Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson To Launch Airline As Band Reveals New Album

Veteran heavy rock/metal legend Bruce Dickinson is a living demonstration that age is no barrier to staying busy.

The 56-year-old frontman of Iron Maiden is not only still right in the thick of things with his iconic band as they prepare for the release of their keenly awaited, hour-and-a-half-long new album The Book of Souls this September — despite battling cancer earlier this year — but he's also spearheading the launch of a new airline through his existing aircraft maintenance organisation Cardiff Aviation.

The album is due for release worldwide via Parlophone Records on Friday, 4 September, and comes roughly a year since the band started its creation. They returned to Guillame Tell Studios, in Paris — where they'd recorded 2000's Brave New World — to lay the record down, and they've walked out with a two-disc, 11-track, 92-minute behemoth in tow. Only one song clocks in at less than five minutes — the four-minute, 59-second Tears Of A Clown — while a further three boast run times north of 10 minutes. If you're looking for a word to describe it, it'll probably be the most appropriate use of "epic" you've seen in the past few years.

"We're really excited about The Book Of Souls and had a fantastic time creating it," Dickinson said in a statement.

"By the time we'd finished, we all agreed that each track was such an integral part of the whole body of work that if it needed to be a double album, then double it's going to be!"

About the same time, Cardiff Aviation will launch its new airline, which, according to Business Traveller, will operate under the name VVB, pending its acquisition of an operating licence from the European Safety Agency (EASA). Its first aircraft will be a Boeing 737-400, with another two craft planned to join the fleet by September.

"In the last two years, we've grown relentlessly, thanks to our unique entrepreneurial style of MRO and training," Dickinson told Wales Online. "We're now looking to bring that approach to the airline market with VVB.

"This is a huge opportunity to create new jobs and further increase our already impressive roster of services."

The Book Of Souls album, Iron Maiden's 16th studio full-length, will be available in 2CD deluxe, 2CD standard, triple heavyweight vinyl, high-res audio and standard-res audio format, following 2010's The Final Frontier in the band's extensive canon.