Reunion (1999–present)

In February 1999, Bayley left the band by mutual consent. At the same time, the band shocked their fans when they announced that both Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith were rejoining the band, and that Janick Gers would remain. Iron Maiden now had three guitarists and a successful reunion tour followed. This tour also supported the band's newly released computer game Ed Hunter.

Brave New World
Iron Maiden's first studio work after the reunion with Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith came in the form of 2000's Brave New World. The album was met with much critical acclaim. Thematic influences continued with "The Wicker Man" - based on the 1973 British cult film of the same name, and "Brave New World" - based on the novel of the same name.
The world tour that followed consisted of well over 100 dates, and culminated on 19 January 2001 with a show at the Rock in Rio festival in Brazil, where Iron Maiden played to a crowd of 250,000. This performance was recorded and subsequently released on CD and DVD in March 2002 under the name Rock in Rio.

Dance of Death
In 2003, Iron Maiden released Dance of Death. As usual, historical and literary influences continued - "Montsegur" in particular being about the Cathar stronghold conquered in 1244 and Paschendale relating to a significant battle during World War I.
Their performance at Westfalenhalle stadium in Germany, as part of the supporting tour, was recorded and released in August 2005 as a live album and DVD, entitled Death on the Road.
In 2005, the band announced a tour to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of their first album, Iron Maiden, and the 30th anniversary of their formation. The tour also was in support of the 2004 DVD entitled The Early Days and as such during the tour they only played material from their first four albums. As part of the celebration of their early days, the "Number of the Beast" single was re-released, which went straight to number 3 in the UK Singles Chart.
At Iron Maiden's last Ozzfest performance (August 20, 2005 at the Hyundai Pavilion at Glen Helen in San Bernardino, CA), Sharon Osbourne interrupted their performance by turning off the PA system and chanting.
The band completed this tour by headlining the Reading and Leeds weekend festivals on the 26th and 28th August 2005. For the second time, the band played a charity show for former drummer Clive Burr's Clive Burr MS Trust Fund charity.

A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death album cover
In November 2006, Iron Maiden and manager Rod Smallwood announced that they were cutting off their 27 year old ties with Sanctuary Music and have started a new company named Phantom Music Management.
In Autumn 2006 Iron Maiden released A Matter of Life and Death. While the album is not a concept album, war and religion are recurring themes in the lyrics throughout, as well as in the album's artwork.
A successful North American and European tour followed, during which they played the album in its entirety, a first for the band. The band have announced that a live album recorded from this tour will be released.[citation needed]
In 2007, the band confirmed several major festival appearances across the world for the year to form the second leg of the A Matter of Life and Death tour. These include performances at the Dubai Desert Rock Festival, Eddfest, Download Festival, Heineken Jammin Festival, Fields Of Rock Festival, Graspop Metal Meeting and Bilbao BBK Live Festival.[32] They have also scheduled concerts in countries such as India, Greece, Serbia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Germany. The main leg of the tour has been renamed "The Matter of the Beast", to celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Number of the Beast album. The band will play 5 songs from A Matter of Life and Death and 5 from The Number of the Beast as part of their live set for the tour. On the 24th of May they announced that as a grand finale to their festival/stadium summer tour, they will perform a special one-off performance at London's Brixton Academy on Sunday 24th June in aid of The Clive Burr MS Trust fund, the support for this performance is once again Steve's daughter Lauren Harris and an eight piece Indian Rock act called Parikrama, who came to the band's attention when they supported Maiden in Bangalore in March, and will be the first time an Indian rock band have toured the UK.

Winds of change (1995–1999)

The band auditioned hundreds of vocalists, both unknown and famous. They finally chose Blaze Bayley in 1994, formerly of Wolfsbane. Bayley had an altogether different style to his predecessor, which ultimately received a mixed reception among fans.

The X Factor
After what had been a three year hiatus, the band returned in 1995 with the album The X Factor. Chief songwriter Steve Harris was experiencing personal problems at the time with the break-up of his marriage, and many feel the album's sound is a reflection of this.[citation needed]
Notable songs included the 11-minute epic "Sign of the Cross", "Lord of the Flies", "Man on the Edge" - based on the movie Falling Down, and "The Edge of Darkness" - based on the movie Apocalypse Now.

