Iron Maiden: The Paul Di'Anno Years

I did a series of posts years back on Iron Maiden, but they were intended to be a warm-up to a planned Thirty Days of Maiden, which never actually materialized. Part of the reason it never did is because while the idea was to spend a calendar day apiece on thirty Maiden songs, I happen to have more than thirty favorites. No matter how I sliced and diced it I could not find a thirty-song set that felt comfortably definitive for even such a subjective task as “my favorite Maiden songs.” Clearly an exhaustive album-by-album approach was needed to get to the bottom of things. 

That was 2014. It took me six years to finally follow through on the below, and I needed to enlist the aid of my buddy and fellow Maiden-enthusiast Marshall Mason to get the job done properly. Marshall! Welcome to the blog and thanks for doing this with me. Tell the good folks at home how you got into Maiden and why you’re here.  

Marshall: I got into Maiden around 1988. I raided my brother's cassette collection. I didn't like heavy metal. I thought it was satanic and too heavy. But I really loved the song “Eye of the Tiger” (to this day, I say that song was quintessential metal!), and I was curious and open minded. I went through Ozzy, Anthrax, and Metallica and was not too impressed until I happened upon Powerslave. "Aces High" hooked me in right away, and by the time that break in "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" came, I was definitely a fan, and by extension, also a fan of heavy metal, because if I could find one album, surely I could find others. To this day, Powerslave is my favorite metal album and favorite Maiden album. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was the current album at the time, and it was around then that I saw videos for “Can I Play With Madness” and “Run to the Hills” on Headbanger's Ball, a show I gravitated to specifically because of Maiden.

Bryan: I really wish they’d re-run Headbanger’s Ball. Or put out some mega-stream/collection of it all. 

Marshall: I've been developing a Headbanger's Ball playlist of songs I've owned and am purchasing, and I'm really happy with it. It feels like tuning into the show, without interruptions or commercials.

Bryan: Those playlists are absolute dynamite. I remember how rare it was to see Maiden on MTV. That changed with Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, when at least “The Evil that Men Do” and “The Clairyvoyant” were in heavy rotation. 

I too got into metal on account of my older brother, who was into all New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands, as well as Dio and Accept and pretty much all early-to-mid-80s metal. “Eye of the Tiger” was a bit of a gateway drug, totally. One minute I was singing nothing but Men At Work; the next it was Judas Priest and Sin After Sin. 

My parents like a lot of parents of that era were worried I was absorbing bad mojo from heavy metal, but I think they saw my brother was doing okay, so I had that on my side. I can’t recall a time when I didn’t know Maiden, really – they kind of just appear during my memories of being eight or nine. Maiden’s new album around this time in my life was Piece of Mind (which I had on cassette so my memory of it comes with that escalating-tone boop-de-boop-boop-BEEP that started some tapes back then.) My brother and I would draw all the album covers and singles in our room in Sprendlingen. When Powerslave came out, forget it, we were both over the moon – so much to draw/ copy on that album cover! We’d aged out of drawing in our room together by the time Somewhere in Time came out, but that cover design covered most of my textbook-covers in junior high.  

I wish I still had those sketchbooks. 

Marshall: You were a few years ahead of me. I always felt like I got in right at the tail end, and missed out on the heyday, which was disappointing. I think this is why I'm having such a midlife crisis now and going back and listening and discovering all the stuff that came before my time. I've sort of owed this to myself for a long time. Now I've got time to kill and I have nothing else I'm really interested in anymore. When COVID ends, I think I might even start going to concerts, which I rarely did before, for financial reasons.

Bryan: I gave up going to shows sometime around 2005, but I’d planned to see Kraftwerk this past summer in Chicago. I hadn’t bought any tickets, but I kept circling the idea. Alas the COVID made the decision for me. I’m sure that when people start going to shows again, it’ll be the sweeping shots of hundred thousand people crowds upping the irons in South America that ease more than a few people back into it.  

Let’s get things going with the Di’Anno years. For those unfamiliar, Paul Di’Anno was the first lead singer for Maiden, singing on their first two studio efforts. Starting with:

(1980)

Side One

Prowler

Marshall: 3/5  Always a crowd pleaser, this song is custom made for live shows.

Bryan: 4/5  Absolutely. I had access to my older brother’s albums, but the “Sanctuary” single, which also had this song on it, was one of the first I personally purchased. I remember the whole thing: getting my allowance money, getting dropped off at the Neu Isenburg Mall where he bought Number of the Beast on vinyl, and I got this one. We were always pooling our Maiden; he was very loyal to Bruce and so he never bothered getting the first two on vinyl. (Another reason it took me a few years to really get into the first two albums.) 

Anyway, I apparently bought the Dutch vinyl single, as my version has "Sanctuary" and "Prowler" on it, and I listened to that thing a hundred times. I always think of both these songs in an eight year old ownership way, as “my” songs, the ones I had outside my brother's albums.

"Sanctuary" cover. (In the words of Bobby Darin, could it be our boy's done something rash?)

Sanctuary

Bryan: 4/5  I guess I kind of covered my answer above, too. Like "Prowler" it had that whole from-the-POV-of-a-killer/deviant quality that was so edgy at the time. 

Marshall:  3/5  Another crowd pleaser. The solos on this are great. This song is so good live. They usually stop in the middle and introduce the band. Then they jump back into the song. Such a cool move, live.

Bryan:  I wish more bands did that sort of thing. I like when songs become part of their act like that, like “Running Free” is the get-the-crowd-singing song, etc. 

Remember Tomorrow

Bryan: 4/5  The fast break and then back to the other section is so quintessentially Maiden. This one foreshadows the Dickinson years. I go through the same mental process whenever I hear this one: I’m just getting a little bored with the first part when the fast part kicks in and saves it for me. 

Marshall: 3/5  Cool song. 

Running Free

Bryan: 5/5   Perfect. Every goooooooooool montage should be to this.

Marshall:  2/5   It's a fun song, but the lyrics seem uninspired, and the vocal harmonies are not very good.

Bryan:  I’m scandalized! I think the vocal harmonies are good enough for this sort of song. You know all this, I know, but for the benefit of those who don’t, the soccer fandom of the individual members of Maiden is an ongoing thing with the band. Steve Harris played for West Ham’s youth squad and was even offered a spot on Leyton Orient (if memory serves from that Mick Wall book.) There’s a Brazilian side that uses Eddie for its mascot; thousands of people in the stands unfurl a huge Eddie banner. I forget the name of them; you can see them on the Rock in Rio DVD special features, though. Anyway! This is one of my favorites.

Phantom of the Opera

Marshall: 4/5  My favorite Maiden song from this era. I love the guitar riff during the verse. I love how the vocal melody and guitar melody line up for part of the verse. I love the guitar solo. My favorite part is the breaks. The break in the middle, with the bass going first and then the guitars lining up behind that, pure genius! Dickinson does this much better live than Di'anno on this record. It really is perfect for him, having the operatic voice and all.

Bryan:  3.5/ 5  You know, that’s always been my problem with this studio version. I heard Bruce sing it first. I do like it for what it is – that’s basically my take on any Di’anno song (except “Running Free” and “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which even though Bruce sings both well, I prefer Di’anno’s takes.) You’re totally right, though, this is vintage Maiden song construction.

Marshall: Interesting! I heard Bruce sing this first too, but for me that was a plus! I fell in love with this on the Live After Death album, so now when I hear the original, I have a greater appreciation for how good of a song it is, even if I still prefer Bruce's version. Maybe if I'd heard the original first, I wouldn't have formed such good feelings about this song in the first place.

Side Two:

Transylvania

Bryan: 4.25/5   Cinema of the mind Maiden

Marshall:  3/5  Headbanger’s delight.

Bryan:  Whenever I hear “The Shortest Straw” by Metallica – and this happened fairly recently so I was reminded of it – I picture a sort of Wayne’s World scene of my friend and I riding around in a car as teenagers, headbanging. But the only time anything like that actually happened was to this song, and it was much later, like 2002. And I was by myself.  

Strange World

Marshall:  4/5  This is a beautiful song. This is what an Iron Maiden "ballad" sounds like it. We don't get very many of these! I remember in high school when a kid played this and said it was early Maiden. I didn't believe him because it sounded so different from "Can I Play With Madness" and "Run to the Hills". I bought this album years later and discovered he was right!

Bryan: 3.5/5  I always remember it as just Side B’s “Remember Tomorrow,” just missing the fast break section, but that’s selling it short, it’s a great track. As you say some rare Maiden balladry.

Charlotte the Harlot

Marshall: 1/5   Meh. Gets a little better later when the guitar solo comes in after the mellow part in the middle.

Bryan: 3/5  This is one I never really took to. It’s grown on me a bit over the years. It’s weird because I’ve been saying some variation of this (“it’s okay”) since literally 1984, but part of my brain still expects hey, a few more listens, it might click. My older brother and all his friends were always convinced this one was one of their big league songs, which is probably why. 

Iron Maiden

Bryan: 5/5  A theme song! Perfect.

Marshall: 3/5   That riff in INSANE. The break in the middle, leading back to the riff is my favorite part.

Bryan: Tony Iommi always gets the credit for being metal’s riff master god and he certainly wrote some great ones. Nothing against him. But Maiden has just as many , if not more, and some of their riffs are so inventive in addition to being catchy that I think they deserve the appellation. 

Marshall: But wait there’s more. “Burning Ambition”. This is a B side. The intro riff on this is really brilliant. One of their better songs from this era. They should have used this instead of "Charlotte the Harlot".

Bryan: Oh man, I have not heard this in so long. Great riff indeed. As mentioned, I had the “Prowler” EP, and my brother's friend had the “Running Free" (and “Women in Uniform” but we didn’t count that at the time since it was just a cover) one. 

These days, I like that track fine, as well as the band that performed it originally, the Sky Hooks. I always think of them this time every year on account of “Horror Movie” being in perennial Halloween-mix rotation.

Final Thoughts:

Marshall: Total 30. (Avg. 3)  The production quality of this album is scarcely made up for in the quality of the songs and instrumentation. The singing is bland at best. But I often go back to this album because holy cow, some of the playing and songwriting on this album are incredible. But I have to be in the mood for something very raw sounding.

Bryan:  Total 36.25 (Avg. 4.03)  That about sums it up. I like the rawness (and the thrash-ness of the next one) as outliers in the Maiden experience. There’s a prototype-feeling, an alternate-universe feeling. They announced themselves fairly accurately, just needed the right band members to join and flesh it all out. It’s interesting to consider this in the context of what Samson (Bruce's band) or Urchin (Adrian’s) were doing at the time. 

Next:

(1981)

Bryan: That cover! Brutal. Among the most iconic images of my heavy metal youth. Let's dive in.

Side One:

The Ides of March

Marshall: 3/5  This is clearly intended as an album intro, and it works marvelously for it. When this song ends, I'm just dying for that bass line for "Wrathchild"!

Bryan: 3.5/5  Absolutely. It’s tough to score an intro/table-setter like this. It gives Judas Priest's "Electric Eye" a run for its money and segues so perfectly into:

Wrathchild

Marshall: 4/5  One of the best songs from this album.

Bryan: 4.75/ 5   Agreed. Almost as perfect a single for me as “Running Free” is as far as expressing a certain vector of Maiden excitement, 

Murders in the Rue Morgue

Marshall:  3/5  I enjoy this song a lot, but sometimes it feels unnecessarily rushed.

Bryan:  4.5/5  True. I really do love it, though. I’ve revised my score for this a few times but each time I put it lower than 4.5 I end up bumping it back up. This is another score I’ll chalk up to my brother and his friends assigning the song a certain level of importance in the early to mid 80s. 

Another Life

Bryan: 3.5/5  This one, like the album itself, has only grown on me in the years since I first borrowed my brother's vinyl. It's just a "Prowler" rewrite, though, seems more like entry-level Maiden.

