Aqualung

Well, I think it's about time I did an Iron Maiden featured artist, especially with the number of Iron Maiden fans we now have.

Years active:
1975-present

Genre:
Heavy metal
New Wave of British Heavy Metal

Original Line up:
Paul Day – Vocals
Dave Sullivan – Guitar
Terry Rance – Guitar
Steve Harris – Bass
Ron Matthews – Drums

Current Line up:
Bruce Dikinson - Vocals
Dave Murray - Guitar
Janick Gers - Guitar
Adrian Smith - Guitar
Steve Harris - Bass guitar
Nicko McBrain - Drums

Past members:
Paul Day - Vocals (1975-'76)
Dennis Wilcock - Vocals (1976-'77)
Paul Di'Anno - Vocals (1978-'81)
Blaze Bayley - Vocals (1993-'99)
Dave Sullivan – Guitar (1975)
Terry Rance – Guitar (1975-'76)
Bob Sawyer – Guitar (1976)
Terry Wapram – Guitar (1977)
Paul Cairns – Guitar (1979)
Paul Todd – Guitar (1979)
Dave Mac – Guitar (1979)
Tony Parsons – Guitar (1979)
Dennis Stratton – Guitar (1980)
Ron Matthews – Drums (1975-'77)
Thunderstick – Drums (1977)
Doug Sampson – Drums (1977-'80)
Clive Burr – Drums (1980-'83)
Tony Moore – Keyboards (1977)

Discography:
Iron Maiden - 1980
Killers - 1981
The Number of the Beast - 1982
Piece of Mind - 1983
Powerslave - 1984
Somewhere in Time - 1986
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son - 1988
No Prayer for the Dying - 1990
Fear of the Dark - 1992
The X Factor - 1995
Virtual XI - 1998
Brave New World - 2000
Dance of Death - 2003
A Matter of Life and Death - 2006

History:
Iron Maiden started out in 1975, when Steve Harris, Bassist, and Dave Murray, guitarist, first met each other. Through twelve different line ups in 30 years, these two still remain core members of the band. Iron Maiden was influenced by British metal bands such as Deep Purple, Led Zepplin, and Black Sabbath, and were a pioneer band in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) genre, a genre which emerged in response to the decline of such bands as Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, and in reaction against Punk Rock (although much of Iron Maiden's early stuff has pretty clear punk overtones). Iron Maiden chose their name from the nickname of a British club West Ham United FC, called The Irons, and from a German torture device called an iron maiden.

Iron Maiden started out with a keyboardist, but quickly decided that was not the route they wanted to take. Original singer Paul Day's lack of stage presence quickly got him replaced by Dennis Wilcock, who had the presence but not the talent. Wilcock was replaced by Paul Di'Anno, and original drummer Ron Matthews was replaced by Doug Sampson. With this line up, Iron Maiden began playing the local heavy metal clubs.

Iron Maiden gianed success in English heavy metal circuits quite quickly and gained a very loyal fan base, but they didn't record any material for a while. It wasn't until New Years Eve of 1978 that they recorded their demo tape Soundhouse Tapes, which is one of the most famous demo tapes of all time. This four-song-long demo tape sold 5,000 copies in just a couple weeks. Two of the tracks on this demo tape (Prowler and Iron Maiden) reached #1 on the English metal charts. Prior to the re-release in 1996, these demo tapes could sell at well over a thousand dollars.

In 1980, Iron Maiden released their self-titled debut album to much success. It was critically and commercially well received. As a testiment to their success, later that same year Iron Maiden opened for KISS's Unmasked tour and opened for a number of Judas Priest shows.

Iron Maiden:



After the tour, however, guitarist Dennis Stratton was fired because he didn't exactly jive with the rest of the band, either personally or creatively. Iron Maiden took on Adrian Smith to replace Stratton. Smith was very tight and experamental in his guitar playing, a quality that contrasted sharply with the other guitarist, Dave Murray, whose playing was more smooth. This contrast gave their music more of a twin lead guitar sound, rather than a lead and rhythm sound. This sound was developed primarily by Thin Lizzy and Wishbone Ash, but Iron Maiden, along with Judas Priest, was and influential developer of the style.

In 1981, Iron Maiden released their second studio album, Killers. This album consisted of tracks which were written before the release of Iron Maiden, but which were not included on that album. It only contained two new tracks, Killers and Murders in the Rue Morgue.