Virtual XI
The band spent most of 1996 on the road before returning to the studio for Virtual XI, released in 1998. Chart positions of the album were lower, failing to reach the one million mark in worldwide sales for the first time in Iron Maiden's histor

Experimentation (1986–1989)

Somewhere in Time
The band adopted a different approach for their 1986 studio album, titled Somewhere in Time. This was not a concept album, though it was themed loosely around the idea of time travel. It featured, for the first time in the band's history, synthesized bass and guitars sounds to add textures and layers to the sound. Though considered different from the norm of Maiden sounds, it charted well across the world, especially with the single "Wasted Years".[citation needed]
Album art was influenced by the movie "Blade Runner".

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
This experimentation led to a more refined follow-up album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, released in 1988. Adding to Iron Maiden's experimentation, it was a concept album featuring a story about a mythical child who possessed clairvoyant powers.
For the first time, the band used keyboards on a recording, as opposed to guitar synthesisers on the previous release. Critics stated this produced a more accessible release.[25] Still, it was a huge success, and was the band's second album to hit #1 in the UK charts.
In 1989, after touring with Iron Maiden, guitarist Adrian Smith released a solo album with his band ASAP entitled Silver and Gold.
In 1990, to close Iron Maiden's first ten years of releasing singles, Iron Maiden released The First Ten Years, a series of ten CDs and double 12" vinyls. Between February 24 and April 28 1990, the individual parts were released one-by-one, and each contains two of Iron Maiden's singles, including the B-sides.

Upheaval (1990–1994)
In 1990, vocalist Bruce Dickinson launched a solo career with former Gillan guitarist Janick Gers, releasing Tattooed Millionaire.
Soon after, the band experienced its first line-up change in seven years when guitarist Adrian Smith left the band. Bruce Dickinson's solo project guitarist Janick Gers was chosen to replace Smith.

No Prayer for the Dying
In 1990 Iron Maiden released the raw sounding album No Prayer for the Dying. This album featured one last song co-written by Adrian Smith, "Hooks in You", despite Smith's having left the band prior to the recording of the album.
The band obtained their first (and to date, only) UK Singles Chart number one hit single with a cover of "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter", originally recorded by Dickinson for the movie-soundtrack to A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. It was released on December 24, 1990, and was one of the first records to be released on several different formats with different B-sides. The single holds the record for being the fastest release straight in to number one and straight out of the charts again over the following couple of weeks.[26]

Fear of the Dark

Cover of Fear of the Dark album
Dickinson performed a solo tour in 1991 before returning to the studio with Iron Maiden for the album Fear of the Dark. Released in 1992, the album was noticeably longer and had several songs which became fan favourites, such as the title track and "Afraid to Shoot Strangers". "Wasting Love" is perhaps the band's only power ballad, and "From Here to Eternity" is the fourth segment in the 'Charlotte the Harlot' storyline.
In 1993, Bruce Dickinson left the band to further pursue his solo career. However, Bruce agreed to stay with the band for a farewell tour and two live albums (later re-released in one package). The first, A Real Live One, featured songs from 1986 to 1992, and was released in March 1993. The second, A Real Dead One, featured songs from 1975 to 1984, and was released after Bruce had left the band. He played his farewell show with Iron Maiden on August 28, 1993. The show was filmed, broadcast by the BBC, and released on video under the name Raising Hell.

Powerslave

Following the success of Piece of Mind, the band released Powerslave on September 9, 1984. The album featured fan-favourites "2 Minutes to Midnight", "Aces High", and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner",the latter based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of the same name. "Back in the Village" followed up on an earlier hit "The Prisoner", both based on the television show starring Patrick McGoohan.
The tour following the album, dubbed the World Slavery Tour, was the band's biggest to date and consisted of around 220 shows over 13 months. Many shows were played back-to-back in the same city, such as in Long Beach, California, where most of the recordings were made for their subsequent live release Live After Death. The tour was physically gruelling for the band and they took a 6-month break when it ended.

