Chris Dale
E-mail interview, Tuesday May 28 2002

We contacted the ever so nice SackTrick leader and former Skunkworks bassist Chris Dale for a little insight in the rehearsals for Bruce's upcoming summer festival tour. This was done just as he got back from his first full rehearsal with Bruce and contains some of his first impressions of the band. Judging by his rather cryptic answers to some questions there are a couple of surprises he doesn't want to spoil.

BDWBN: Could you give us an short introduction of who is playing with Bruce this summer. What the various bandmembers have been doing, and what are they up to at present and so on...
Chris: The band line-up is Bruce Dickinson, of course...Alex Dickson, who was in the Skunkworks line-up and is a key member of Sack Trick but has since been playing with pop bands such as Emma Bunton and Robbie Williams, because of this he's so keen to ROCK! He's playing with a far more aggressive Metal style that back with Skunkworks...Pete Friesen is the other guitarist, he's best known for playing with Alice Cooper and the Almighty, but I think he's best known for being mentioned on the KISS family tree inside Alive 3! Now Maiden and Kiss are linked! Marvellous! He's an amazing player and him and Alex trading solos is Metal heaven. Actually I think the first time these two traded solos was on Blue Ice Cream on the first Sack Trick album!...Robin Guy is the drummer, best known for his work with bands such as Rachel Stamp and Sack Trick, he also once stood in for Mike Bordin in Faith No More... then there's me playing bass, I'm in Sack Trick too...

BDWBN: How come you lot are playing with him? How did it come about?
Chris: I've always stayed friends with Bruce since the Skunkworks times, he's singing on the new Sack Trick album too! He often comes down to our gigs and one day he just told us about these festivals and asked if we fancied doing them. We said Yes...

BDWBN: How do you feel about touring with Bruce this summer?
Chris: I'm really looking forward to it all. It's going to be good fun to go out and ROCK!

BDWBN: Any favourites in the set?
Chris: We're only just picking what's going to be in the final setlist now so I can't say for definate. We've been reheasing songs from all periods of Bruce's history, something from all of Bruce's solo albums, old Maiden songs that they haven't played for years, new songs that haven't been played live before and of course all the old favourites. My personal favourite at the moment is a cover version we've been trying out. I can't say exact song titles yet because we've still not decided exactly which songs to play.

BDWBN: How have the rehearsals been going?
Chris: We've only just started full rehearsals though me, Alex, Pete and Robin have been getting together already going through lots of material instrumentally. Everything sounds so much heavier than it did during the Skunkworks period. Robin is a more straight ahead metal drummer than Sponder and having Alex and Pete together is amazing! Bruce has only just started getting together with us but his voice sounds in great form.

BDWBN: Can we expect any Skunkworks material now with 3/4 of the Skunkworks band in the line-up?
Chris: Something from everything for everyone...his last album was called "The Best of..." and this setlist will be the best of everything he's ever done...

BDWBN: Do you think this band/constellation will continue to work with Bruce in the future on recording projects or other tours? Would you be interested in doing that?
Chris: These Summer festivals are just a one off. Next year Iron Maiden are starting a new project again. I'm sure that will keep Bruce quite busy enough for meanwhile. After these gigs the new Sack Trick album "Sheep in Kiss Make-up"- a very twisted Kiss covers album, comes out in the Autumn. Sack Trick will be touring to support that, then we start work on another Sack Trick album. We might work with Bruce again, but there's no plans beyond having a good Metal time at these festivals right now!!!

Thanks to Chris for finding time in between rehearsals to give us this interview.