At this time, like most metal bands of the day, Iron Maiden was heavily into alcohol, but unlike most, their use of other drugs was quite low. Paul Di'Anno was the exception. His addiction to cocaine caused his singing and performing quality to decline and, due especially to Iron Maiden's growing popularity in America, they were forced to replace Di'Anno. They chose Bruce Dickinson.

Dickinson debuted on Iron Maiden's next album, The Number of the Beast. This album was successful the world over, and has become a heavy metal classic. Many consider such songs as The Number of the Beast and Hallowed Be Thy Name to be some of the greatest heavy metal songs ever written. The album was accompanied by a world tour of the US, Japan, Canada, and Australia. This tour saw the rise of complaints from numerous religious groups that the band was Satanic, allegations which centered primarily around the song The Number of the Beast. A group of Christian activists even staged a presentation by burning Iron Maiden albums along with some Ozzy Osbourne albums in a bonfire. These allegations did little to hurt their success, and perhaps even helped them gain popularity, although this incident was quite powerful in getting the entire genre of heavy metal labelled as Satanic. A funny anecdote concerned with this tour: Martin Birch, Iron Maiden's producer, got in a car accident with a family of church goers, and the bill for the repairs came to exactly 666 pounds. Birch refused to pay this number, and instead payed them a higher amount.

After this tour and before starting work on their next album, Iron Maiden released drummer Clive Burr and replaced him with Nicko McBrain. They then released four albums, each a year apart, all four of which went multi-platinum world wide. Piece of Mind, released in 1983, displayed a love of literature and film. For example, the song The Trooper was inspired by Tennyson's poem Charge of the Light Brigade.

Powerslave was released in 1984, and featured an Egyptian theme. This was the first album released by Iron Maiden that had the same line up as the previous album. It was also their last album to contain an instrumental song.

1985 saw the release of Live After Death, a live album of songs from their World Slavery Tour.

In 1986, Iron Maiden released Somewhere In Time. This was Maiden's first album that featured synthesized guitars. Adrian Smith was a cheif songwriter on this album, a depature from the usual Bruce Dickinson material.

Through all these album releases, Iron Maiden was still heavily accosted with accusations of Satanism, notwithstanding the fact that Nicko McBrain was a Born Again Christian. As an inside joke, Iron Maiden decided to place a backward message at the beginning of the song Still Life (from the album Piece of Mind). If played backward, one can hear McBrain say "Hmm, Hmmm, what ho sed de t'ing wid de t'ree bonce. Don't meddle wid t'ings you don't understand", after which he burps. McBrain said it was his impression of Idi Aman Dada, president of Uganda from 1971-'79. A translation of this into American or British English renders "'What ho,' said the monster with the three heads, 'don't meddle with things you don't understand.'"

In 1988 Iron Maiden started experamenting more. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was based on a boy with impressive powers and was based on the Orson Scott Card book Seventh Son. This was Iron Maiden's first use of keyboards (as opposed to guitar synthesizers in Somewhere in Time). Many critics found this album to be more accessible than usual Iron Maiden albums, and many fans also regard it as Maiden's best album. After this release, Iron Maiden went on the Maidens of Rock tour, where they were a headlining band. In 1990, the Guiness Book Of World Records noted that during Iron Maiden's set, the PA system (the largest front-of-house PA) sound pressure level peaked at 124 dB.

SSOASS:



After the tour, Adrian Smith left the band. Janick Gers replaced Smith and played on the album No Prayer for the Dying (released in 1990). This album's sound was a lot more raw than their previous albums, and Bruce Dickinson started singing in a much raspier voice than his trademark opera-style singing. Even though this album was so different, it did contain their first and so far only #1 single, Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter. The album was released with several different B-Sides to try to encourage fans to buy multiple copies.

Before No Prayer for the Dying was released, Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Janick Gers officially announced their solo endeavours. In 1991, Dickinson even went on a solo tour before recording Iron Maiden's next album, Fear of the Dark (1992), and album which did well with the fans. In 1993, Dickinson officially left the band for his solo carreer, but did do one farewell tour with Iron Maiden. Dickinson's last show was played August 28, 1993. The show had many graphic visuals, and culminated in Dickinson's death inside an iron maiden.

With Dickinson gone, Iron Maiden began auditioning hundrends of vocalists, finally choosing Blaze Bayley. His vocals were a lot different than those of previous singers, and fans had mixed feelings about him. In 1995, Iron Maiden released their first album with Bayley, The X Factor. The songs in this album were a lot darker, slower, and more melancholy than usual, which is often credited to the unfortunate events in Steve Harris's life at the time.