Piece of Mind

In late 1982, drummer Clive Burr left the band due to personal and tour schedule problems. He was replaced by Nicko McBrain, previously of Trust. Shortly afterwards, in 1983, the band released Piece of Mind.
The album is widely considered a fan-favourite and contains "The Trooper" and "Flight of Icarus", which were both released as singles. Songs inspired by literary works included "Where Eagles Dare" (based on the movie of the same name), "To Tame A Land" (based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert), and the aforementioned "The Trooper", based on Tennyson's poem Charge of the Light Brigade.
As a comedic response to controversy about occult messages being backmasked in rock music at the time, a backwards message can be heard at the start of the track "Still Life", which consists of McBrain impersonating Idi Amin Dada:
Hmm, Hmmm, what ho sed de t'ing wid de t'ree bonce. Don't meddle wid t'ings you don't understand.

The Number of the Beast

Dickinson's recorded debut with Iron Maiden was 1982's The Number of the Beast, an album that claimed the band their first ever UK Albums Chart number 1 record[19] and additionally became a Top Ten hit in many other countries. For the second time the band went on a world tour, visiting the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia. The tour's US leg was marred by controversy stemming from an American right-wing political pressure group that claimed Iron Maiden was Satanic because of the new album's title track. The band members' attempts to deflect the criticism failed to dampen persistent accusations. A group of Christian activists went on to destroy Iron Maiden records (along with those of Ozzy Osbourne) in protest against the band.
In addition to the title track which was popular amongst fans despite its controversy, the album also included such hits as "Run to the Hills", "22 Acacia Avenue", and "Hallowed Be Thy Name". Songs of historical and literary significance would continue their presence in Iron Maiden albums, including "Children of the Damned", based on the film of the same name, and "The Prisoner", based on The Prisoner television show starring Patrick McGoohan. Dickinson at the time was still in legal difficulties with Samson's managment (or lack of!), and was not permitted to add his name to any of the songwriting credits. However, he was still able to lend 'creative influence' to many of the songs. The artwork for the album was originally going to be the 'Purgatory' single cover, but the band had something better in mind. When the artwork was produced for the new album, instead of having a black sky background, because of a printing error, the albums finished background sky colour was blue.

The next level (1982–1985)

By 1981, Paul Di'Anno was demonstrating increasingly self-destructive behaviour, particularly through cocaine usage. His performances began to suffer, just as the band was beginning to achieve large-scale succes in America. At the end of 1981 the band fired Di'Anno and began to seek a new vocalist.
Bruce Dickinson, previously of Samson auditioned for Iron Maiden in September 1981 and joined the band shortly afterwards. He then went out on the road with the band on a small-headlining tour. Notable on this mini-tour was that, in anticipation of the forthcoming album, the band played "Children of the Damned", "Run to the Hills", "22 Acacia Avenue" and "The Prisoner" at select venues, introducing fans to the sound that the band was progressing towards.

Killers

In 1981, Maiden released their second album, titled Killers. This new album contained many tracks that had been written prior to the release of the debut album, but were considered surplus. With songs already shaped on the road well in advance, only two new tracks were written for the album; "Prodigal Son", and "Murders in the Rue Morgue". Fan favourites included the fast and furious "Wrathchild", but the band would also write songs with literary significance; "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe.

Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden's eponymous 1980 release, Iron Maiden, made number 4 in the UK Albums Chart in its first week of release,and the group became one of the leading proponents of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. The band went on to open for Kiss on their 1980 Unmasked tour, as well as opening select dates for Judas Priest. In addition to the title track, the album includes other early favourites such as "Running Free", "Transylvania", "Phantom of the Opera", and "Sanctuary" - which were not on the original UK release but made the US release and subsequent re-releases. After the Kiss tour, Dennis Stratton was fired from the band as a result of creative and personal differences. Stratton was replaced by Adrian Smith in October 1980.

The Early Days (1975–1981)

