BDWBN: What is your professional background?
Joe: Well, I spent many years as a bassist in a punk band, touring round bits of Europe and releasing stuff through the DIY scene, and had many friends across the world who were also, as I was, busy making fanzines, doing labels and distros and things like that. When that all ended I trained as a sound engineer but decided that spending sixteen hours a day or more in small rooms with a bunch of farting sweaty hairy men wasn't quite the career I envisaged! I've always also written about music (and sport and travel) since I was a kid and somewhere in the middle of the studio training I accidentally ended up co-running and doing the press for an independent label. Then I found I was able to go full-time as a music journalist writing for quite a lot of magazines including Record Collector, Mixmag, Music Mart, Big Issue, and some Metal Hammer specials including the Maiden one. I've also done a lot of radio down the years and co-produced and presented a show on BBC Radio Merseyside for five years as well as national bits and bobs for 6Music and others. It only makes sense I guess in retrospect, mostly trying to avoid getting a real job really. And none of it was very professional either.

BDWBN: When did you discover Bruce as an artist?
Joe: I think I was the same as most people, I was really into Metal as a kid and Maiden were one of my favourite bands, alongside Dead Kennedys and Motörhead. The Number Of The Beast album was one of the first LPs I bought, alongside I think Strong Arm Of The Law, Rainbow Rising and some other more embarrassing ones that I ain't gonna tell you! But I had loads of posters all over my wall, all those brilliant pieces of artwork made by the wonderful Derek Riggs, and pretty much fell in love with the whole deal as a youngster. I was actually in Bangor Cathedral Choir at that time singing all the old hits by Gustav Mahler and Gabriel Faure and all those old punk rockers but it didn't really work out cause there was this weird God thing you had to subscribe to which just seemed ludicrous so I left due to theological differences. A bit later on Steve Harris and Lemmy made me want to pick up a bass in the first place, I'd say really. But the vocals were astonishing to me even then, especially something like 'Powerslave' which is an incredible piece of music.

BDWBN: How did you get the idea of writing his biography?
Joe: I think it finally became a potential real-life project when I started to seriously look at the body of work he'd accumulated before and after the Maiden stints; thirty years of success in the music business is really interesting isn't it? And of course as Maiden were one of my first real inspirations I was astonished that nobody had appraised his professional work in this form before in a book (though there are some great websites online of course!).

BDWBN: How long time did the book take to make?
Joe: There's two ways to answer the question really, cause I think a lot of my career had been leading up to the book without me realising it. But from the time it was commissioned to the time it was out in the shops I think there was around ten months altogether.

BDWBN: Besides Bruce and Roy Z, who did you want to interview that you never managed to get hold of?
Joe: Alex Dickson was on tour at the time so logistics defeated us in terms of an interview on that one although he was very helpful when he finally got a chance to catch his breath! I think with a musician of the longevity of Bruce there's not really an end point of interviews; there are so many people that he's influenced, worked with or otherwise dealt with over the years that you could keep interviewing forever if you had enough time and resources. But generally I was happy with the interviews we managed to do. I feel privileged that people of such stature were so helpful in the process, from Jack Endino to those crazy Sack Trick chaps! I had a lot of fun chatting with these people and, as you know Henrik, if you're vaguely in music like we kinda are it's really not 'work' to pick up the phone and talk to some of these legends. And someone like Keith Olsen really is a legend. He produced 'Wind Of Change' for fuck's sake! It was really a joy at times.

BDWBN: What do you think of the book? Did it turn out the way you expected/wanted?
Joe: I decided very early on to not be too personally intrusive into his private life cause I don't think it's my place to do that. There's enough professional impact out there to talk about and I just tried to do the best that I could.

BDWBN: Is there anything that you would change? Add or remove? Have you found any errors?
Joe: I think this is for other people to say, and to be honest I don't really like going back over things once they're done. But if there are some debatable points in the manuscript, it's often only because the passage of time often means that memories are a little hazy about specific dates and timing of events. What I tend to do is go with the memories of the interviewees and people who were there at the time, unless there's loads of evidence that obviously contradicts it.

BDWBN: What has the reaction been?
Joe: In general the UK rock magazines have been very positive about the book with some great reviews so I'm told, but ultimately it's really the Maiden and Bruce fans whose opinion matters and there's been a lot of positive feedback which is kind of humbling but obviously very welcome.

BDWBN: Name three questions that you would have asked Bruce if you would have had the chance.
Joe: Hahaha only three??! That's cruel. But how about:

1. How the fuck did all this happen?
2. Are you talking to Richard Branson about becoming a pilot for Virgin Galactic when the space trips start to happen?
3. How would you really go about getting the rail network in the UK back up to some sort of useable standard if you were in charge?

Short questions: