You know Iron Maiden’s pet monster, Eddie? That giant, looming, lurching, stumbling leviathan that fires laser beams from its brow and lightning bolts from its bollocks, lays waste to all and sundry, scarifies the planet, deforests, er, forests, frightens small children and causes Steve Harris to scuttle for cover behind his monitors?
Well, you wouldn’t recognise Eddie tonight. It’s October 1979 and I’m standing thigh-deep in my own personal swimming pool of sweat at the back of London’s sweltering Kingsbury Bandwagon – the so-called Heavy Metal Soundhouse; the birthplace of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal.
Iron Maiden are on stage and as their set reaches its climax, fake blood starts pouring from the mouth of an amateurish-looking, skull-like motif incorporated into a plank of wood veneer dangling precariously above Doug Sampson’s drum kit.
This, then, is Eddie in his very earliest guise. More MDF than SMF. Who woulda thunk that this cheap chipboard character would soon become one of the most familiar’n’fearsome metal mascots of all time?
Truth to tell, Maiden are already too big a band to be playing the ’Wagon. But they remain an unpretentious bunch and are, for the time being, simply out to enjoy themselves. Tonight they even invite Rob Loonhouse, the venue’s No.1 air guitarist, to join them on stage for the encores.
Rob, playing his famous cardboard – sorry, hardboard – Flying-V, gestures and grimaces like it’s for real and completely upstages a nervous-looking Tony Parsons [then-NME writer] (and who wouldn’t look nervous with a name like that?), Maiden’s new guitarist who’s being worked in at the moment and only plays on the last few numbers of the set. (In fact, Parsons’s time in the band was short-lived.)
A few days after the show I meet up with Iron Maiden in the dark depths of The Frigate pub close to Leicester Square. Most of the band still have day jobs. Bassist Steve Harris is a technical drawer (he’s just put his talents to good use and designed the ‘Iron Maiden’ logo that the band use to this day), singer Paul Di’Anno is an engineer for BP, guitarist Dave Murray works as a storekeeper in Hackney, Sampson mends cigarette vending machines and Parsons fits out stores and does double glazing.
What, I ask Harris, made him form a heavy metal group at the height of punk and new wave?
“It was just something that I wanted to do,” he states plainly. “I couldn’t have started a punk band… that would have been against my religion.”
Di’Anno even admits to being something of an air guitarist himself. “It’s brilliant. I used to do it, grab a tennis racket, pose in front of the bedroom mirror and worry about whether or not I’d get caught. Like wanking. It’s alright.”
Di’Anno compares Maiden’s attitude to AC/DC’s: “They’re a no-nonsense, get down and just fucking do it group. I mean, look at their singer Bon Scott. You don’t get many geezers who go out and front a band covered in tattoos, a fucking beer gut as well. Like us, they’re down to earth.” …And poised for global domination into the bargain.