Iron Maiden were formed on Christmas Day 1975, by Steve Harris, shortly after he left his previous group, Smiler. Harris attributes the band name to a movie adaptation of The Man in the Iron Mask, which he saw around that time, and so the group was christened after the medieval torture device.
Founding member and bassist Steve Harris, and guitarist Dave Murray, remain the longest-surviving members of Iron Maiden. The band had twelve different line-ups in the 1970s and struggled to form a stable line-up of band members. Original vocalist Paul Day was fired as he lacked "energy or charisma onstage". He was replaced by Dennis Wilcock, a Kiss fan who utilised fire, make-up and fake blood during live performances. Wilcock's friend, Murray, was invited to join, to the frustration of guitarists Dave Sullivan and Terry Rance.This fuelled Harris to temporarily split the band in 1976, though the group reformed soon after with Murray as sole guitarist.
Iron Maiden recruited another guitarist in 1977, Bob Sawyer, who caused a rift between Murray and Wilcock, prompting Harris to fire both Murray and Sawyer. A poor gig at the Bridgehouse in November 1977, with a makeshift line-up including Tony Moore on keyboards, Terry Wapram on guitar, and drummer Barry Purkis resulted in Harris firing the entire band. Dave Murray was reinstated and Doug Sampson was hired as drummer.
A chance meeting at the Red Lion pub in Leytonstone evolved into a successful audition for vocalist Paul Di'Anno. Steve Harris has stated, "There's sort of a quality in Paul's voice, a raspiness in his voice, or whatever you want to call it, that just gave it this great edge."
Iron Maiden had been playing for three years, but had never recorded any of their music. On New Year's Eve 1978, the band recorded a demo, The Soundhouse Tapes. Featuring only three songs, the band sold all five thousand copies within weeks.One track found on the demo, "Prowler", went to number one on Neal Kay's Heavy Metal Soundhouse charts in Sounds magazine. Their first appearance on an album was on the compilation Metal for Muthas (released on 15 February 1980) with two early versions of "Sanctuary" and "Wrathchild".
From late 1977 to 1978, Murray was the sole guitarist in the band until Paul Cairns joined in 1979. Shortly before going into the studio, Cairns left the band. Several other guitarists were temporarily hired until the band finally settled on Dennis Stratton. Initially, the band wanted to hire Dave Murray's childhood friend Adrian Smith, but Smith was busy with his own band, Urchin.Drummer Doug Sampson was also replaced by Clive Burr (who was brought into the band by Stratton). In December 1979, the band landed a major record deal with EMI

NICKO MCBRAIN(ironmaiden) as known by Steve Harris

With a character like Nicko, you never forget the first time you meet him! We were playing our first ever show abroad in Belgium and he was playing in a band called McKitty when I first saw him. He was sitting outside a café, dressed in a white suit, panama hat and winklepicker shoes. I thought he was a pimp or something from the way he was dressed! Larger than life, as he always has been and always will be, he had obviously had a couple of drinks and was chatting off, and I thought, ‘Wow, who is this character?’ It was quite an amazing experience to meet him and it still is really, he’s just a whirlwind. I suppose he’s calmed down a little bit over the years, but not a lot - but you wouldn’t really want him to. He was with Trust when they supported us in ‘82 and we thought he was a fantastic drummer, so when Clive left the band, we approached Nick and asked if he’d like to try out and it worked fantastically. It’s hard to describe what he’s like if you haven’t met him. I know people see him on the videos and that, and they think he’s crazy - and he is! But there’s a lot more to him than that. He flies planes and does all sorts of other things. He’s a more complex guy than you might think. He’s just really good fun to have around. I’m a bit on the shy side, so when we go out to meet people, I usually take him with me, because he’s a laugh and he’s got so much verbal, he takes the pressure off me. I just have to stand smiling in the background! He is without a doubt the entertainer of the band. I really do think he could be a stand-up comedian if he wanted to. He half does that when he does his drum clinics. He tells these little stories and comes out with all these jokes. Often they’re in Spain or Italy or somewhere like that, and half the time, I’m sure the audience don’t really understand him, but he’s laughing at his own jokes anyway, so they laugh along with him! It really is a sight to behold, so I would recommend anyone to see his drum clinics, whether they’re into drums or not. Technically, he’s a great drummer and he can play all kinds of music. Drummers from other bands sit round the back of him to see what he’s doing, but he’s got his kit set so he doesn’t even look at what he’s hitting half the time. He just puts his head down and plays. He’s got his first songwriting credit with Maiden on ‘Dance Of Death’ with ‘New Frontier’. About time – he’s only been in the band 20 years! But the first one is probably the hardest to bring in to the other band members, especially when you’ve been in the band so long, and he’s up and running now, so I think it will give him the confidence to write stuff in future. Any variation in writing is a good thing and everyone is encouraged to write in this band; the only criteria is that it’s got to be bloody good!

