HISTORY OF IRON MAIDEN: DI'ANNO ERA (1979 - 1981)

1979–1981: Di'Anno era NWOBHM

After Parsons' departure, only four musicians remained in Iron Maiden. Shortly afterwards, a new guitarist was added to the group's lineup - Dennis Stratton. Drummer Clive Burr soon joined as well (replacing Sampson, who had health problems). With this lineup, the band started recording their first longplay. Will Malone was the producer of the album. In February 1980, the first single called "Running Free" was released, it reached number 33 on the charts, and the band, promoting it in the "Top of the Pops" program, did not agree to play the composition from the playback. The album released two months later was titled Iron Maiden. Probably due to the presence of Paul Di'Anno in the group, the album contained, apart from heavy metal sounds, also elements of punk (most visible in "Running Free", "Charlotte the Harlot" and the title track). The album's program also includes one extended, progressive song - "Phantom of the Opera" - and the instrumental, dynamic composition "Transylvania".

 

The album debuted in 4th place on the British bestseller list, quickly becoming a silver album, and soon afterwards a gold and platinum album. After the premiere of their debut album, the band was announced as "UK metal's greatest hopes". The Iron Maiden album is considered one of the most important debuts in the history of the heavy metal genre. After more than 40 years since its world premiere on April 14, 1980, the album is considered a breakthrough debut, thanks to which the world of metal music changed irreversibly. It was thanks to the ideas contained on this album that Iron Maiden became an iconic band that gained enormous popularity, set trends, crossed new boundaries, defined new standards and became an inspiration for thousands of musicians and millions of fans. After several decades, the influential Rolling Stone magazine placed the debut album in position 13 of the "Most Important Heavy Rock and Metal Albums", and in position 3 of the most important debuts of this musical style.

 

The album gained recognition in Japan in the era, earning Iron Maiden a distinction from the readers of "Music Life" magazine in the "Best New Band" category, as well as the title of a gold album. At the beginning of 1980, Iron Maiden embarked on the "Metal For Muthas" festival tour, covering the whole of Great Britain. The tour promoted an identically titled compilation of recordings by NWOBHM groups, whose pioneers and avant-garde was Harris' formation. The idea behind the release of the compilation and the accompanying festival tour was Neal Kay in cooperation with Rod Smallwood. The group performed as the headliner of the event in halls with a capacity of 1,000 to 2,500 people venues. Some concerts had to be canceled due to intensive recording sessions of the quintet's debut album. After the final recording session, in March 1980, Iron Maiden embarked on a UK tour as special guest of Judas Priest, and then, supported by Praying Mantis and Neal Kay, they went on tour to promote their self-titled album, released in early April. The performances took place from April to August 1980, and the group visited foreign stages for the first time - they played at the Wheel Pop festival in Kortrijk, Belgium, and the Kuusrock festival in Oulu, Finland, in front of audiences of thousands.

At the same time, two more singles were released - "Sanctuary" and "Women in Uniform". Due to the visual context of placing the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, on the cover as a victim of Cutthroat Eddie, the publication caused a moral scandal. In order to explain the incident, the musicians met with the Prime Minister shortly after the publication of the small CDs. Over 50 concerts in Great Britain attracted thousands of fans, and on August 23, the band performed as one of the attractions of the prestigious Reading Festival 1980 in front of 40,000 people. It was a record number of listeners so far. The band traveled through much of Europe, touring as support for the American band KISS from August to November 1980. The metalheads from Iron Maiden were then seen for the first time by audiences in Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. As special guests of the Americans, they gave 27 concerts for over 400,000 people, who often welcomed the young, relatively unknown band better than American stars. After the penultimate performance of this tour, at the turn of October and November 1980, Dennis Stratton was removed from the band. The reason for the decision was an argument with the group's manager and artistic misunderstandings resulting from the different musical tastes of Stratton and the other members.

