Detailed Discography Of The Beast

STEVE HARRIS: Bass –Born Leytonstone, 12th March '57. Soccer or should we say West Ham fanatic. Had trials with the Hammers as schoolboy. Originally formed the band and writes most of the material. Totally dedicated to HM, especially Priest and The Scorpions. When asked about New Wave, said 'I couldn't have formed a punk group ….. that would have been against my religion'. Used to be draughtsman and designed and compose the sleeve and label for 'The Soundhouse Tapes'. Eats steak and chips in Indian Restaurants, loves McDonalds and Japanese girls –drinks Guinness.

PAUL DI'ANNO: Vocals- Born in Chingford, 17th May '59. Described as possessing 'the roughly hewn charm of a romantic noves stable lad' –In other words a 'lout! '. Another Hammers fan and sportsman –Essex Junior Squash champion –and an excellent swimmer. Also a dab hand at Karate which saves money on bodyguards. Has wide musical interests and has been known to wear a 2-tone suit –with leather studded arm-bands. Very average pool player. Drinks lager and a funny green liquid. Gives pints of wine to rival rock bands.

DAVE MURRAY: Lead Guitar –Born in Clapton, 23rd December '58. Also known as 'Murph', but at the gigs the fans call him 'God'. Basic interests, beer and women. Although not into sports like the rest, this keeps him in peak condition. Gets regular threatening letters from boyfriends of girls he meets on the road. Used to be a store-man so that he could sleep all day to recover. Thinks the most important film ever made was 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'. Recently achieved the lowest known score on 'Space Invaders'.

CLIVE BURR: Drums. Vocals –Born in East Ham, 8th March '57. Was pulled out of his seat behind the drums at a pub gig in the East End on Boxing Day by Maiden to join the band. Had nine jobs last year in his wait to find a good Heavy Rock band, including meat buyers at Smithfield Market and encyclopaedia salesman. Loves fast cars and tequila sunrise but can't afford either yet. Another sportsman and Hammers fan –has won cups for shooting clay pigeons. Only smoke in the band after Paul and Dave gave it up. Very good pool player, but not so hot at Clue do. Only plays Heavy Metal and Zappa.

DENNIS STRATTON: Lead Guitar, vocals –Born in Canning Town, 9th November '54. When Maiden advertised for guitarists asking applicants to send tape, photo and details, Dennis just sent a letter and got the job without an audition. Yet another (yawn) sportsman and Hammers fanatic –another school boy trialist. Has also won cups at table tennis. Lives on curry and cheap wine. Plays a mean game of pool.

Harvest Canada Press Kit

Mick Wall's Commentary for the 1998 Remastered release:

For those of us who had only read about them in Sounds, the arrival of the first eponymously titled Iron Maiden album came as an almighty shock. Yes, we had heard of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM), and yes we were aware that Maiden was rightly regarded as being at the forefront of the new metal scene. But no-one –not even the band –could quite believe it when their first album rocketed straight into the UK charts at No.4 in its first week of release!

"We knew it was gonna go in the charts, because we'd really built up a following by then with all the touring," smiles bassist and founding member, Steve Harris. "But to go in at No.4 –I mean, at first, I thought they were joking, or someone had made a mistake, I made them go and check twice and even then I still couldn't quite believe it."

Clearly, this was no ordinary rock band. But then, this was no ordinary time for rock music, either. The NWOBHM encapsulated an era in British music when, seemingly from out of nowhere, a new generation of heavy rock artists began to emerge. Leaner, meaner, more streetwise than their hoary Seventies antecedents, the NWOBHM was a post-punk phenomenon unlike any that could have been predicted.

Using the mechanics of punk –independently released records, fanzines, pub tours –while at the same time railing against its conformities –short hair, anti-intellectual, fashion-led –the NWOBHM bands were the true black sheep of rock. Some, like London's Iron Maiden and Sheffield's Def Leppard would go on to become the biggest stars of the Eighties rock firmament, while others, like Diamond Head, Praying Mantis, Samson, Angel Witch and the Tygers Of Pan Tang were destined to become mere footnotes in the NWOBHM story.

