Iron Maiden in the Studio. Jake Brown
all over the world, from Hollywood to Jamaica.’
Years later Billboard would hail Stratton and Murray’s guitar work recorded at Kingway, concluding that the pair ‘explodes with energy and ideas’ throughout. As Harris told journalist Stix, ‘Most songs have a guitar solo in the middle. We’ve always tried to do things a little differently. We thought instead of a guitar solo we’d have a guitar break which would consist of guitar runs and harmonies.
Dennis Stratton talked to Praying Mantis about his contribution. ‘When I joined Maiden, there weren’t many harmony guitars going on in the band but, because I was just totally obsessed with harmony guitars, everything I did with Maiden, I just sat in the studio and put harmonies on. And it sort of took form, e.g. with ‘Running Free’ and ‘Phantom of the Opera’. All them were harmony parts that I put loads of guitars on. And when we came to do the first Iron Maiden album, the engineer had me in the studio all day and night playing harmony guitars … It was just in me and it made the two guitars sound different and a bit fuller. Rather than just playing chords while Dave [Murray] was playing, we did the two together.’
Vocally, the album broke new ground for heavy metal, an influence iTunes would acknowledge nearly three decades later. ‘Lead singer Paul Di’Anno (who appears on this and Killers, the group’s second album) has the shrieking and vibrato-emphasised vocal effects that became the standard for heavy-metal vocalists,’ they noted.
Critics were equally impressed by the album’s lush, layered backing vocals, which the BBC said were ‘one of the high points of the album’. Highlighting one of his favourite harmony spots on the album – ‘Phantom of the Opera’ – Stratton told Praying Mantis that ‘Paul did his lead vocal and I went in and did about four harmony parts on vocals, and built it right up. Rod Smallwood came into the control room and heard all these harmonies – it sounded huge – and he turned round and said, “It sounds like fucking Queen,” and walked out. So half the vocals had to come off.’
Still, in sum, the parts that made up Iron Maiden’s debut LP, released on 14 April 1980, would reshape and more importantly rehab a genre that had lost its way. The single ‘Running Free’ broke into the UK Top 40 singles chart and, as a consequence, the band was invited to perform on the BBC’s important Top of the Pops show, offering them an opportunity to demonstrate that they were a group that called their own shots. Refusing to lip-synch the song, Iron Maiden became the first electric band since the Who seven years earlier to perform live before millions of Brits. It turned the band into an overnight metal sensation.
The band’s next single, ‘Sanctuary’, reached No. 29 on the UK singles chart but was not included on the UK album (although it did appear on the US version, which hit the stores Stateside three months later, on 17 August 1980). Speaking about the ‘Sanctuary’ situation, Steve Harris explained years later to journalist John Stix that, ‘It was done at the same time as the first album but we didn’t release a single in the States, so we thought we’d add an extra track on the album. It’s a rockin’ number.’
Critics began a love affair with the band’s debut LP on first listen. Billboard said ‘Iron Maiden was a game-changer when it appeared on the scene in 1980.’ Rolling Stone declared that ‘Iron Maiden, the band’s 1980 debut album for major label Capitol Records, was pure, unadulterated, screaming heavy metal,’ and the BBC hailed the album as ‘a classic’.
The album went on to peak at No. 4 in the UK album chart. Guitarist Dennis Stratton recalled years later in an interview with Get Ready to Rock! that ‘the record company knew the album was gonna do well because of advanced orders … It was nice to get great support everywhere we went.’ The band, it could be said, was welcomed so readily because, as iTunes would observe years later, ‘Iron Maiden’s debut album contains the beginnings of a new revolution within the heavy-metal community.’ As Billboard would note, ‘that year also saw important albums from Motörhead, Saxon and Angel Witch … [but] Iron Maiden vaulted its creators to the head of the New British Wave of Heavy Metal’s pack.’
Decades after its original release, critics like Classic Rock magazine would continue to say that ‘Iron Maiden’s debut album [is] also their best … In comparison with the sleek prog-metal machine the band evolved into, Iron Maiden sees them as a bunch of scruffy East End herberts with a powerful point to prove. That signature Steve Harris bass sound is there from the start and singer Paul Di’Anno is on prime form. Bruce Dickinson might try his damnedest but songs such as “Prowler” and “Charlotte the Harlot” just aren’t the same without Di’Anno’s growl. Much has been made of Maiden’s punk influences but, in truth, Iron Maiden is just an aggressive metal album and as raw as an open wound.’
Years later Di’Anno would tell Battle Helm e-zine that ‘I loved the first album [because] … it was more punky.’ Critically, Di’Anno’s vocal work on the band’s debut has held up over the years compared to the band’s broader catalogue. As Billboard observed, ‘Iron Maiden would still rank as a landmark even if the Dickinson years had never happened.’
‘Maiden was Steve’s baby’
Paul Di’Anno
Heading into their second LP Iron Maiden were in the right place at the right time to lead the second British wave of metal. The band laid down Killers between November 1980 and January 1981 at Battery Studios in London with producer Martin Birch, whose credits included a virtual who’s who of 1970s rock stars, from the Faces to Deep Purple and from Blue Oyster Cult to Black Sabbath.
Amusingly, Birch later quipped to VH1’s Classic Albums that ‘I read they were going to go into the studio and do an album, and I was a bit peeved because I wondered, “Well, why they haven’t asked me?” because I was interested in doing it.’ To which Steve Harris responded in the same show that, ‘We didn’t approach him because we thought he was unapproachable at that point. He was this big star producer and we thought he wouldn’t be interested in this small band.’
Once the band and producer were on the same page, Killers would mark the first stage in what would be a long collaboration. In an interview with Best magazine the producer said of the prospect of working with Maiden that ‘I personally wanted to produce them because it was a way out of the Purple family. There are, in fact, many differences. Musically, a band like Iron Maiden is typical of the second generation of hard rock and stands out from the first one because the band is more consistent, more compact.’ In the same conversation Birch recalled his impressions of working with the band. ‘At first, I could judge them objectively and I think that they are very different from the hard rockers of the early 1970s … The first time I saw them at work I was surprised, and seduced by their energy and their attitude. I have rarely seen bands with so much energy.
In this way, they reminded me a bit of the early Purple. But their attitude towards rock is very different and so is their concept of it. It was said that they were a second Deep Purple but I don’t agree with this. Obviously Steve Harris was a Purple fan but he’s mostly influenced by bands like Jethro Tull, UFO or even Genesis. Nothing to do with Deep Purple. Of course, in both cases we have a very melodic hard rock and not just speeded-up noise like with some other bands in heavy metal.’
Though the group was working with such a storied UK producer – known affectionately among the bands he has produced as ‘The Headmaster’ – Harris told IronMaiden.com that creating the record began and ended as a team effort. ‘I appreciate that someone from outside of the band can see different things [but] there has to be some form of internal control. If I heard something that I felt was vital to Iron Maiden, I would be after that guy. But even then it would still have to be a co-production affair because I’ve always insisted upon that right from when