JANICK GERS(IRONMAIDEN) as known by Dave Murray

I saw Janick onstage before I actually met him, and that was when he was with Gillan at Wembley Arena. I saw this flamboyant showman dancing around the stage playing great guitar, and I thought it was absolutely wonderful. Then he came down to a few of our shows and I met him backstage in the bar and we hit it off pretty much immediately - he was a really nice bloke. In 1990, when Adrian left the band, Janick had just worked on Bruce’s solo album (‘Tattooed Millionaire’) and obviously, he was going to be the first choice as a replacement. But I remember at the beginning that Janick was actually defending Adrian - he was upset that he’d left the band and I think he was trying to talk him into coming back, which shows you what a good guy he is. He came down to rehearsal and the stacks had been set up facing each other, wall-to-wall, so it was like a stand-off in a Western like ‘The Good, The Bad And The Ugly’, except I think we both wanted to be Clint Eastwood! We did ‘The Trooper’, we just went straight into it, there was no 'Let’s work it out together quietly.' It was just like one, two, three, four… bang! And straight away, sparks were flying round the room! It was apparent right away that this was going to work. He was very exciting to play with and it gave the band a well-deserved kick up the rear. He is a genuine, salt-of-the-earth bloke, a very smart man with a great sense of humour. He’s a very sociable kind of chap. He likes going out strutting, especially on tour. He’ll go out for 20 mile walks and try to hit every bar on the way back! He’s a good soul. He’s got a very good way of calming things down if they suddenly start to go overboard. He can pull everything together and make sure that people see things the right way. He’s very good at expressing himself that way, a very diplomatic man. When he’s playing, he’ll push himself to the edge and really goes for it. There are two sides to it. His playing can be very controlled or it can be very spontaneous, but then he plays a lot of the melodic stuff. He’s got great feel, great dexterity, very fluid. So he’s fully rounded as a guitar player who goes from one extreme to another. He encompasses all aspects, from the quiet acoustic clean stuff into overdrive. It’s 360 degrees he plays everything. And he’s a great showman. He wrote the track ‘Dance Of Death’ and it’s got everything on there, from the quiet moody melodic guitar to clean guitar to really heavy riffs, but done in the most complex and beautiful and sweet and heavy way, done with really good taste. If that song was the alphabet, from A to Z, it’s got every letter in it.

ADRIAN SMITH(IRONMAIDEN) as known by Bruce Dickinson

I first met Adrian when I was in Samson and he’d just joined Iron Maiden. We were over the road from each other in different studios; we were doing the second Samson album and he was doing ‘Killers’. He was very much the new boy in the band, but I was really impressed with the style of his guitar playing. And he was dead rock and roll. He was skinny, pasty and waiflike, and he looked really cool! He’s a pretty mellow person, and he’s got a very dry sense of humour. His nickname in the band used to be Willie-Orwontee - not for nothing! He likes to take his time over things, which is not a bad thing and in the old days when we used to do soundchecks together, we’d all be waiting for him, he’s such a perfectionist over sound. In a world populated by faceless guitarists who all go to school to learn how to do it and end up all sounding virtually indistinguishable, Adrian has evolved a tone and style that is all his own and is unique. Nobody sounds like Adrian, and that is priceless. His guitar playing sounds lazy, like the notes are almost falling over each other but they never do. You actually hang on every note that he plays, because you don’t quite know where it’s going to go next. He’s a very good athlete. When he plays football or tennis, he has a natural grace, and that’s what his guitar playing’s like. When he plays football, he gets the ball and you think, ‘He’s never going to get past that guy’, but suddenly, there’s a little shuffle and he’s dribbled past him. And it’s like watching him play guitar. I swear to God the timing is the same! When he left the band in 1990, I think everybody was a bit surprised at how much we missed him and certainly, I don’t think anybody had realised how much the fans would miss him - big time. I wouldn’t have rejoined Iron Maiden if he wasn’t in the band. I just don’t think it would have been complete without Adrian, and now, it’s great having three guitarists. I think possibly one of the greatest tracks he’s ever written is on the new album; it’s called ‘Paschendale’. When I was writing stuff with him for the album, I noticed he had lots of Siegfried Sassoon and other war books lying around, and he was researching this track. It’s a fantastic song and really evocative of the whole horrific period of warfare - a stunning piece of music, ten minutes long. Adrian’s philosophy, I guess, goes back to something we were talking about one drunken night. He turned around and said, 'The thing about me is, all I’m interested in is just having a bit of a sing and a play', and that is at the root of everything that is Adrian. He’s happy having a drink, having a sing and playing guitar. And for something that’s that simple, he does it alarmingly well - especially the guitar playing.