Who would eventually come out on top had still to be decided, though, when Maiden's first album hit the streets, in April 1980. But the signs were already there. Maiden's very first release, the three-track EP, The Soundhouse Tapes, in November 1979, had been a limited edition 7-inch vinyl pressing of 5,000 on their own Rock Hard Records label. You couldn't buy it in the stores; you had to mail off for it. Nevertheless, all 5,000 copies had been sold in less than three weeks! When major record-chains Virgin and HMV both then tried to persuade the band to press up a further 20,000 copies, Maiden showed their true NWOBHM colours and flatly refused.

As Steve recalls: "We knew we could have made a bit of dough –and it's not like we didn't need it, none of us had money in those days –but we said, bollocks to that! The Soundhouse Tapes was done for the real hardcore Maiden fans –the ones who followed us when no-one else had even heard of us. We weren't gonna sell them down the river just so we could line our pockets. No way! Maiden's never been like that..."

The Soundhouse Tapes featured three of the four tracks the band had originally recorded as a demo at Spaceward Studios, in Cambridge, on New Year's Eve 1978. The title of the EP came from the name of the venue where Maiden first became famous. Situated at the side of a pub in Kingsbury Circle, London, the Bandwagon Heavy Metal Soundhouse, as it was known, and its resident DJ-spokesman,

Based on requests made to Kay on Bandwagon nights, the band had given the DJ a copy of their Spaceward demo and it had become an instant hit with the regulars. Enthralled by the brutal, rifling power of 'Prowler', the epic storytelling of 'Invasion', and the frantic, scatter-gun explosion of the band's street anthem, 'Iron Maiden', soon all three were in the Heavy Metal Soundhouse Top 5. When 'Prowler' then went to No.1 and stayed there for most of the summer of '79, it was the turning point for a band that had struggled for recognition since the days Steve Harris put the very first line-up of Maiden together in his nan's front room.

That had been in 1975, when Steve still wanted to call the band Influence. Since then, one name change and several line-up alterations had resulted in the fiery five-piece that eventually came to record the Iron Maiden album together.

All five members –Steve Harris (bass), Dave Murray (guitar), Paul Di'Anno (vocals), Dennis Stratton (guitar) and Clive Burr (drums) –had come from the same deprived areas of East London that they would later eulogise in early Maiden anthems like 'Running Free', 'Charlotte The Harlot' and 'Wrathchild'. There was no doubting the musical prowess of gifted players like Murray and Burr, and there was an epic quality to Harris's songwriting which forced you to sit up and listen, while Di'Anno, with his short punk hair and tattoos, emanated barrow-boy charm and street-hoodlum menace in equal portions. Together, as you can hear from tracks like the still brilliant first single, 'Running Free' or the quasi-operatic 'Phantom Of The Opera', Maiden had an edge to them which made most of their NWOBHM contemporaries sound positively slack.

Never more evident than on the groundbreaking Metal For Muthas Tour of the UK, at the start of 1980, as future Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson, then plying his trade in London rivals Samson, recall: "Compared to all the other NWOBHM bands, Maiden were on a completely different plane. There was Maiden –and then there was the rest of us..."

Metal For Muthas had been an EMI compilation album which featured two Maiden tracks, 'Wrathchild' and 'Sanctuary', plus one track each from several other NWOBHM-related acts like Samson, Sledgehammer, Angel Witch and (gulp!) Ethel The Frog. But real proof of the band's heightened powers arrived with the release of Iron Maiden.

Recorded at Kingsway Studios, West London, in February 1980, its eight tracks drawn almost entirely from the band's existing live set, Iron Maiden is regarded by many long-standing Maiden fans one of the finest albums any line-up of the band would ever make.

