"Bruce Dickinson New Singer"
The one and only New and former singer of Iron Maiden, He's Back and he's "BAD"
"Adrian Smith"
He's back too and he's as good as ever !!!
"Blaze Bailey"
"X-Singer"
After nearly 20 years together and more than 45 million record-sales, Maiden is now rightly regarded as the 'classic' rock band in every sense: modern masters of that most emotionally extreme and technically dazzling form of rock music - the black sheep they call heavy metal. A genre Maiden single-handedly reinvented for the Eighties, when they released their first single, the punk-metal collision, 'Running Free', and their uncompromisingly raw debut album, 'Iron Maiden', in 1980.
"Dave Murray"
Back then, Maiden was the band at the forefront of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal - a short-lived media-led phenomenon that would propel them onto the world stage. "People always used to call us punk-metal when we first started getting reviewed in the music papers in Britain," bassist and founding member, Steve Harris, recalls with a rueful smile. "But I think that was partly to do with the fact that our singer then, Paul Di'Anno, had quite short hair and the fact that we used to play so fast. We used to come across as really aggressive. But that was never really a punk thing to me - that was a pure metal thing. We used to frighten the life out of the punks"
"Niko McBrain"
They also quickly became one of the most popular. Despite receiving no day-time radio play whatsoever, 'Running Free' leapt into the UK Top 40. When the band were then offered their first appearance on Top Of The Pops, the UK's biggest weekly TV chart show, Maiden refused to do it unless they were allowed to play live - something no artist had done on Top Of The Pops since The Who demolished the studio during a performance of their 'Quadrophenia' hit, '5.15', in 1972. The BBC execs were sceptical but eventually relented and such precocity was rewarded when their debut album, 'Iron Maiden', was released a few weeks later and immediately crashed into the UK albums chart at No.4! It was this take-no-prisoners attitude the band started with, and still adopt to this day, which has served them so well throughout their career.
Top
10 successes both at home in the UK and more than 25 other countries
around the world, including at least 20 hit singles - a fact that
sometimes gets overlooked as so few of them have ever been played
on day-time radio - and no less than five consecutive million-selling
albums in America. Along the way, there have been numerous line-up
changes, and only Steve Harris and guitarist Dave Murray now remain
from the original line-up that first signed to EMI, in December
1979."Steve Harris"
"Janick Gers"
But the quintessential Maiden sound - the rumbling-earth bass, searchlight guitars, spatter-gun drums and lion's roar vocals - has remained mercifully undimmed throughout. Witness the most recent releases from the current, Blaze Bailey-led line-up of the band - the darkly smouldering 'The X Factor', in 1995, and this year's more upbeat, footie-themed 'Virtual XI' collection - both amongst the finest albums any line-up of Maiden has ever made. "It's true, we've had a few changes along the way," says Steve, "but people change in 20 years, and every time someone new has come in, I've always looked at it as an injection of new-blood into the band. I think, in a way, it's what's kept us fresh. We've never settled for second best in Maiden and whenever something's not been right, we've dealt with it. To the point where I genuinely believe now that this is the strongest line-up of Maiden there's ever been. No question. And that takes some doing, you know?"
Indeed it does, as one glance at the groundbreaking new 'Enhanced CD' packages which Maiden have just released will confirm. Produced for the band by AMX Studios, the London-based interactive communications company whose work with such artists as Oasis, Beastie Boys, Spice Girls, and Pulp has made them one of the UK's premiere digital design companies, this unique collection covers the period 1980-1993, and includes Maiden's first nine studio albums, and three double-CD live albums, all of which have now been revamped as multi-media extravaganzas that you can also play on your home computer.
Available individually for the price of a regular CD, all 12 Enhanced Maiden CDs will feature vintage video clips, full song lyrics and background credits, and individual, retrospective biographies written specially for each CD by renowned former Kerrang! journalist Mick Wall, whose critically acclaimed biography of the band, Run To The Hills, was published earlier this year. There will also be web-links available to other official Maiden websites, some highlights from Maiden's state-of-the-art computer game, Ed Hunter, and a plethora of other PC-related activities and novelties for Maiden fans to discover for themselves (see accompanying press release for full details).
The most complete multi-media collection of all Maiden's work up to the formation of the current incarnation of the band, there has never been a package put together like this before by any other recording artist, thus making this a unique array of releases in every sense, not just for long-time Maiden fans but for the music world in general. "We wanted to do something new and different with all our older albums," Steve explains. "We thought this would be a great way to do that. Not only do you get all the original 12 albums intact, you also get all the added extras that you would have had to pick up elsewhere, in the past. Now It's all on one CD - the music, the videos, the artwork, biographies, the lot!"
With so much material to work through, from well-remembered recognised chart busters like 'The Number Of The Beast' (1982), 'Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son' (1988) and 'Fear Of The Dark (1992) - all three of which went to No.1 in the UK - to less recognised but equally successful nuggets like 'Killers' (1981), 'Piece Of Mind' (1983) and 'Somewhere In Time' (1986), it would take several thousand words to break it all down into individual pieces here. Suffice to say, it covers all the highlights of not just the early streetwise Maiden of singer Paul Di'Anno (for gritty realism, check out those manic early live videos!), but the middle-period US-superstar era of the band, embodied by the arrival into the fold of former Samson singer Bruce Dickinson, in 1981.
For a taste of just what it was like to be at a Maiden show in America back then, check out both the superb 'Live After Death' album from 1985, and especially the Jim Yukich-directed video of the same name, sensational clips of which you will find on the new Enhanced CD version of it here. Filmed over two of the band's four-night stint at the 13,000-seater Long Beach Arena, in Southern California, in March 1985, at the peak of the band's now legendary year-long World Slavery Tour, no less than nine different cameras were employed to capture the full-on live Maiden experience, and the result is a gloriously over the top occasion you can now relive in the virtual flesh on your own PC or Mac.
From the same point of view, but somewhat later in the story, comes the rarely heard before 'Iron Maiden - Live At Donington August 22nd 1992' album. Originally released as a limited edition only, to accompany the Steve Harris-directed video of the same name which went on more general release in 1993, as the title suggests, 'ÉLive At DoningtonÉ' is a faithful, full-length recording of the band's legendary second headline appearance, in 1992, at the world famous Monsters Of Rock Festival, held annually at Castle Donington, in England.
Six months later, Bruce would announce his decision to leave Maiden for a solo career. As history now records, the band would bounce back with former Wolfsbane singer, the incomparable Blaze Bailey. But Bruce leaving was the end of an era for Maiden and their fans. A golden period in which Maiden had come from being a bunch of East London pub-fillers with promise to being the biggest true-blood heavy metal band in the world.
For Maiden fans wishing to recall those years with something more reliable than mere memory, but also for those newer Maiden fans who have only just discovered the band through their most recent Blaze-era albums, the release of these 12 Enhanced CDs are destined to become must-have additions to any collection of this historic band's work. As Steve says: "Playing one of these Enhanced CDs isn't just about listening to a collection of music anymore, it's more like having a little slice of history in your hands."
Meanwhile, back to the future, Maiden latest world tour opened in Europe last April - including the band's sold-out show at London's Brixton Academy in May - has continued throughout America this summer, and returns to both Britain and Europe this Autumn, before closing in Japan at the end of November. Their current album, 'Virtual XI', was released earlier this year.