Marshall:  3/5  I love the guitar riff in the intro, and love how they go back to it toward the end.

"Twilight Zone" single.

Genghis Khan

Marshall: 3/5  This song is great, it really works on this album, but boy does it feel rambunctious.

Bryan: 4/5  Essentially thrash in the middle. Very epic end to side one. Well, if the next one didn’t exist. 

Innocent Exile

Bryan: 2.25/5  I would’ve lopped this off. 

Marshall:  2/5  Not a bad song, but it doesn’t really rev my engine, aside from that bad ass intro bass line.

Side Two:

Killers

Bryan:  4.25/5  The breaks in the middle don't quite work for me, but the rest of the song is great.

Marshall:  4/5  I love this song! The intro is bad ass, it gives that lurking feeling that the song is about. Not a huge fan of Di'anno, but his singing on this is absolutely perfect. He almost sounds like a stalker! I heard Dickinson try this one live, and it's pretty weak.

Bryan: Definitely one of his signature tunes. I’ve never taken a deep dive on post-Maiden Di’Anno but the list of bands he formed and the lengths sometimes gone to remind anyone of the Maiden connection is impressive. 

Paul in later years.

Prodigal Son

Bryan: 2/5 Never cared for this one. 

Marshall:  3/5  This song feels really good until it suddenly stops for a weird riff that feels out of place.

Purgatory

Marshall:  3/5  A little rambunctious at times, but that chorus in the middle and the guitar riff during it, MAKE this song. "Pleeeease, take me away, so far away…"

Bryan:  3.75/5  Absolutely. This thrashier side of Maiden is fun. I’m glad it’s limited, but it sounds great here.

Twilight Zone

Bryan:  3.75/5  Not much to say about this one. It’s fine.  

Marshall: 3/5   Fun and upbeat song. The chorus is pretty catchy.

Drifter

Bryan:  3.25/5  I like this chorus, as well. That makes three catchy choruses in a row. Although it doesn’t feel like quite the bang that we should get at the end of a Maiden record. Not bad, though.

Marshall: 3/5  Cool song.

Final thoughts:

Bryan: Total  39.5 (Avg. 3.59)  This one is always better than I remembered, but it’s never the first one I ever reach for. (That cover, though!) Welcome to the party, producer Martin Birch. 

Marshall: Total 35. (Avg. 3.18) A huge step up on production quality from the first record. I feel like this was a proof of what they set out to do on the first album, that this is something that is here to stay, and will develop from here. That development is exactly what they deliver on the next album. So in a sense, Killers is a transitional album to the real Iron Maiden that we all know now.

~

That wraps up the Di’Anno era.  Ousted from the band for performance issues, he still has his champions, like this guy. He made an indelible contribution to the history of heavy metal by fronting the band for any period of time, in my opinion, and there are certainly worse things to have on your resume than Iron Maiden and Killers. 

The band needed a frontman, however, who’d not only show up more consistently but accommodate their growing popularity and vision. They needed someone like Bruce Dickinson, in other words. Coming next! 

Iron Maiden: The Nature of the Beast

I consider myself a fairly well-rounded person with a variety of interests. But if you went only from what I blog about, you'd be forgiven for thinking I'm preoccupied with only those things I read, listened to on a walkman, or watched on VHS in the 80s.

I'm afraid this next series of blogs will not change that impression.

The first Iron Maiden album I remember coming out was Piece of Mind in 1983. My brother and his friends were all really into it, which meant I was always borrowing his copy, so I think my parents might have gotten me the cassette for Christmas to smooth over sibling relations. A lot of people think of Kraftwerk when they imagine the Autobahn, and while that's understandable, myself, I always think of Maiden, in particular Piece of Mind and Powerslave. Those were the cassettes usually in my walkman from '83 to when we left Germany in '86.

