Iron Maiden Kept Senjutsu “Locked up in a Vault” for Two Years to Prevent It From Leaking

One of the most perilous dangers modern bands face is the possibility that their album will leak online prior to its release. There’s all sort of measures bands and labels now take to prevent this from happening, including watermarking promo copies and/or making those promo copies stream-only (i.e., they can’t be downloaded). But even those sometimes fall short.

So Iron Maiden went to extra-great lengths to keep their latest offering, Senjutsu, from falling into the wrong hands… they kept it “locked up in a vault” for two years.

This according to Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson, who tells Metal Hammer:

“At the ending of the recording, everybody else had fucked off home, so it was basically me, Steve [Harris, bassist] and Kevin [Shirley, producer] in the studio. We played it back a couple of times, said, ‘Yeah, that’s alright then!’ And then that was the last time I heard it or nearly two years. All of us! Nobody in the band had a copy!

“Steve, in particular, was so paranoid that someone would leak it onto the internet, and probably with some justification, it was locked up in a vault.”

Dickinson doesn’t mention the group’s other misdirect to keep Senjutsu a secret from fans: Maiden were rumored to be in the studio in 2019, but as of October of 2020, Dickson would admit only that the band have been “doing bits of writing” and “working together a little bit in the studio.” Well played, fellas.

Senjutsu will arrive on September 3. Listen to the single, “The Writing on the Wall” and “Stratego,” and then pre-order the album here.