Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has performed in Las Vegas many times over the years but never quite like he will on March 12. That’s the night the 63-year-old metal icon will bring his spoken-word tour to the House of Blues.

The show will consist of two parts, a “humorous and often satirical look” at his wide-ranging experiences—which include earning his pilot’s license, surviving throat cancer, writing books and becoming a motivational speaker—and a Q&A, during which audience members are urged to ask anything on their mind.

The Weekly conducted its own Q&A with Dickinson ahead of that performance, and here’s what he had to say.

You originally went on a spoken-word tour to promote the release of your memoir, 2017’s What Does This Button Do? What made you want to revisit the format again years later? I did a tour the year before COVID hit, and one of the last shows I did was in Dublin. I was kind of nervous about that one, because if ever there’s a town where people know about telling stories, it’s the Irish and Dublin. But I did it and the promoter was like, “Sh*t, that was great. You know what, I do spoken word shows for festivals, like 10,000 people listening to spoken word. Do you want to be a special guest on the bill?” I was like, “OK, I’m getting all the smoke signals that this could work.”

It absolutely scared the life out of Iron Maiden management, of course. They were like, “Oh my God, we have no control.” And also, “He might make a fool of himself.” I was like, “That’s kind of the whole point. That’s why you stand up there. You make a fool out of yourself, but in a good way.”

Now they’re all happy and relaxed about it, and we’re getting great reviews. And, unbelievably, I’m selling a load of T-shirts. I’m like, “You’re buying a T-shirt at a spoken word show, huh?” So it’s great.

Have you ever regretted saying nothing’s off-limits for the fan Q&A portion of the show? No, because it’s nothing off-limits in terms of what people can write and ask as questions, not whether that question makes it into the show. If someone asks something really off, it will be, “I can’t. We’re not going to go there.”

I look for questions or statements that are unwittingly funny or mildly amusing. But I also get questions from people that are like, “I’m a cancer survivor and worried about treatment or have a friend going through treatment.” You have to deal with that sensitively, but you can lift people up and make them laugh at the same time.

I do a chunk about cancer where everyone starts gasping at the C-word, but then they’re laughing about the damn thing at the end. Not because it’s funny, but because you put them in the situation and they say, “This is ridiculous. How could this be happening to me?” I try to bring them into a dark place and then say it wasn’t so dark and it’s got the happy ending.

Does each show therefore have its own identity more in than your day job with Iron Maiden? Absolutely, because there’s no script. Well, there’s kind of a script, but it evolves. There are ad-libs and things that go in there and some things I just think of at the time and say, hey, that would be funny. I try it out and it gets a laugh.

For instance, in Milwaukee last night, there’s something I usually do, and it got an absolutely flatline response. I went, maybe they didn’t hear it right, so I figured out a way to do it again, and nope. Whereas in New York, they were cracking up at it immediately. I was like, that’s really weird. But you’ve just got to go with it.

Iron Maiden shows are physically demanding. Are these more mentally exhausting? Yes, my agent is out with me watching the shows, and after the New York show—that’s a big, pressure show, because everyone has got an opinion on everything—I was sitting having a beer afterwards, and he looked at me and said, “You look absolutely drained.” I said, “Yeah that’s how I feel. I’m going to go to bed now.”

But then I got up and did it again the next day. I’m doing five shows a week, so it’s three hours onstage, plus travel and soundcheck and all the rest of it, so it’s a good chunk of mental effort. There’s no support band, no support system. It’s just you out there.

Considering you’re always so busy with various projects, how did you handle lockdown? I had just done two spoken-word show in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and that was the weirdest experience, because they were doing simultaneous translation of a semi-comedic show. You’d say what approximates to a punchline and get no response. Then you go, “Anyway, on Tuesday,” and they’d bust out laughing. There was a 30-second lag on the laughter.

I went from there back to Paris where I was staying with my partner, Leana. I got back on Saturday, and then the president of France comes on the TV and says, ‘Tonight, midnight, all bars are shut.’ I went, holy cow, let’s go out and get a beer quick. So we all go out to all the bars and then we went home. We were like, this is weird. I guess this is lockdown.

The weather was nice. I scrubbed our little balcony and started cooking and we would make breakfast on the balcony. It was sunny and we were doing little workouts and moving the furniture and watching TV, so life kind of slowed down. At first, I was like, I’m going to be bored, but then I was like, no I kind of like life slowing down. It’s not so bad. Then, after a year of it, I was like, I’m done with this now. And now I’m really done with it. I’ve been vaccinated, had COVID, been boosted. Enough. Let’s get on with it.

What are your best memories of playing Las Vegas over the years? The last time I went to Vegas, I have a friend who owns a helicopter. I think he’s got a lot more money than I have. Well actually, no, because he owns a helicopter, he probably has a lot less money than I have. But he said, “I’d love to come see the show. Why don’t you come and we can fly the helicopter together?” I was like, that’s cool, so we flew low-level through the desert and dropped the helicopter in.

I’m really looking forward to Vegas again. I’m going to go buy a load of boots. Last time I was in Vegas, I think I got three or four pairs of hiking boots—semi-military style boots from a military survivalist shop in North Las Vegas where they sell all this stuff—and they are the best.

You can buy useful things there, like a parachute. I think I got some of my stage gear for the Book of Souls tour there. I went up there and said, “That’s a cool-looking suit.” He said, “Yeah, that’s a chemical warfare suit,” and I said, “Yeah, I could really use one of those.”

BRUCE DICKINSON March 12, 6:30 p.m., $46+. House of Blues, concerts.livenation.com.