FTV: Happy 50rh Eddie

 

     Wait…what?  Who is Eddie and why are we happy that he is 50?  First off, my father’s given name was Eddie Rudolf Raisanen and there is a 50 year connection to that moniker, but we will come back to that a little later.  The Eddie in the above title is the beloved mascot of the British band Iron Maiden.  This year marks the band’s 50th anniversary as the standard bearers of a genre that became known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, or NWOBHM for short.  Technically, Eddie (his full name is ‘Eddie the Head’ but nobody seems to call him that any more) is only 46 years old. 

     Eddie was first drawn by visual artist Derek Riggs to grace the cover of their first EP (The Soundhouse Tapes) in 1979.  Eddie is so iconic that the master of marketing for all things KISS, Gene Simmons, is on record calling him, “the perfect trademark.”  During their early live shows, Eddie appeared on stage as a fake blood squirting paper-mache mask.  His visage has also appeared on numerous album covers and copious numbers of tee shirts and posters.  Riggs was the exclusive Eddie artist until 1992 when the band branched out and began using artwork by other artists including Melvyn Grant.  Grant is perhaps best known for his pioneering art work using digitizing tablets and software like Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter.  Large Eddie Puppets have appeared at carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro (and other South American cities) while his onstage appearance has evolved throughout Iron Maiden’s long career.  

     Image sells music and even the lettering used for the Iron Maiden logo has a history.  It is very similar to the typeface used with Vic Fair’s movie poster design for the 1976 science fiction film The Man Who Fell to Earth.  Maiden bassist and founder Steve Harris claims he designed it himself – he was trained and was working as an architectural draughtsman when the band first formed.  This would be as good a time as any to fire up the Wayback Machine and examine the birth of Iron Maiden and the NWOBHM.

     Iron Maiden’s origin story starts with bassist / songwriter Steve Harris.  In 1975, the 19 year-old Harris had already been through the teenage ‘form a band’ thing and had even taken a stab at writing original songs.  Though his first song (called Endless Pit) had rather forgettable lyrics penned by a high school friend, the riff would survive and resurface later as Innocent Exile which he performed in a band called Smiler.  The song would be carried over into his next band and can be considered to be the first Iron Maiden song.  Harris is the only member of this early Iron Maiden lineup to have remained in the band since the fall of 1975,  He recalled that when he decided on the name in December of that year, even his mother liked it.  He was still working as a draughtsman in East London at the time, but his real future occupation was just starting to take shape. 

     As a bass player, his songwriting method developed differently than a guitar player’s style .  Inspired by rock bands like Deep Purple, UFO, (and on the progressive side) Jethro Tull, King Crimson, and Genesis, Harris’s writing style began to evolve.  Describing the process employed  writing one of Maiden’s definitive songs (Phantom of the Opera), Harris told Classic Rock Magazine’s Paul Elliot (Issue 337, March 2025), “With Phantom it was obvious that my style of writing was very different to what people were used to, and what guitarists were used to.  My songs are unusual, a bit quirky, but it felt natural to me.  I wanted to play with aggression.”  Not a fan of punk music, he told Elliot that Maiden’s music in no way resembled punk:  “At that age, you are full of energy and you want that to come through, but with loads of melody.  That is why I wanted twin guitars.”

     By the time the band recorded their first LP, they had gone through multiple personnel changes as things began to gel.  Dave Murray had aleady been fired once, but when he was back in the fold in 1978, he became Harris’s second lieutenant in the band.  Vocalist Paul Di’Anno (nee: Andrews) provided the powerful voice and presence the band needed.  Drummer Clive Burr was nicked form rival band Samson and the second guitarist then was Dennis Straton.  Equally important was Iron Maiden being, as Harris put it, “In the right place at the right time,” to get in on the growing NWOBHM scene.  When Rod Smallwood, a former booking agent, became their manager, it was akin to what happened with Jimmy Page hooked up with Peter Grant.  It was Smallwood who got the band their 1979 record deal with EMI records.

     By the release of their second album in 1981 (Killers), Stratton had been replaced by Adrian Smith.  Killers would also be their last album with Di’Anno on vocals.  Di’Anno’s career with the band was described as ‘erratic’ and his ‘chaotic lifestyle’ led to his departure.  Harris described the later singer (who passed away in 2024 from heart failure) as, “A loveable rogue.  He liked to annoy me by dressing up like Adam Ant.  Anything to wind me up.  He liked to ruffle a few feathers, let’s put it that way.  And ruffle he did!”  After he was dismissed from the band, Di’Anno took full credit for his exit – too much booze and coke combined with blowing out his voice on the road were cited as his main troubles.  Harris continued, “Paul had a rawness to his voice but he didn’t take care of himself.  I got the impression that he never really believed he had it in him to get to the next level.  It was an insecurity thing.”  

     The band Samson would again find one of its members departing to join Iron Maiden.  Bruce Dickinson had none of the insecurities that tanked Di’Anno.  Harris was somewhat worried what a change of singers would do at this point in the band’s history, but the power and range Dickinson displayed on 1982’s Run To the Hills single put them into the UK Top Ten.  The attention generated by the single helped push the source album (The Number of the Beast) to number one.  Garry Bushell of Sounds described the album as ‘epic stuff’.  The subsequent tour would be the last for drummer Burr who would be replaced by Nicko McBain for 1983’s Piece of Mind record.  The follow up, Powerslave pushed them into the realm of the world’s leading metal band.  “It was full-on in those years,” Harris said.  “Album, tour, album, tour.  We hardly got any time off, but that is what we wanted.”

