Analyzing the endless attraction of metal masters Iron Maiden

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAY 28, 2008

By Steve Newton

Iron Maiden is huge again. The British headbangers have embarked on a massive world tour that has brought metal maniacs out of the woodwork in droves. A 42,000-capacity stadium in São Paulo, Brazil, sold out in one week, and 125,000 tickets were sold in just over two hours for three Scandinavian shows.

Vancouverites have also been gripped by Maiden mania, as the concert at the Pacific Coliseum this Tuesday (June 3) has been sold out for months.

So why, 25 years after its heyday, is Maiden so popular? It could be because its fans view it as one of the few true metal acts on the scene today. Iron Maiden has always stuck to its ear-busting guns, never sold out to its commercial instincts (as critics claim the mighty Metallica has done).

Apart from a few years in the ’90s when Blaze Bayley took singer Bruce Dickinson’s place, the band has remained a vital force, one that has taken the influence of late-’70s punk, melded it with the melodic twin-guitar assault of Thin Lizzy and Wishbone Ash, and churned everything into a galloping, thrashy racket.

But the most surprising thing about Iron Maiden is that it manages to make music fast and loud as f**k without pandering to those who spent their high-school days making bongs in shop class. Maiden doesn’t make music for morons. It left that in the capable hands of Mötley Crüe.

For starters, Iron Maiden has a total disregard for the whole sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll ethic that lured the likes of Mötley to grab guitars in the first place. Apart from original Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno’s reported dalliances with cocaine, the group has never allowed its pure metal to be diluted by illicit substances.

“Drugs have been part of the music culture since the 1960s,” Maiden guitarist Dave Murray told Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald recently, “but this band has just never gone down that route.”

Maiden’s goal of bringing a degree of intelligence to the heavy-metal table didn’t stop with them hiring a drummer named Nicko McBrain. And they had their work cut out for them. In movies from Wayne’s World to Heavy Metal Parking Lot, the typical metal fan has often been depicted as a party-hearty waste of skin, and the typical metal artist has not fared any better.

The biggest obstacle to the idea that the metal community might not consist entirely of grade-A morons was This is Spinal Tap. Apart from a mutual love of spandex, Iron Maiden is the polar opposite of the brain-dead headbangers personified in Rob Reiner’s 1984 mockumentary.

Take singer Bruce Dickinson, for instance. Sure, he’ll mess around with the commoners on the football pitch, but he’s much more inclined toward the upscale thrust and parry of fencing. He’s a published author who currently copilots the band’s Boeing 757 as it soars around the world. (Would you climb on board knowing Ozzy Osbourne was at the controls?)

Iron Maiden’s founder and musical mastermind, bassist Steve Harris, is a virtuoso instrumentalist who once penned a 13-minute take on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 18th-century poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.

The smartest thing Iron Maiden’s ever done, though, was hire artist Derek Riggs to create its “mascot” Eddie, the grinning ghoul that has graced nearly every album cover since the band’s 1980 debut. Staying true to its roots, Maiden has brought Eddie back in a big way. On its current tour, the band is bringing along the colossal mummy of Eddie, as seen on the recently released Live After Death DVD.

Ever since Maiden’s breakthrough album of ’82, The Number of the Beast, rumours have circulated about the supernatural powers of Eddie, including one that claims he can control the minds of rock critics and make their articles about Iron Maiden clock in at precisely 666 words.

Bollocks, I say. Only a complete twit like Derek Smalls would fall for something like that. I never would. Not this kid. No friggin’ way.

To hear the full audio of my 1980s interviews with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, Dave Murray, and Steve Harris subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 400 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with the legends of rock since 1982.