DAVE MURRAY(IRONMAIDEN) as known by Adrian Smith

Dave and I grew up in the same area of London and I think we probably met at the local youth club, through a mutual friend called Dave McLaughlin. I knew that Dave McLaughlin was already playing guitar and I told him that I was a singer. I wasn’t, but I thought I’d get in with these guys! Then I think Dave Mac introduced me to Dave Murray and we started playing together; they played guitar and I sang. When I first met him, he was a complete Hendrix nut and he loved Robin Trower and Santana, but I think he likes more blues based stuff these days. Back then, he had two guitars - he was very professional! His spare guitar from Woolworths wasn’t working, so I bought it off him for five quid and my dad fixed it, and that was my first guitar. It was a really nice guitar, as you can imagine! Dave Mac drifted out of the band into other things, and Dave Murray and I carried on playing together for a few years until he decided to broaden his horizons and eventually he joined Iron Maiden. I carried on with the band we’d had, which became Urchin; he actually came back into the band for a while after he fell out with Iron Maiden’s singer, but then he went back to them. Before they did the first album, Iron Maiden asked me to join them, but my band was doing quite well, so I turned it down. Then they asked me again in 1980. I think Dave rang up and said, 'Look, I think you really should do it' and I did. Dave is so easy-going and he’s a quiet guy. He has his moments, but generally, he goes with the flow. If you had six guys like Bruce or six guys like Steve in the band well, you need a combination of personalities. That’s what the chemistry of the band’s all about. In fact, I guess Dave and I are fairly similar. We’re both pretty laid-back and we’ve always got on very well. Another good thing about Dave is that he’s always got a smile on his face. He has good energy, which is always a good quality to have in a band. He’s a very consistent player, so it’s hard to pick his best moment on ‘Dance Of Death’, but the song ‘Rainmaker’ is one of my favourites and he wrote that with Steve, so I suppose I’d have to say that really. Dave’s a very good guitarist, but he’s not the kind of guy who tries to outdo everybody. There’s enough scope in Iron Maiden’s music for all three guitarists to express themselves. The phrase 'Let the music do the talking' springs to mind when you talk about Dave. He’s always been able to express himself very well through the guitar. He’s got his own style and sound, and that’s a rare thing. Everyone who plays guitar wants to have that and he always has, even when he’d just started playing. We could plug into the same amp and he’d still sound like him. If you hear Dave playing, you know it’s Iron Maiden straight away.

BRUCE DICKINSON (IRONMAIDEN) as known by Nicko McBrain

I think my first encounter with Bruce was when he was rehearsing with Samson in Kilburn, which must have been 1979. I remember I was playing pool and Bruce came out of the studio and he was very animated and very loud and I thought, ‘Who is this geezer?!’ His personality was way in front of the man himself. But as I got to know Bruce, I realised that he is a very intense guy. In the early days when I joined Maiden, he was very extrovert, yet he was introverted at the same time. When he gets a great idea, he won’t let it go and he gets so animated, but other times he would be so intent on what he was thinking about, he would be in another world. His mind amazes me. He’s a genius. He’s also an absolute lunatic - but most geniuses are! And inside there’s a heart of gold. In the early days, there was a bit of ego. He was the frontman of the band, and you can’t be the stubborn brawny frontman of a band like Maiden and be timid and weak. Outwardly, very few things would phase him, but I know inwardly he’s a very sensitive man. We would have incredible times together, but he would also be a bit of a loner and go off and do his own bits and pieces. He got into his fencing, which I completely admired about him, because he’s superfit now, but he doesn’t work out half as much as he used to. He was such a good fencer, he was actually asked to join the Olympic fencing team in the mid-to-late Eighties, but he couldn’t because he had to go on the road with the band. Writing books was the next thing. He was unbearable when he was writing those Iffy Boatrace books, because you’d be doing something on the bus and he’d have just finished writing a new chapter and he’d want to read the whole fricking story to you! But he was so excited, you can’t blow someone out the sky for that. I was very angry with him when he left the band, because of the way it happened and because I didn’t want him to leave. But when we all got back in the room to take that beautiful picture of the reunion, it was as though we’d all been on holiday for a couple of months, instead of four-plus years and in Adrian’s case, ten almost. The most amazing thing about making music together is that you really bond with your music and also personally, in your inner soul. There’s an amazing vibe that’s always maintained and even though we had four great years with Blaze, when Bruce and Adrian came back into the band, there was this incredible affiliation again. A change I saw in Bruce from that time, apart from his enthusiasm for the band back like he had when I first joined it, is the genuineness of the emotion that I feel from him. He’s changed in that he seems more rounded and more content, although he’s doing so much more than before he left the band. He’s doing his radio show, he’s doing his flying and he’s got a part-time gig in a band as a singer! He is an absolute joy to be around. We’ve had so many great times on the ‘Give Me Ed’ tour, as we will do on the ‘Dance Of Death’ tour. I think his finest moment on ‘Dance Of Death’ has got to be on ‘Journeyman’, because it shows a lighter side to Bruce’s voice. There are a lot more subtle emotions than you get with some other tunes and there’s so much more control. The emotion he puts into that track is phenomenal.