Nearly 20 years on, however, Maiden themselves are divided on the subject. Steve still bemoans the lack of interest journeyman producer Will Malone showed for the project, which resulted, "in us basically producing the first album ourselves," he says, pointing to the second Maiden album, Killers, as the definitive Di'Anno-era recording. While Paul himself says that for him, "The first Maiden album was easily the best thing we ever did. People go on about the production, I don't know what they're talking about. I think it sounds brilliant! That's what we were then –rough and raw."

Indeed, from the revved-up and revamped from the Spaceward demo 'Prowler' and the gloriously catchy 'Running Free', to the freakishly frenetic 'Transylvania', the archly lewd 'Charlotte The Harlot' and the maniacally bone-cracking title track itself, 'Iron Maiden', the image that springs to mind is that of a band running riot, treating the studio like a stage and putting on the performance of their lives to an imaginary crowd of millions.

There were more reflective moments too, like the unusually questioning Di'Anno lyrics to 'Remember Tomorrow', or the dreamily romantic 'Strange World'. But perhaps the first sign of the Maiden-to-come was in the album's most grandiose moment, 'Phantom Of The Opera'. The first of many Steve Harris epics now regarded as the cornerstone of the Maiden oeuvre, 'Phantom Of The Opera' contained all the elements that later characterised the quintessential Maiden sound: lengthy, momentous riffing thrown into unexpectedly angular shape by courageous time-changes and mock-operatic choruses; coupled to lyrics that journeyed far beyond the rock'n'roll norm. Unrepentantly uncommercial and utterly compelling, it is only natural justice, perhaps, that it was this very quality of uncompromising individuality that would later help Maiden shift albums by the millions.

Released as the band's first single, on February 15, 1980, Running Free also became their first Top 40 hit, selling over 10,000 copies in its first week of release. As a result, the band were offered an appearance on Top Of The Pops, the biggest pop show on British TV. Most bands would have given anything for such an opportunity, but again Maiden showed that they weren't like most bands and insisted they would only appear on the show if they could do 'Running Free' live –unheard of in those days!

"I just had it in my head that I didn't want us to mime," says Steve. "I wanted to make the point that we weren't like the usual groups you got on Top Of The Pops –that Maiden was a real rock band that knew how to play live." At first, the BBC refused but later relented when it became clear the band would not back down, and the following week, Iron Maiden became the first band to play live on Top Of The Pops since The Who tore into '5.15' in 1972.

The other most talked-about feature of Maiden's first single and album was the appearance of a character who would also have a huge impact on the band's future. His name was Eddie and one look at him and you knew he meant business.

The fantastical graphic creation of an art-school drop-out named Derek Riggs, it would be Eddie's ghastly visage that would grace the cover of damn near every Maiden single and album for the next 15 years. Taking his name from the smoke-billowing face-mask with the flashing eyes that used to adorn the backdrop at all Maiden's earliest pub gigs (Eddie as in Eddie the 'Ead), Eddie would soon go on the become an important part of the live Iron Maiden experience. First in the form of a leather jacketed individual in a

fright-night head-mask that would run on stage and start head banging furiously during 'Iron Maiden' (usually Rod Smallwood, the band's ebullient manager, or one of their tour managers). But as the band exploded and the shows got bigger and more theatrical, so, too, did Eddie, until at one point, during their most recent Virtual XI Tour, the legendary fiend actually cradled the band in his giant claw-like hands!

But such adventures were still the stuff of daydream back in 1980. In March, they had toured the UK as 'special guests' on a Judas Priest tour, playing to thousands at the sort of prestige venues they had not long before been queuing for tickets at as fans themselves –not least, London's Hammersmith Odeon, where they opened for Priest on March 15. "For us, it was unbelievable," says Dave Murray. "We'd all been to the Hammersmith Odeon loads of times –but only ever as fans. I always used to wonder what it would be like, actually being on stage there. I never actually thought I'd get a chance to find out..."

