Iron Maiden On Track

Every Album, Every Song

Steve Pilkington

• Publisher: Sonicbond Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781789520613
• eBook ISBN: 9781789521122
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

Mention the words' heavy metal' and chances are one of the first names you'll get back is Iron Maiden. From their early days as front-runners of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal in 1980, through to their epic and progressive works of more recent times, the band have been 'all things to all men' in the metal world. Such is their profile that even the non-metal fan would probably cite them as a key example of the genre. This book lifts the lid on every single track recorded by the band, album by album, from the punk-ish debut with original vocalist Paul DiAnno, via the glory years fronted by Bruce Dickinson, through to the sprawling double-disc epic Book Of Souls.

By way of facts, anecdotes, analysis and a dollop of opinion, Steve Pilkington provides both an informative companion for the die-hard fan and a perfect road-map for the more casual listener to follow. From 'Prowler' to 'Empire Of The Clouds', through each and every line-up change, this is every Number recorded by The Beast – the ultimate recording history of Iron Maiden.

Steve Pilkington is a music journalist, editor and broadcaster. He was Editor in Chief for the Classic Rock Society Magazine Rock Society and is now co-administrator of the rock website Velvet Thunder as well as presenting a weekly internet radio show called A Saucerful Of Prog. Before taking on this work full-time, he spent years writing for fanzines and an Internet music review site on a part-time basis. He has recently published Deep Purple and Rainbow On Track, The Rolling Stones On Track and Monty Python On Screen, all for Sonicbond, and has also written the official biography of legendary guitarist Gordon Giltrap. He lives in Wigan, Lancashire, UK.

Sonicbond Publishing Limited

www.sonicbondpublishing.co.uk

Email: [email protected]

First Published in the United Kingdom 2020

First Published in the United States 2020

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright Steve Pilkington 2020

ISBN 978-1-78952-061-3

The right of Steve Pilkington to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Sonicbond Publishing Limited

Typeset in ITC Garamond & ITC Avant Garde

Printed and bound in England

Graphic design and typesetting: Full Moon Media

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Stephen Lambe, for his continuing faith in me by commissioning this book! Will he never learn?

Thanks to Janet, for hearing about Iron Maiden until the words had lost all meaning, and still not complaining.

Thanks to Bryan Cline, for happening to have a camera
handy in the US in the early ‘80s!

Thanks to all the people I hung out with at various rock pubs and clubs back in 1980, when the crucible of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal forged so much great music. What times.

Thanks to everyone at the Velvet Thunder website, in particular fellow Maiden fan Lee Vickers.

Finally, thanks to all of the Maiden guys for inspiration and joy over the years, particularly Bruce Dickinson, the finest heavy metal vocalist of all time (or at least in a death match with Dio) and Janick Gers, who particularly inspired me when I first saw him with White Spirit, who were a magnificent band.

And of course, you who hold this in your hands now.
I truly hope you enjoy it!

Up The Irons!

Contents

Introduction

Iron Maiden

Killers

The Number of the Beast

Piece Of Mind

Powerslave

Somewhere in Time

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son

No Prayer for the Dying

Fear of the Dark

The X Factor

Virtual XI

Brave New World

Dance of Death

A Matter of Life and Death

The Final Frontier

The Book of Souls

Live Albums, Videos and Compilations

Afterword: 30 Numbers of the Beast – Author’s Maiden Playlist

Bibliography:

Introduction

The history of Iron Maiden is inextricably bound up with founder member and bassist Steve Harris. A native of Leytonstone, in East London, Harris formed the very first Iron Maiden incarnation on Christmas Day 1975, having previously cut his teeth in bands called Gypsy’s Kiss and Smiler. He was 19 at the time. This initial line-up, with Paul Day on vocals, guitarists Terry Rance and Dave Sullivan, and drummer Ron Matthews, didn’t last too long. Vocalist Day (who would later front the band More with some success) was replaced in 1976 by Dennis Wilcock, allegedly for his lack of stage presence. This issue was certainly addressed by the recruitment of the flamboyant Wilcock, a Kiss fan who brought blood capsules and face paint to the band’s shows!