The band toured for most of '96 before going back to the studio to record Virtual XI, released in '98. This album was critically and commercially disasterous, and in 1999, Bayley left the band. At this time, however, Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith re-joined the band. This reunion delited the fans, and Maiden launched a reunion tour.

Brave New World, released in 2000, was the firstfruits of a more progessive era for Iron Maiden. This album's longer songs had a heavier political slant than previous albums, and the music leaned toward progressive metal, a musical direction which helped increase their fan base even more. The album was named Best Metal Album of 2000 by Metal-Rules.com.

The 2003 release of Dance of Death continued this musical direction. The songs were longer than usual (all but two being over five minutes in length) and, true to the album name, almost all sang about death in some way. This album was named Best Metal Album of 2003, and this award, along with the award in 2000, did away with any doubt that Iron Maiden was dying.

Iron Maiden's next album, A Matter Of Life and Death, is planned to be released in September.

Edward the Head:
Eddie the Head is Iron Maiden's well-known mascot. He started off as just a mask, and can be seen in the case-liner photos of the first album. Eddie the Head also made appearances in live shows as a head connected to pumps and tubes that could squirt out "blood", "drool", or whatever else the band wanted. Eddie's body came from artist Derek Riggs, and Eddie appears on almost all Iron Maiden album covers.

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Here we go. Mushu cereal for breakfast with duck sauce.

 

Inferno_Paintball

Heh, I was always wondering what that meant. I noticed the backwards talking, so I played it back and I couldn't understand anything.
Great post, I learned a lot of things about Iron Maiden that I otherwise probably would have never heard about. That 666 thing is hilarious.

Aqualung

Yeah, I know. I laughed so hard when I read that.

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Here we go. Mushu cereal for breakfast with duck sauce.

MWB

Nice post

If you want to learn in more detail about Maiden, as well as watch a few live unreleased gigs, buy/download "The Early Days." It's an interesting watch and you get a bonus disk with live concerts on it!

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Aqualung

Thanks for the recommend!

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Here we go. Mushu cereal for breakfast with duck sauce.

MWB

I also hear that they intend to bring out more DVDs portraying their whole career. Definitely something to get if Maiden interest you - also I think Live at Donnington gig will be on the next release.

I still need to buy that album to complete my Maiden album collection

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Biggington

Kick ass review man. I'm a huge Maiden fan myself and I actually never knew about that car accident thing. Hillarious!

the-muzic

Never really got the obsession with these guys.

Ken Powell

Maiden rules!!!!!!!

jsx

Billy Corgan recorded an acoustic version of Number of the Beast. It was used in the movie "Spun".
jsx

flavioso

still to this day, one of my favorite concerts!

Nicky Tuna

Great post, Great post.
Maiden is my absolute favourite =)
thanks man, you made a meaning to my life.

99

Iron Maiden is just too much noise for me.

Baphomet

Hopefully without insulting anyone I'll just say Maiden is way too corny for my taste. Not that they lack musical ability or talent, just their style is awful silly and I find it very hard to take them seriously. But what do I know they have become popular again with young kids.

papatyt

My Favorite 2 minits 2 midnight

sohotrightnow

IM is just OK. nothing special.

seBENTA

in the eighties they were my band, i have a special feeling about them

Wildcats42

A great band from the best era of music

AkU

up the irons from sweden. i love iron maiden =) my favourite song is Dance Of Death but not the album tho, i saw a few things here i didnt know before, great thanks for that !

decadere.corvo

My friends and I are big Maiden fans, so thank you for this one. Personally, I am a bigger fan of Blaze-era Maiden than Dickinson. I also really like Blaze and Paul DiAnno's solo albums. Paul DiAnno's Living Dead has a live version of Wrathchild as well as a cover of the Megadeth classic "Symphony of Destruction."

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passionfruit

Yes these guys are great. I finally got to see them this year. Steve Harris' daughter Lauren's band opened.It was all fun!
Great post!

MatrixSoul

Iron Maiden was in Argentina few days ago, was awesone!!!

Best regards
MatrixSOul - songwriter from Argentina

MaXoWeR

Fathers X_x

blargfrit

Greatest. Band. Ever!

blargfrit

Saw them in Vancouver last year and the show was incredible. They are far too old to still be kicking that much ass, but they somehow keep getting the job done! Dance of Death is a highly underrated album as well, on par with their best 80's stuff IMO


MAIDEN RULES!