The first album I bought … on cassette, £2.99 from John Menzies … and so the journey began …
… I was still at primary school and we all got into Iron Maiden, inspired by the elder brother of one of our number and his friends. This would have been around the time of Seventh Son and Maiden were huge, I remember watching Can I Play With Madness entering the charts at number 4 and the record shops in Edinburgh had racks and racks of Iron Maiden t-shirts. My dad refused to buy me a t-shirt on account of Eddie being “horrible” … I think my dad still hopes it’s just a phase … of course Eddie being “horrible” was one of Iron Maiden’s major appeals to a 9-10 year old boy … as you get slightly older, what appeals to you changes and so I moved away from songs about WWII planes, Egyptian Gods and Ancient Mariners and began trying to worry my parents in other ways … the Holy Trinity … Sex, Drugs and Rock N’ Roll (At this stage I, of course, didn’t have any idea what sex really meant, or drugs, or, for that matter Rock N’ Roll) … and moved away from Maiden towards what seemed, at the time, far cooler bands, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Skid Row, Guns N’ Roses … you know, bands that embody everything that was wrong with 80s hair metal, cock rock … I did grow up in a rural area so, in those pre-internet days, I relied on very mainstream sources for finding music to listen to. These days there would be less excuse.
After starting secondary school, there were a couple of years of denial, desperately trying to avoid being a dreaded “sweaty” … but you can only fight being yourself for so long and it wasn’t long before I rediscovered Heavy Metal, only in a more serious way but that is a story for another day.
… so, is there anything I would take from Iron Maiden that influences my own music and creative urges?
In terms of musical style, probably not. However they do demonstrate you can be decidedly uncool and still be immensely successful (Afterall, cool is only one letter away from fool as a band as I was to love later once wrote), they also show it is ok to use anything for inspiration, films, books, history, cult TV and still create music people love …
… which kind of leads me on to my final point in this entry. I moved away from Iron Maiden, via cock rock then grunge, thrash and ever more extreme forms of heavy metal until coming out the other side. A lot of the music I listened to in my defining years (mid teens to early twenties) no longer moves me the way it did while Iron Maiden, largely disowned in that time, now does again … galloping basslines, air-raid siren vocals … very ridiculous and uncool for sure but this is what appeals. You can sing along while playing air guitar and flashing devil symbol had gestures knowing how stupid you look but with a big smile on your face.
And surely that’s what music should be about … taking you to a place where you don’t care what others think and you can just be yourself.