A good friend of Wilcock was guitarist Dave Murray, who Harris wanted to bring into the band. This met with significant resistance from Rance, however, and to allow the recruitment of Murray to take place, Harris disbanded Maiden in December 1976, only to reform the band shortly afterwards with Murray as the sole guitarist. Things didn’t remain stable for too long, however, with the seemingly volatile Wilcock convincing Harris to fire both Matthews and Murray, while a second guitarist named Bob Sawyer was soon ousted after he pretended to play the guitar with his teeth on stage in less than successful fashion, with the audience all fully able to see it was a trick. Down to a duo, Harris now put together a completely new line-up in the second half of 1977, including guitarist Terry Wapram, drummer Barry Purkis (aka Thunderstick, who would go on to play in Samson along with a certain Bruce Dickinson)and keyboard player Tony Moore (later of Cutting Crew). Needless to say, this didn’t last long either – especially so in the case of Thunderstick and Moore, who were both ousted after a single gig, Thunderstick having played appallingly and Moore let go as Harris realised the keyboard experiment wasn’t working.

Drummer Doug Sampson was brought in to replace Thunderstick, having been in the audience for the outgoing man’s only show. After a conversation with an exasperated Harris, he joined that very evening. Things were starting to look a little Spinal Tap on the drummer front, but the next replacements would be in the guitar and vocal roles, with Wilcock deciding to leave having had enough, the firing of the whole band repeatedly seemingly not agreeing with him, and with that departure the door was held open long enough for Murray to immediately be reinstated. The new vocalist was also significant, with Paul Di’Anno coming in to fill the Wilcock shoes, after a chance meeting with Harris in a Leytonstone pub. At this point Murray could be forgiven for getting something of a persecution complex, as Wapram, having only ever been the sole guitarist, objected so strongly to the Murray return that he was himself sacked!

At this point, the band embarked on a guitarist revolving door policy which made their earlier drum stool rotation seem the very model of stability, as guitarist Paul Cairns was brought in to replace Wapram. He lasted three months, leaving in early 1979, after failing to fit in properly by most accounts. Perhaps his nickname of ‘Mad Mac’ should have rung some alarm bells. His replacement was a man named Paul Todd, who lasted a week before having to leave because, according to Harris, his girlfriend wouldn’t let him play live! He was in turn replaced by Tony Parsons, who lasted a few weeks before exiting because, put bluntly, he was not thought to be up to the required standard. Finally, the fourth partner in less than a year for the surely by now paranoid Murray arrived in the shape of Dennis Stratton, and the line-up which would record the band’s debut album was finally put in place in December of 1979, when drummer Sampson, who was unable to cope with the band’s touring schedule, was replaced by Clive Burr, who was brought into the band at the suggestion of Stratton, on December 26 – four years and a day (and sixteen band members!) since Harris assembled the first line-up.

After the release of the debut album, and prestigious support tours with Kiss and Judas Priest, Stratton was dismissed with ‘personal and creative differences’ being cited, and he was replaced by Murray’s childhood friend Adrian Smith. Smith had been asked to join a year earlier, but he declined because of his commitment to his band Urchin, and Stratton was hired instead. The partnership of Murray and Smith would remain intact for the next decade, but the single most significant personnel change of the band’s career was waiting in the wings.

After the release of the second album, Killers, in 1981, Paul Di’Anno, who had become steadily more unreliable following increased alcohol and drug use, was fired from the band to the shock and bemusement of much of the band’s fanbase. A large part of the band’s ‘punky’, ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’ attitude had been embodied by Di’Anno’s leather jacket and short hair image, and the stark choice was whether to go for a like-for-like replacement or try to open up the band’s appeal to a wider audience. They went for the latter, with the recruitment of Bruce Dickinson, the man who personifies Maiden, along with Harris, in the public’s perception of the band.

Dickinson had been fronting the band Samson (which included Thunderstick at the time) under the stage name of Bruce Bruce (a nickname derived from the Monty Python ‘Bruces’ sketch) and had recorded two albums with them. He first encountered Maiden when they actually supported Samson at a gig at the Music Machine in London in 1980, and right from that moment knew he wanted to join them. When that offer came, a year later, he needed little persuasion, and the band almost immediately changed. Gone were the short, sharp songs about life on the streets, such as ‘Running Free’ and ‘Sanctuary’, being replaced by a much greater concentration on highly literate, story-telling lyrics and a more mature, progressive element to the band’s sound. ...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Iron Maiden