Iron Maiden were formed on Christmas Day 1975, by bass player Steve Harris, who attributes the band name to a movie adaptation of The Man in the Iron Mask, and so the group was christened after the medieval torture device. Maiden went through several different line ups before Harris linked up with guitarist Dave Murray (who is still part of Maiden today), drummer Dave Sampson and singer Paul Di'Anno. The foursome entered the studio on New Year's Eve 1978 due to it's cheap rates and recorded The Soundhouse Tapes, an EP consisting of three songs and restricted to 5000 copies.
Before signing their first record deal with EMI Sampson was replaced by Clive Burr and Dennis Stratton hastily added to give Maiden it's trademark dual guitar sound. The debut album, Iron Maiden, reached no. 4 in the UK album charts and led to them supporting KISS on their European tour.
Stratton was released and Murray's childhood friend Adrian Smith finally joined the band. He had been asked previously but his commitments with his own band, Urchin, prevented him joining. The second album, Killers, built on Iron Maiden's success but it soon became clear that Di'Anno was not what Maiden needed in a singer as his self destructive behaviour was becoming more and more of a problem.
He was replaced by the lead singer of Samson, Bruce Dickinson, who first appeared on 1982's The Number of the Beast album. It was this difficult third album that really saw Maiden's star rise and they embarked on an American tour that was plagued by rumours of Satanism due to the album's cover.
Clive Burr was replaced by Nicko McBrain of Trust and the line up of Harris, Dickinson, Murray, Smith and McBrain made four highly successful studio albums throughout the 1980s (Piece of Mind, Powerslave, Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son).
During this time Maiden also became famous for the spectacle of their live shows and this was documented in the live CD and VHS Live After Death that was released in 1985. They headlined the Monsters of Rock festival at Donington in 1988 in front of a record crowd. Slowly the increased touring schedule started to take it's toil.
After recording a solo album Adrian Smith left Iron Maiden to be replaced by Janick Gers, the guitarist on Bruce Dickinson's first solo album Tattooed Millionaire. The new line up returned to the studio and recorded No Prayer for the Dying which saw the synths and elaborate stage sets of the last few albums abandoned for a rawer feel. No Prayer spawned Maiden's first (and to date only) UK number 1 single Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter after the original Dickinson solo version was re-recorded by Maiden.
Fear of the Dark followed and an intensive tour began to promote this. Maiden returned to Donington for the second time in 1993 and released this as the live album Live at Donington.
Shortly after Bruce Dickinson announced that he was leaving Maiden for a solo career but agreed to complete the rest of the Fear of the Dark tour and two further live albums, A Real Live One and a Real Dead One were released. Dickinson's last show with Maiden was the TV special Raising Hell, recorded at London's Pinewood Studios on 28th August 1993.
Dickinson's replacement was Blaze Bayley, the lead singer with previous Maiden support band Wolfsbane. The first Blaze era album release was the X Factor in 1995 and showed a marked departure from the Dickinson era Maiden. The first official greatest hits compilation, the Best of the Beast was released in 1996 and Maiden capitalised on their back catalogue by reissuing all of their albums prior to the X Factor as enhanced CDs.
Virtual XI was released in 1998 and Bayley left shortly after the tour was finalised.
Meanwhile Dickinson had linked back up with Smith to record the albums Accident of Birth and Chemical Wedding and both returned to Iron Maiden leaving the band with a new six person, three guitarist line up.
This new line up released Brave New World (2000), Dance of Death (2002) and A Matter of Life and Death (2006) while continuing the far reaching, but not as long, tours that they had become famous for. 2001 saw Maiden perform their biggest show to date in front of 250,000 people at Brazil's Rock in Rio festival and this was released as both a live album and DVD. Death on the Road was released in 2005 as a live document of the Dance of Death tour.
In 2007 Maiden returned to Donington for the third time.
This site has no affiliation with Iron Maiden and is purely a fan site borne from obsession