Unlike practically every other band that hit it big in the 80s, Maiden still tours and releases albums regularly. The albums might not sell as well as they used to (although they still, amazingly, go to number one in countries around the world,) but their tours are more successful than ever. I'm happy for them that this is the case, but even more bizarrely, they still release music and imagery that captures my imagination all these years later. (As well as gets me moving. I twisted my knee shoveling out of Polar Vortex 2014 two weeks back and mildly re-aggravated it last night jumping up and down in my kitchen while listening to "Hallowed Be Thy Name." I've a friend who put himself in the hospital jumping around to Blur's "Song 2;" if such a thing ever happens to me, Maiden will undoubtedly be responsible.) 

As far as the music goes, when it comes to whatever band of the heavy metal spectrum this sort of thing represents:

Maiden pretty much owns it. I imagine you'll know straight off whether this sort of thing is your cup of tea or not. I've found that if you didn't get into Maiden as a child, there's a fair amount of adult resistance to it; so it goes. They remind me of Kiss in this (and pretty much only this) regard. Once you're a Maiden fan, you tend to be of the "For Life" variety, but they have to take hold of your brain at an early age. Luckily for them (and for me, as it means I'm never without new Maiden material) each new generation seems to produce more or less the same amount of fans.

And the demographics are interesting to look at, too. Beyond my scope here, but it's an interesting sidebar to the whole Maiden phenomenon. A band one would reasonably assume would appeal only to a diminishing return of adolescents of the white-guy persuasion sells out arenas around the globe to boys and girls of all persuasions and pigmentations. Basically, their fan base is an ever-replenishing global juggernaut that turns out each and every year, radio play /celebrity-worship/ trends be damned.

I imagine they will be confusing non-Maiden fans until the day they hang up their cleats and epees.

As for me, what can I say? Maiden's high-energy mix of galloping rhythms, sudden structural changes, twin leads *, football-stadium-chants and neo-Celtic whimsy has appealed to me from the first time I heard it to the present day. The lyrics range from historical / literary epic to horror-dreamscape to songs about whatever movie Steve Harris saw on TV the night before. 

And of course, behind and above it all, is Eddie, their mascot and talisman, who forever appeals to the comic books side of my brain.

* When the classic line-up (Dickinson/ Harris/ McBrain/ Murray/ Smith) reformed for Brave New World, they opted not to kick Janick Gers (the replacement for Adrian Smith, who left after Seventh Son of a Seventh Son) out of the band. So twenty-first century Maiden has three leads. This is the sort of detail that forever amuses me. I seriously hope they get Dennis Stratton (guitarist for the first few years of the band) back in the line-up at some point so they can claim the distinction of having four lead guitarists.

What is it about Maiden that allows them to repeatedly succeed where so many others have failed? I can't say for sure. But it has something to do with the band's loving what they do, still being excited to try new things within this strange paradigm they've created for themselves, a lack of rock star egos, and transparency. With Maiden, what you see is what you get, unapologetically.

Undoubtedly a great deal of their continued success is due to the efforts of Sanctuary Management, aka Rod Smallwood and Andy Taylor, shown here with Number of the Beast-era Bruce.

Says Andy (speaking to Mick Wall in the band-authorized bio Run to the Hills:)

"We made a pledge to the band (once the money started coming in after The Number of the Beast,) where we guaranteed them that no one was ever going to knock on their door again asking for a bill to be paid. We said, 'You'll never be on credit again. You'll never have a tax problem. Whatever you get, it will be yours to keep, and you'll never have a chance of losing it.' And that's how we've carried on. Nowadays, it's a much bigger situation (of course, but even if it weren't) that's all because of the careful planning Rod and I put into their money right from the word go. We like a laugh, but we don't fuck around."

All the more important in Britain where the tax situation for rock stars is so oppressive. (Why do you think so many of them end up moving once they get to a certain income level?) And all the more impressive considering how long these guys have been around and the financial fate of so many of their contemporaries. Granted, Andy's and Rod's job has been made easier by moderation in personal spending from the band members. (i.e. no Kiss-level shenanigans.)

Which is not to say they haven't indulged themselves (and perfectly reasonably) along the way.