STEVE HARRIS (IRONMAIDEN) as known by Janick Gers

I was introduced to Steve and Bruce when Gillan were playing Hammersmith Odeon back in the Eighties. I quite liked the lad at the time, and I met him subsequently at a few Maiden gigs after that. He always seemed quite intense and serious and aware of what was going on. As a person, Steve is one of the few people you meet that you can trust totally. He wouldn’t sell you down the river, he wouldn’t badmouth you behind your back; he’s a very straight fella. You can confide in him and it won’t get passed around, and he doesn’t bullshit. He has the ability to stand back and look at both sides of a situation, but if he’s convinced that he’s right, he will argue with every fibre of his body and he’ll never change his mind, which I think is a great strength. He has very strong mental tolerance. In situations where other bands might have caved in, the one thing that has kept Iron Maiden doing what it does best is Steve, because he has this belief that what he’s doing is right. When you’re in a young band and your record company come to you, saying, 'You need to soften up your sound, we need a single', Steve’s the kind of guy you need to turn round to them and say, 'Fuck off!' Steve has a very fertile imagination and a very simple way of writing lyrics. It’s not highbrow stuff – it’s deeper than that. He writes it as he sees it and you really get the feeling the words are from inside him. Every time I play the song ‘Blood Brothers’, it makes me shiver, because he hit the nail on the head. He lost his dad when he was on tour and when things like that happen to you, sometimes you go to deep places - everyone experiences that - but to be able to write it down is another thing. When you read his lyrics, there’s an honesty in there that comes out and he opens himself up more than he does when you’re talking to the guy. He’s a great football player and he had the choice to play football professionally or play music when he was a kid, but I think he made the right decision. I don’t think he could cope with the discipline of the footballer’s life at the time when you’re a teenager and you’re starting to meet people and get into music. He’s his own man. But having said that, he doesn’t drink much and he takes care of his body – that’s very important to him. Being a sportsman, his attitude is that if your body is healthy, your mind is too, and I think that helps with the band, because you don’t get locked into that stupid rock'n’roll 'let’s go party every night' lifestyle. He is an idiosyncratic bass player. He picked up the bass and taught himself in such a way that nobody can really copy it. People say it’s like a lead guitar, but it’s not. It gives the band a basis and it moves around quite a lot, but it’s the tone that he has. He has a way of hearing things and a tone that isn’t normally associated with a bass, it’s more like a rhythm guitar. Him and Nicko provide the pulse of Iron Maiden, the body of the band. You copy it at your peril, because the sound of Maiden is built around the way Steve plays bass and the only band that it would work in is Maiden. Steve has been very involved in the new album. He has this tunnel vision where he can really hone in on things and he has this tremendous focus when he’s recording albums - or doing anything with Iron Maiden really. He wants to get it right and he’s prepared to put the time in. Not many people have that kind of determination and focus. He is a very, very strong personality. Without his drive and ambition, it wouldn’t be Iron Maiden, no doubt about it. He’s its heart and its power.