Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson recently sat down for an interview with Kerrang! Magazine where he spoke on artists and singing ability. The topic stemmed from his addressing the band’s longtime drummer Nicko McBrain’s decision to take a break from touring due to health issues. Dickinson shared that he recently got into an argument with a journalist over the idea of taking such breaks, as reported in Blabbermouth.

The journalist told him that you can’t pack it in when things go wrong; you have to go on. Dickinson shared with the magazine, “I said [to the journalist], ‘Look, there are loads of singers whose voices are shot, and everybody knows it.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, but they’re legends.’ They’re not fucking legends, they’re people who can’t sing anymore. When they were singing, they were legends. When they can’t sing anymore, they’re not legends anymore.”

He calls it a “brutal truth” and says he “couldn’t go on stage if I didn’t think I could do it. I don’t know how people get onstage when they can’t do it anymore. Obviously, it’s their life, but it’s not my way.”

Dickinson said he isn’t worried about it and that it’s a fact of life. “You take each day as it comes, and you try to give the best performance of your life every night. That’s the rules of the game.”