IRON MAIDEN's HISTORY

The story of Iron Maiden begins in 1971, when 15 year old Steve Harris, inspired by the likes of Wishbone Ash, Jethro Tull and early Genesis bought a copy Telecaster bass for the then princely sum of £40.
Steve had previously harboured visions of one day playing soccer for his beloved West Ham and was actually signed to them on schoolboy forms. However, the talent pool in the Hammer's youth organisation in those days was overflowing and the number of players who actually made it into the professional game were very few. The continuous playing and training regime also meant that that young Harry couldn't join his mates in drinking, watching bands and bullying girls.
After thinking long and hard, he abandoned hopes of a soccer career and built up a strong liking and knowledge of rock music. He taught himself how to play by playing along to his favourite records and jamming with friends. This led to the formation of a band called Influence who then changed their name to Gypsy's Kiss.
The Gypsies made their debut at a talent contest in Poplar, lasting all of six gigs before calling it a day. Steve fired by a burning ambition hooked up with a band called Smiler. The other band members were several years older than him, Steve picked up some valuable experience but still felt stifled. Smiler were a "good time boogie " band and although they
played an early version of "Innocent Exile", they turned down "Burning Ambition" and made it clear that they didn't expect their bass player to leap around the stage and write songs. Steve finally realised that the only way to do what he wanted was to put his own band together and at the end of 1975, Iron Maiden was born. Steve got the name from seeing an Iron Maiden in an old movie of "The Man In The Iron Mask". It was a metal coffin with spikes on the inside and the victims were placed inside it and skewered to death.
In the spring of 1976, the band secured a residency at The Cart and Horses pub in Stratford in London's East End. The first couple of gigs went okay, but Steve still felt there was something missing. Vocalist Paul
Day was replaced by ex-Smiler songsmith Dennis Wilcock and he recommended a talented young guitarist by the name of Dave Murray. This put the back up of the resident guitarists Terry Rance and Paul Sullivan who took it as an insult to their talent and departed. Bob
Sawyer, who used the name Bob D'Angelo, was recruited as second guitarist and with Ron Rebel on drums the first proper Maiden line-up came into being. As well as the Cart the band began to get gigs all over East London, building up a strong local following. After six months, the line- up changed again. Bob left as instead of trying to complement Dave's guitar - Bob kept trying to compete with him - a strict no-contest.
Then, after a row at The Bridgehouse, Den fired Dave who went off to join Urchin, his old mate Adrian Smith's band.
With all the hassles, the band decided to temporarily abandon the twin guitars concept and Terry Wapram joined as sole guitarist and Tony Moore was recruited on keyboards. Ron Rebel had decided he couldn't handle the aggravation and also left to be replaced by Barry Purkis - who would later call himself Thunderstick.
The new line-up played one gig at The Bridgehouse and it was painfully obvious that keyboards were not the answer. Exit Moore followed by Wapram who claimed he couldnt play without keyboards! Steve went down to an Urchin gig and persuaded Davey to rejoin the Maiden fold. Den. then quit just before a gig in South London and when Thunderstick also left, things looked bleak. Steve recruited ex-Smiler drummer Doug Sampson and while the three of them rehearsed they looked for a new singer. Eventually, a mate of Steve's recommended Paul Di'Anno. Paul passed his audition with flying colours and the band set about their comeback. Things were difficult at first as in 1977 the Punk / New Wave
revolution was in full swing and most of the venues were only booking new wave acts. The record companies felt the same. The band did receive offers, if they were prepared to cut their hair and go punk. Needless to say you can guess Harry's answer.
By late 1978, the situation had improved enough to allow the band to work to make their comeback and get regular gigs. They realised that they needed a demo and so on New Year's Eve they were in Spaceward
Studios near Cambridge recording "Prowler", "Invasion", "Strange World" and "Iron Maiden". The £200 cost of the recording session was all that they had and so the band could not buy the master tape.
When they went back a couple of weeks later to pay for the tape and mix, the tape had been wiped, leaving them with just the cassettes from the original session unedited and unmixed. Dave gave his copy to Neal Kay, a DJ with a passionate love of hard rock who held regular rock nights at The Soundhouse, which adjoined the Bandwagon pub in Kingsbury, North London. The band were now finding it easier to book gigs and gained a residency at The Ruskin Arms in Manor Park. Neal
played the tape at one of his Soundhouse nights and was astonished at the reaction. It became the most requested item for months and Maiden began to play there. The demo tape had also come to the attention of
Rod Smallwood. A rugby mate of Rod's, who also worked with Steve, passed the tape on, and after listening to it and checking the band out, offered his services as manager. Rod arranged gigs all over the country to
allow the band to build-up a nation-wide following and arranged gigs in or near central London to get record companies to check out Maiden. One such gig was at The Marquee on October 13th. John Darnley came from EMI to see Maiden and Rod had a side bet with the Marquee manager that the gig would sell-out (700 fans) by 7pm. Rod won his bet and EMI signed Iron Maiden the following month. What followed was endless music mayhem from the most power packed bands ever to hit the heavy metal scene-Iron Maiden