Iron Maiden

Perhaps the quintessential heavy metal band, Iron Maiden has sold more than forty-five million records worldwide, remaining the object of a faithful international fan base since the early 1980s. Numerous hit singles and platinum albums have also attested to the consistence of the listening habits of metal fans long after the much-maligned genre had ceased to make headlines in the music press. Ditching the more bluesy grooves of hard rock bands from the 1970s such as Deep Purple and UFO, Iron Maiden came up with a faster, riff-laden, yet melodious song structure which set the standards for what most listeners came to understand to be heavy metal. A marked preference for lyrics grounded on horror, mythology, wars, and history became another of the genre's key reference points, not to mention Gargantuan onstage production values and globe-trotting concert tours.

Iron Maiden was formed in London in 1976 by bassist Steve Harris. At the height of the so-called "punk revolution" spearheaded by Sex Pistols and The Clash, Harris persisted with heavy metal through constant lineup changes and difficulties in finding performing venues. By the time both punk and disco were on the decline, however, Harris had managed to recruit more reliable group members, including singer Paul Di'Anno and lead guitarist Dave Murray. After playing the club circuit, the band began to generate some minor attention in the press, and produced an independent three song record in 1979. The single pressing of three thousand copies sold out so quickly that EMI offered them an album deal.

The early 1980s marked what the British press dubbed the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal": Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Saxon, and other bands began to storm into the domestic charts and soon enjoyed international success. Heralded by the hit single "Running Free," from Iron Maiden (1980), their self-titled debut album, reached an impressive fourth place in the UK charts. This allowed the band to enlist the services of producer Martin Birch for their second album, Killers (1981). Birch had been at the helm of some classic Deep Purple albums in the 1970s and proved himself capable of bringing out the best in the band. Elaborate introductions and solos and an overall "cleanness" of sound became trademarks which countless musicians soon attempted to emulate. Harris always remained at the creative center, writing most of the songs, but the lineup now also featured a second lead guitarist, Murray's longtime friend Adrian Smith, who would write and co-write some of the band's greatest hits such as "Wasted Years" and "2 Minutes to Midnight." Early on, Maiden began to be identified with its fictitious mascot, "Eddie," a mummified zombie designed by artist Derek Riggs and featured on all their album covers. The band began playing larger venues in Europe and the United States, touring in support of Kiss and Judas Priest, and discovered the fanatical enthusiasm of their Japanese fans after a number of headline appearances in Japan. Surprisingly, at the end of the tour, Di'Anno departed, citing stress and exhaustion.

Former Samson singer Bruce Dickinson joined the band in 1981. The energetic and charismatic frontman became an immediate favorite with fans and indelibly embodied Iron Maiden's mainstream success in the 1980s. An accomplished songwriter with powerful, semi-operatic vocal skills and manic stage antics, Dickinson is also one of rock's most imitated singers. The Number of the Beast topped the UK charts in 1982, and the album's Satanic-themed cover and title song generated considerable outrage among conservative groups in numerous countries. Iron Maiden soon became a household name, alongside those of Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, and AC/DC whenever the supposedly harmful influence of heavy metal on young listeners became an issue of heated debates.

The album Powerslave (1984) probably saw the band at its peak in the studio, with exemplary instrumental passages that culminated in the thirteen-minute epic "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," based on the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem. Powerslave led to a mammoth-scale, year-long world tour—ambitiously labeled the "World Slavery Tour"—and sell-out crowds on four continents. A tradition of sorts was also inaugurated in 1984 when Maiden played a pioneering tour of Poland at a time when, among renewed international heights of nuclear fear, virtually no other Western artists ventured beyond the Iron Curtain. Over the years, the band would constantlymake an effort to "brave" new territories previously ignored by other bands, such as Moscow, Istanbul, and even war-torn Sarajevo. Another high point of their 1984-85 tour was an appearance at the megalomaniac "Rock in Rio" festival in Brazil, in front of an estimated crowd of two hundred thousand people.

After five consecutive platinum albums in the United States, Iron Maiden saw local musical tastes shift toward the more commercial sounds and glamorized looks of groups like Bon Jovi and Cinderella. The band's popularity dwindled in North America during the late 1980s and early 1990s, but its international following remained strong, as evidenced by two headline appearances at the annual "Monsters of Rock" festival in Donington, England, in 1989 and 1992 in front of one-hundred-thousand-plus crowds. In 1993, Dickinson announced his departure after eleven successful years, leaving for a more low-profile solo career. The search for his replacement began through an international contest sponsored by the band, resulting in thousands of tapes being sent in by would-be rock stars. Blaze Bayley, formerly with Wolfsbane, was ultimately announced as the new singer. With the retirement of Martin Birch, Harris himself was now at the helm producing the band's records and videos.

Apart from Birch, another backstage personality who played a key role in the lasting success of Iron Maiden was manager Rod Smallwood, the man who, from the beginning, ran the band's financial and commercial arm, Sanctuary Music. In the late 1990s, Sanctuary was also managing a number of other bands—whose records were sometimes produced by Harris—and even entered London's stock market in an ambitious (and successful) move. Maiden also proved to be multimedia-savvy with the creation of a state-of-the-art video game featuring Eddie and by re-releasing all of its albums in enhanced CDs containing the band's music videos.

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