insights maybe this ain't your book but, if you like the character, it's a pretty good biography
    • 5/5
      It was great, an incredible life very well written & not over done. I really enjoyed it. He is an amazing man.
    • 5/5
      I’m not really a fan of Heavy metal music, but I saw a documentary about Bruce and found him fascinating.
      I didn’t want to hear about his ex-wives, ex-lovers or sordid details of what happens on the road, so this book was perfect.
      Bruce is a wonderful narrator and I will certainly give this book another listen in the future.
    • 4/5
      Brilliant . Written by the Man who made so much and is going to do so mich more.
    • 5/5
      This is one of the best biographies I've read (in this case listened to). I highly recommend it!, especially if you are a fan of the mighty Irons, and happen to have an interest in aviation like me. Thanks Bruce for sharing your story.
    • 5/5
      There is nothing this man does that isn't incredible. ???
    • 4/5
      If Motley Crue's autobiography, "The Dirt" is your favorite hard rock memoir; you will be VERY disappointed by Bruce Dickinson's book. However, if you would like to read a refreshing account of life in the 80's, with no sex, very little drugs, and non-ego rock & roll, you will pleasantly surprised. Dickinson's dry humor and spot on observations will make you actually respect a "rock star"
    • 5/5
      What does this button do? - Let’s find out!!

      Mr Dickinson surprised me with this book. Not only is he a talented singer and songwriter but he seems to have a hundred of little talents hidden. I loved his voice and way of presenting his book and I loved the way he told his story. I understand and appreciate he decided to leave out his love life and family. I see it as respecting their privacy and his life is interesting enough without.
      As a extra for me having been a pilot for small planes, I loved the view on aviation from a fellow metal head :)
    • 4/5
      If you are a fan of Bruce or Iron Maiden it is a different read. This was your typical autobiography it dosen't go deep into personal stuff it touches on bits and pieces of his life, it could have easily been 3 or 4 times longer if he did a real this how every moment of my life was.
    • 3/5
      This is an interesting rock and roll biography and one I'm still trying to decide whether I liked or not. If you want to know about the inter-workings of Iron Maiden or what it's like being on world tour or writing hitting records, this ain't the book for you. If you want to know about fencing, flying, and surviving cancer, this is exactly the book for you. Dickinson seems to be an amiable fellow who has lived a remarkable life. That's all I have at this point, other than to say, there are much worse books to read.
    • 4/5
      The life of Iron Maiden's singer, from his childhood of being left for his grandparents to raise until he was five, to attending private school, being kicked out of private school, and forming bands with moderate success until being offered a chance with Iron Maiden. Dickinson relates the touring, work schedules and some of the dynamics within the band. He then goes into the long period in which he discovered aviation and what he went through to become a professional pilot, having dual careers as a rock star and an employee of an international airline. The last chapters deal with his battle with mouth and neck cancer, which began in 2012 and took him through various forms of chemo and the side effects of treatment. Dickinson has the ego of a rock star, so we have the descriptions of everyone around him being unbearably excited by everything he's doing or putting out, but that can also come off as a remarkably optimistic personality. He's filled with belief in himself and that's what someone needs to become a famous singer, or to pilot hundreds of people or to beat cancer. What is noticeably missing is any discussion at all about relationships, as no mention of wives, divorce, children or really any deep discussion of his band mates, so what is here is mostly his working life. It switches from music to lots and lots of airplane descriptions and aviation talk, then his cancer. This part, in dealing with what he's gone through with his cancer, is very honest and graphic, yet he remains as determined as ever.