Stratton, at Dave Murray's suggestion, was replaced by guitarist Adrian Smith. He is considered the best guitarist of the band with a minimal advantage over Murray. They were both a very well-coordinated duo, both musically - they had previously performed together in the band Urchin, and socially - they had been friends since childhood. Their joint playing was called the "sound of twin guitars". With a new guitarist, the band played one more concert with KISS and went on a short tour of England, the last performance of which, on December 21, 1980 at London's Rainbow Theater, was recorded and released on VHS. The official title of the release was Iron Maiden, but the name Live at the Rainbow is more often used.

 

In late 1980–1981, Iron Maiden recorded the album Killers. The album contained songs that were slightly livelier than the compositions from the first longplay, but in a similar style. Killers was the first album produced by Martin Birch, an industry-famous and respected producer of albums by Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult. Two singles were released with Killers - "Twilight Zone" and "Purgatory". Unfortunately, like the previously released small plates, these were not very successful. The album sold much better around the world than the debut, reaching one million copies a year after its release and earning the group gold records in Germany, Japan, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France (double gold) and the UK. It's worth to mention Killers was the very first album released by the artists belonging to the NWOBHM movement to achieve that kind of commercial success worldwide.  It was also the first Iron Maiden album to debut in the US Billboard Album Charts. At that time, the band claimed to be one of the biggest heavy rock stars in the world. The musicians were hailed as "heavy metal's greatest hopes".

In February 1981, the band went on the "Killer World Tour" promoting the new album, during which the group gave 138 concerts. Until mid-March, they performed only in Great Britain, then embarked on a tour of Western Europe that lasted until May. Due to Paul Di'Anno's indisposition, some of the sold-out concerts in Germany were canceled, which led to street riots reported by the local press. Later that month, the group performed for the first time in Japan, where they played five instantly sold out shows. The recordings from Nagoya were later included in the mini-album Maiden Japan (released in Japan under the name Heavy Metal Army ). In June, the team visited another continent - North America.

The musicians gave concerts in the United States and Canada both as part of their own tour and as support for the bands UFO and Judas Priest (tour promoting the Point of Entry album ) until the beginning of August. From mid-August to November 10, Iron Maiden reappeared on the stages of Western Europe. The band also came to Yugoslavia to perform at the festival in Belgrade in front of 50,000 audience. It was not only the group's first performance behind the Iron Curtain, but also the first concert of representatives of the new generation of heavy metal in the so-called Eastern Bloc. The group's history includes, among others: concerts as a special guest of a series of huge German festivals, Golden Summernights 1981, held in Nuremberg on Zeppelinfeld, where 100,000 people and at stadiums in Stuttgart and Darmstadt in front of audiences of several dozen thousand.

On tour, Steve Harris became disappointed with the attitude of vocalist Paul Di'Anno. The band's frontman also used drugs before performances for many years. Rod Smallwood and his band were forced to cancel concerts due to Di'Anno's frequent indispositions, and finally in September 1981 they decided to fire the current vocalist. The media and fans received this step very unfavorably. It was believed that by losing their frontman at the beginning of their career, the band deprived itself of any chance of further existence on the music market. Years later, the first two studio albums recorded with Di'Anno were appreciated by heavy metal and rock lovers, and also gained the status of canonical releases of the genre, selling a total of approximately 20 million copies around the world.

The last concert with Paul Di'Anno took place in Lund, Sweden. The band's management had been looking for a potential successor for a long time, who was the charismatic, powerful vocalist of the then popular heavy metal band Samson, Bruce Dickinson. The first concert with the new Iron Maiden vocalist took place in Bologna at the Palasport Arena on October 26, 1981. 

The brand new chapter of fascinating history has just begun. Iron Maiden became a rock institution, and over the next four decades, they have come to embody a spirit of fearless creative independence, ferocious dedication to their fans, and a cheerful indifference to their critics that’s won them a following that spans every culture, generation, and time-zone. A story of gritty determination and courageous defiance of the naysayers, theirs has been an adventure like no other.