I just want to introduce the band today to those of you out there who don't know them. Future posts will rank the albums, one for the studio releases and one for the live ones, and Flight 666, and I will devote the month of March to "Thirty One Days of the Beast." A countdown of my favorites, aka the essential Maiden songs. (I just happen to have 31 favorites - what a coincidence! And I know this because I painstakingly ranked them all in Excel when I was bored after absorbing their last studio album, The Final Frontier.)

Hopefully, even if you're not a particular Maiden fan, you'll find something to entertain you in all of this, but if not, I guess we'll see you once I get this out of my system. There will likely be other blogs produced concurrently to all of the above, as well.

While Maiden is far more egalitarian in its inner chemistry than many other bands, its progenitor, undisputed leader, and principal songwriter is Steve Harris aka 'Arry.

Hailing from London's East End, specifically the Leyton district, Harris was scouted at an early age by West Ham United FC and invited to train with their under-18 squad when he was 14 years old. This is the dream of many a young lad, Brit or otherwise, and his friends thought he was crazy for opting not to pursue a career in the beautiful game. (Not so much his family, who were all Leyton Orient fans. Incidentally, when a friend of mine was visiting Chicago from London, he brought me a Leyton Orient kit - which I still have - for this very reason.)

Steve is one of two members of the current line-up who have been there from the very beginning. The other is Dave Murray.

Subject of this amusing blog by Nick Cato.

Dave is a Tottenham fan, but don't hold that against him. 

In addition to his long tenure as Maiden's premier vocalist and frontman, Bruce "Conan the Librarian" Dickinson is a commercial airline pilot, an author, a radio personality, and a fencing champion, once ranked 7th All-England.

Though not a football fan, he once flew Rangers FC (my favorite Scottish team) to Israel and back for a Cup.

A rather eccentric personality and general all-around fascinating dude.

His efforts as a screenwriter, however, have left a little to be desired. This movie is a hot mess, although the sequence where a resurrected Aleister Crowley terrorizes street punks to the strands of "The Wicker Man" is amusing, if only for how the song overpowers the dialogue and all other sound in the mix.

Next up is Adrian Smith, the second guitarist.

Avid angler. One of my favorite things about Maiden is how varied (and extensive) their extracurriculars are.

Adrian grew up a Man United fan but has identified himself as more of a Fulham fan as an adult. Some sites list his favorite club as Watford. If you're into football, this tells you that, at least footy-wise, he's not to be trusted.  

Nicko McBrain is Maiden's drummer. He's probably the most "Americanized" of the group, meaning when asked who his favorite football club is, he answers "The Miami Dolphins."

Cheeky bastard.

Nicko was known as Mr. Excess in his younger days, given his astounding capacity for ales and lagers. But time has tamed his wild ways, and these days he makes a home in the States with his American wife. (The McBrain family has had a bit of a rough patch of late, and we here at the Omnibus send our best wishes.) 

He's also given Paul McCartney a run for his money with some of his quotes in interviews, particularly this one when describing the band's first American tour: "We'd have a bit of taboo and a bit of yahoo and a little bit of livening up here and there, a bit of the old disco dust."

Nicko has always been one of my favorite rock personalities, mainly because his affection for a good time never eclipsed his personal health or responsibilities. As I get older, I'm increasingly impressed with those who maintain a life at the top of the metal heap without any of its attendant cliches (as fun as I find said cliches) or decimation of lifelong friendships/ relationships. 

And plus, I mean his name's fricking McBrain. If that isn't ridiculously fun, I don't know what it is.

And last but not least is Janick Gers, the third guitarist.

Outside of Ridley Scott, probably the world's most famous Hartlepool United fan. He's such a frequent presence on the Millhouse Terrace at Victoria Park on match-days that he gets yelled at by other fans when he misses games due to touring.

The description of this video by the original poster - and the look Bruce gives Jani - is hilarious.

These aren't the only people who have been in the band over the years, but I'll cover the others when I rank the albums.

Up the Irons!