    • 3/5
      How can someone have the temerity to rate someone else's life story – a story that's been written in their own words, from their own memories and experiences? I feel a bit odd posting a review of this book at all, because, like any autobiography, it's simply a body of work that describes someone's personal body of work, and perhaps should just be taken at face value and enjoyed as such. Let's keep this in mind in the paragraphs ahead.I've been a rabid Iron Maiden fan since I was a young boy and I likely always will be, so a delve into Bruce Dickinson's colorful life after listening to him scream hundreds of tales to me through the years, thousands of times, was always going to be a sure thing. But while I'm glad that I read Bruce's story, I didn't find it particularly entertaining or well-crafted. Does that matter? No, it doesn't, because he's lived a huge life doing huge things and has faced major challenges with a varied array of successes and failures, just like all of us. That life can't be rated by anyone but the person living it. He's put many months into writing down these memories and a published memoir is yet one more accomplishment to be proud of. I have a lot of respect for the man and his talent with regard to so many facets of his world – Bruce Dickinson does a ton of things: he sings and performs, he fences on a world-class level, he flies commercial airlines, he convenes public seminars, he writes numerous books. Yet after reading his autobiography, I still don't really know who Bruce IS. And that's really what I wanted to learn from this book.Part of this can be attributed to the limited scope of the subject matter discussed within. Dickinson notes in the afterword that he wasn't at all interested in describing his relationships with anyone other than his parents, grandparents, and (cursorily) an array of men that he'd worked with while in various bands, in flight, on the road, in a war zone, etc. He has stayed totally clear of any whiff of romance, with not a single mention of partnership, marriage, or children, and we don't know why. Maybe he's had no relationships, or maybe they never worked for him. Maybe he just wanted to keep those things private. That's of course his right, but it's a glaring chasm in the story he's telling that makes him appear to be rather thin in the emotion department, or at least very detached from it.While disappointing, this is not entirely unexpected. Perhaps over time I've tired of the British tendency to couch everything in clever wordplay while conspicuously hiding the hint of any preciousness or emotion. Shit happens, I faced it, and here I am, out the other side. And how about my horrible taste in trousers, har-har? The distance with which Dickinson relates his exploits bleeds off on the reader and there's not much room for attachment. After over thirty years in a band with essentially the same people, all I'm really sure of is that Steve Harris is a control freak and that Nicko McBrain craps his pants when golfing. His personal comments about the people in his life feel gratuitous but hesitant, and I can't tell if he considers them – or anyone else – friends, or what he really values in them. This is not to say that Dickinson appears shallow; rather his guardedness in print is made the more opaque by his tendency to fill chapters with somewhat smug – though good natured – purple prose.By now it should be obvious that I had hoped for something a little more incisive and intimate, but that's my own issue to bear and not Bruce's. After all, I've spent the past two decades imagining how to make a website that teaches history through the lyrical content of Iron Maiden songs. I only blame myself for wanting to understand a little more about the man and how he fits in with the people around him.The only part of this story that was genuinely disarming was the final chapter, wherein he was diagnosed with and bravely battled head and neck cancer. This section hits like the opening to 'Where Eagles Dare' and is horrific to imagine. I think it's wonderful that Dickinson felt comfortable enough to solemnly recount not only the procession of this incredible challenge, but also his feelings and reflections as he was going through it all. I so wish the rest of the book had been written in a similar tenor, but it might have been a much longer and more vulnerable treatise in that case.Other than the final chapter, I would consider What Does This Button Do? to be but a half-pour of quippy anecdotes in a pint glass of passions and endeavors of the long-time singer of Iron Maiden. Bruce Dickinson is obviously much, much more than just that, but he never really gives us a chance to engage with him on the inside. With this considered, the book might have been titled What Does This Bruce Do? Because that's pretty much what the whole autobiography is about.
    • 2/5
      I really, really wanted to like this book. Alas, I didn't. It's rather poorly written, jumps about chronologically some, and offers few of the details most fans of Iron Maiden would probably want to hear, specifically Bruce's exit, then later re-entry into the band.Many times I'd find myself wondering "when" we were in a story. For example, he references Adrian Smith's exit from the band and then mentions Ron Smallwood, Maiden's manager. The following couple of pages then deal with a bit of backstory about Smallwood, even though he'd already been introduced much earlier in the book. And then, just like that, we're back to Adrian's exit. There a lot of this kind of jumping around. There were also a lot of anecdotes that didn't really seem to go anywhere. At its core, one of the biggest issues with the book is the poor segues between paragraphs as he bounced from subject to subject.There was very little detail about the development of Maiden's songs, albums, or tours other than quick mentions. Granted, Steve Harris is the primary songwriter, but I still wanted a bit more than a sentence or so about some of their most famous songs. Far, far more time was spent on his experiences learning to fly and becoming a commercial airline pilot. While interesting, most Maiden fans probably know the basics.One of his most detailed chapters revolves around a gig he did with his solo band in Sarajevo during the war. While a harrowing experience, this seemed a far less important story relevant to everything else he'd done with Maiden. Yet he goes on and on about the experience.The other detailed chapter(s) revolved around the throat cancer he was dealing with just a few years ago. I enjoyed this part because he allows us into his head and heart while dealing with such a scary predicament. This is also a very British book. While I'm quite familiar with many differences between British and American English (loo, tube, sack, etc.), many of the names he drops didn't seem to be well known. I wouldn't expect him to Americanize the book, but knowing that fans from around the world would read it maybe he should have offered a little more explanation along the way.Finally, in the Afterward, he notes that he'd purposefully avoided subjects such as marriage, divorce, children, etc. While I have no real interest in gossipy topics, those subjects do shape a man and I think we would have gotten a much better idea of who Bruce really is if he'd shined just a bit of light on these aspects of his life. I cannot imagine writing about my life and not at least mention the birth of my son and how it changed me.I don't read many autobiographies, but I have read Paul Stanley's "Face the Music." It is excellent. And it's very inspiring to see how Paul dealt with his ear deformity as a child and adult and how he overcame his shyness. At it's core, it was very relatable. Bruce's book really isn't outside of the part about his cancer. Other than a peek into how he grew up and the lack of love and support shown to him, I don't feel like I got to know him much at all.