     Not everyone wanted this relentless schedule as much as Harris did.  In 1990, guitarist Smith left the band and was replaced with former Gillan guitarist Janich Gers.  By 1993, it was Dickinsen’s turn to step back with Blaze Bayley stepping in on vocals.  These were hard times for the band but even as he divorced his first wife and replaced his singer, Harris said, “We were the underdogs again, but I liked the challenge.”  Bayley’s biggest downside was the simple fact that he was not Bruce Dickinsen nor did he have Bruce’s range and power.  By 1999, Steve had to make the hard decision to let Bayley go, paving the way for the return of Dickinsen.

      Actually, Dickinsen and Smith both decided to come back at the same time.  Both had been working on solo projects when the opportunity arose to return to Maiden.  Gers took it in stride and offered to step aside for Smith’s return, but Harris surprised him and said, “No, we are going to do this with three guitarists going forward.”  Smith had been asked to make a guest appearance when Maiden played the Monsters of Rock festival in 1992.  Having already had a try out to fill the vacant second guitar slot in Def Leppard, Adrian’s wife encouraged him to do the guest spot with Maiden at Donington.  The experience relit his enthusiasm for Iron Maiden and opened the door for his return.

     Dickinsen described life in Iron Maiden to Elliot in unusual terms:  “You’re not part of normal society.  PTSD, dislocation – that’s effectively what you’ve got.  And depending on your personality type, you deal with it in different ways.  Steve became a recluse.  Adrian was drinking himself to an early grave.”  He described his own behavior as, “out of control, and none of it healthy.”   Bruce, who is also a licensed pilot and has actually flown the band’s plane from time to time, took up hobbies like fencing to burn off extra stress.  He tours with his solo band between Maiden tours and has made a remarkable come back from a bout with throat cancer.   He says he got off lucky as the cancer was near to but did not affect his vocal chords – which meant thoughts of replacing him in the band again were moot in the end.  

     Harris also has a side project called British Lion which plays shorter tours and smaller venues than Maiden.  While he lives in the Bahamas, he spends more time on the road than off.  It hit him how much time when he read an article about British Lion in an Irish paper:  “Steve Harris could be laying on the beach in the Bahamas but he would rather be in Glasgow freezing his buns off.”

     Guitarist Murray is perhaps the most affable of the crew next to Smith.  The two guitarists grew up only two streets apart and have been friends since they were school boys in East London.  Their first band together was named Stone Free after the Jimi Hendrix song of the same title.  Harris says Murray’s personality is a direct opposite of his own (he acknowledged Di’Anno sometimes called him ‘Hitler’ for his strong arm rule of the band).  On stage, Murray  seems to be in his own world.  He claims he tunes out the audience and loses himself in the music:  “There are a million things that could distract you during a show so you have to be good at tuning them out.”  He is content with his more Zen-like approach to music and defers the band’s leadership to Rod, Bruce, and Steve.  Murray told Elliot, “I’m more of a team player, and I am happy to be in that position.  You couldn’t have a whole band with people as laid-back as me, or else nothing else would get done.”

     At the end of their 2024 tour, drummer McBain announced he was retiring from the road.  After surviving a stroke in 2023, he has been able to play but has found some of the more intricate parts hard to recreate live.  “I love Jesus,” he told Elliot, “and I believe in the Lord, and personally think, “How long is he going to give me?”  He jokes the best way to go would be to die on live TV like fabled comedian Tommy Cooper did in 1984, “but I am not sure the boys would have wanted that.”  He has no regrets after the magical 42 years he spent with Maiden.  The 2025 tour will see Simon Dawson (who has toured with a number of big acts like The Outfield) taking over the drummer’s throne.  

 

     Before we finish up, I need to explain my fifty year connection with Eddie.  When I started teaching in Ontonagon fifty years ago this fall, a student asked me what my middle initial stood for.  For some silly reason, I challenged them to guess, adding, “But you never will get it right.”

They went through Edward, Edwin, Edgar, and even Elvis.  If they had tried ‘Eddie’ I would have still said , “Nope.”   Why?  My dad mentioned a long time ago that he believed his father intended his middle name to be ‘Eti’ and the clerk misheard him and put ‘Eddie’ on his birth certificate.  I am not sure what possessed me to play this word game over the years, but it was just a little bit of fun – one of those questions that never had a right answer, even if they had guessed ‘Eddie’.

     As for Iron Maiden, Dickinsen looks back at the band’s history with gratitude:  “It’s great.  I now appreciate how fantastic it is.  So I am constantly grateful at sixty-six to be able to still do it.  And, hopefully, do it well.”  Harris wraps up pondering the future:  “Obviously,  we can’t carry on forever.  How long can we keep going?  I really don’t know.  We were asked the very same question twenty years ago, and ever since.”

          The faces have changed little in the past 40 years, but Maiden carries on.  If and when Harris steps aside, he probably would be the one piece of the puzzle that would be hard to replace.  Until then, Iron Maiden will be on the road doing what they do best.

 

Top Piece Video:  Run To The Hills was the track that made everyone thinking replacing Paul Di’Anno may not have been a mistake!