The lead singer of Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson, has finally joined the 21st Century and started using a smartphone – albeit under duress, and in the most throwback way imaginable.
The frontman of the iconic British rock band recently revealed that he has been forced to start using a smartphone, after agreeing to take part in a charity cycling event called Heavy Metal Truants that required him to download an app – something he couldn't do on his delightfully aging Nokia 3310 throwback phone.
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"I had to download this thing – where’s my phone, I’ve got it somewhere here. You’ll laugh, you’ll laugh when you see my phone, right," he told our colleagues at Classic Rock in an entertaining interview (below).
"Right – it’s a brand new, old Nokia. So, like, I’ve got that, and almost a year ago now I got this smartphone from the [Iron] Maiden office, they said, 'This is your smartphone.' And there’s a SIM card with it and everything. And I thought well that’s very nice, so I put it away and never touched it again. Until Truants, and they was like, 'Oh you need to do this stuff, download your every move on this app,' and I was like, 'I can’t even figure out how to put the SIM card in!'
"So this whole process has actually encouraged me to put in the SIM card and I now have a smartphone. So basically my life is going to suck from now on."
Dickinson didn't reveal what smartphone he was given, but the idea of a crusty old rocker trying to figure out gesture controls or HDR photos certainly fills us with joy.
Heavy Metal Truants is a charity cycle ride to the Download 2021 festival, and is raising money for Nordoff Robbins, Childline, Teenage Cancer Trust and Save The Children. The scheme is part of The Truants Foundation, which has raised over £4 million for children's charities over the past decade. For more information, visit www.heavymetaltruants.com.
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