But there were still greater heights for Maiden to explore and no sooner had the band's tour with Judas Priest ended that they found themselves returning to the very same venues –only this time as headliners! The tour started at the Drill Hole, in Lincoln, on May 15, and culminated in the band's first appearance as 'special guests' at the Reading Festival, on August 23. EMI released a new single, on May 16, to coincide with dates: a re-recording of the stage-favourite, 'Sanctuary', which had originally appeared on Metal For Muthas. Constructed around Dave's police-siren guitar riff and Paul Di'Anno's cackling vocals, as Steve, who wrote the bulk of it, says: "It was miles better than the version of Metal For Muthas and we didn't want to release another track from Iron Maiden as a single, so we thought 'Sanctuary' would be perfect."

It was, crashing into the UK charts at No. 33, then on the following week to No. 29. It might have gone even higher had Maiden made another appearance on Top Of The Pops but strike action had resulted in the show being off the air at the time.

Interestingly, Eddie is depicted on the Sanctuary sleeve apparently in the act of 'seeing off' the then Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Even with her eyes blacked out, it still caused a furore in the national press. The Daily Mirror ran the uncensored version under the headline: 'IT'S MURDER! Maggie Gets Rock Mugging!'.

The idea for the sleeve was actually a joke based on the fact that Thatcher was then starting to become known as the Iron Maiden. The band merely wanted to make it clear they weren't named after her. Hilariously, the Mirror took it all very seriously, though, and quoted a Tory spokesman as saying: "This is not the way we'd like her portrayed!" But by then, Iron Maiden was on its way to winning the band its first silver disc (for over 60,000 sales in the UK) and their future seemed assured. Fittingly, they were relaxing over a pub lunch when they first heard the news that the album had gone into the charts at No.4. "We all went completely bonkers and started running into the street!" Dave recalls. Racing back to their record company, they were greeted by exultant EMI staff shouting at them from the windows: "You've gone to No.4! You've gone to No.4!"

Like the song said, Iron Maiden was gonna get you. And how...

Prowler (Album Version) 3:54 Written by Steve Harris Produced & Mixed by Will Malone Engineered by Martin Levan at Morgan Studios, London, England Recorded at Kingsway Studios, London, England, February 13 –29, 1980 Original Release Date: April 6, 1980 Appears on: Iron Maiden, Prowler 7" Version (Japan), Sanctuary 12" Version (Holland), Live!!+One (Greece), Iron Maiden (Part of The Story So Far Boxset), Iron Maiden (Part of Eddie's Head Boxset), Iron Maiden (Part of the Picture Disc Collection), Iron Maiden (Part of the 180g Black Vinyl Collection), Iron Maiden (Mastered For iTunes), Iron Maiden (Mastered for Onkyo Music)

Commentaries

A song that Steve Harris wrote circa 1976 serves as the powerful opener of the debut album. It contains great melodic leads, a strong rhythm, memorable vocals from Paul & lyrics that talk about a degenerate who goes around stalking and flashing city girls… Pretty deep huh?

"This is a wonderful song. I include it as one of my favourites because it's the first Iron Maiden track I ever heard. When I first got the tape, which was from Basement Studio - and which eventually became The Soundhouse Tapes - it was via a rugby mate of mine who was working with Steve Harris at the time and I was given it to listen to along the lines of: 'Rod. A mate at work has a band. Do you wanna hear the demos?' I took it home, put the tape in the deck and the first song that came up was 'Prowler'. Being a heavy rock fan in the middle of the punk rock era (I grew up listening to Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Who, etc...) it was very refreshing to hear something with so much manic energy. The Tapes went on to be the #1 requested music at The Soundhouse, a legendary rock club in London run by a DJ called Neal Kay. So it's always going to be a memorable song in my life as it alerted me to Iron Maiden and how very different they sounded to everything else going on at that time." (Rod Smallwood for BraveWords –BraveWords Webpage - June 18, 2012)