Original subtitles

MUSIC PLAYS It's a.

.. Well, in order.

That is all right.

Is all right.

This is... What?

Well, it is.

Well, this brings back a few memories.

Point of being a, please.

Tell us what it was like.

Well, actually, I haven't changed at all as it happens.

Unbelievable, just the same as it was.

The only difference is down in the middle here.

There used to be a lot of tables, singing used to go gallivanting down the

middle of it and a beer used to go flying everywhere.

Apart from that, they're taking the tables away.

They built a little stage with a beer crate there for the drum kit, which we never had.

Apart from that, it's exactly the same.

This is so cool, Charlotte the Island.

So see all the little fingers, come on.

Now I'll wait there.

I

don't know, let me see you.

The

time in the morning is standing in the middle.

Well, Charlotte, you love me.

I love you there.

Too bad, it says it's bloody.

Whoa!

Where Charlotte, you love me too.

In a busy day, you love me too.

Where Charlotte, you love me too.

Whoa!

Patricia, baby, love her.

Hey, yeah!

Ah, there's your baby!

Hello, this is Paul.

Charlotte, I love you too.

Yeah,

we had a residency here for a while, and it was,

I think it was a Friday and a Sunday or something.

And we graduated from playing a Thursday night or whatever it was.

And I think we would have played band at the time.

We graduated up to about £35, a night for all the band that is.

All the other bands were getting about £25 at the time, so we were well at me.

So how did you two first meet?

How did you actually get together?

Because I mean, you're like the longest surviving members of the present band.

We were also at a club called Dennis.

He sort of auditioned Dave before when, you know, in an old band of his.

And so he said, well, yeah, I know he's a really good guitarist.

And I said, well, we are getting down, and came down, clagged in.

That was it.

Dave even got rid of Dennis.

Well, actually, yeah, a little bit later.

So what was the first gig then you could say that Iron Maiden ever did,

just out of interest?

So that wedding reception, you know.

Actually, the carton...

I know this is that.

It was the very first Maiden gig.

And he was in London.

Yeah, May 76, I think it was.

And we were passing the carton auction in Stratford.

And what happened was we heard some music coming

out, and we thought, this sounds a bit good.

We were just going to check it out, so we parked up, winning at the pub.

And now I'm loading, we're just sort of like the tail

end of their set, and we're playing Transylvania.

And we thought, you know, this looks like a good band.

Anyway, they played a couple more songs all their

own, which was unusual banding them days in the pubs.

And we thought, right next week, we'll go back there and see him again.

We couldn't afford them days to go in hard again, you know, so...

We just made them ourselves, like, you know, build

the boxes up, we've got power there on them, you know.

And we used to put like 240 volts through them, you know.

And put the pub or whatever.

It was working, because it was breaking a few years all the time, you know.

Leaving pubs in the dark and darkness, like, you know.

If the heavy metal boom is being taken seriously by the fans with their imaginary

guitars, it certainly calls in a stir in the offices of the record companies.

Iron Maiden was signed to EMI last year, but when

they formed in 1976, punk was what was selling.

And as Steve Harris explains, when the band were first offered a recording deal

four years ago, they were told punk was what they had to play.

But they wanted us to get us a clatter ear and all that sort of thing.

And, you know, we just said, no, why?

Because it's not what we want to do, you know.

And they wanted us to play more commercial music.

So, you know.

I mean, it was, people say it was, you know, it was easy to, or odd,

to sort of just turn down a deal or anything like that.

But it's not odd to do something when you don't like

what you're going to have to do, sort of thing, you know.

Making the first day I was a bit of a joke and all, because we did it on,

I think it was New Year's Eve, 1978, going in 1979.

And we went up the space with studios in Cambridge, and it was like snow everywhere.

I mean, it was like a really, really bad weather.

And we had this beaten up old van, old transit.

And they had no tax, no insurance.

I mean, the tyres were, you know, pretty warm.

You know, basically we just had no money, and pulled the money into doing the type.

Do you have anywhere to stay, just drove up, you know, and kept down somewhere,

if not without to keep in the back of the van.

And we spent two nights there, and lucky enough,

Paul, the singer at the time, Paul, this nurse.

Typical, huh?

And after that, we had somewhere to stay on the

night, and it was, it was a lot of fun out there.

I think that's one of the best memories I've ever gotten

made in 18, when was I in Cambridge, because that was...

The camaraderie was brilliant, because we

was all, you know, all together at this time.

It was really good fun.

And we got the work done as well, which was quite good.

The only thing was the actual tapes, the master tapes, we couldn't actually

fault the buy-in, I think there were 50 quid or something.

And so we said, look, you know, all the types, we'll come back next week

and we've got some money, and we'll pay you for them.

So I went after the master, because we were still a

few bits and pieces, we actually wanted to really do.

So now we got back in a week's time, and he's wrapped him off.

He calls me up and says that one of the tracks, Prowler, off the tape,

was number one in his metal chart, which was just basically

based on requests of all the punters that go in there.

And we couldn't believe it, you know.

So we went down there, and calls no one knew who we

were, as we were, to stay in the buy-in and drink.

And Prowler came on number one sort of thing, they were all being, going crazy,

and there was a couple of guitar bits, which we'd never seen before and over.

And it was just unbelievable, you know.

And so he says, well, I'm going to give you a kick down here.

When Maiden first played here, it was an almost automatic acceptance, I think.

Oh, it was very loud, it was very raw, it was

raucous, it was completely over the top, actually.

I think anybody that had been here that night that had seen that would have been

fully aware of the portend of things to come.

It was really like being at a football match, rather than being at a rock concert.

There were all these people gathered together with immense energy, all directed

at one focal point, which was the band on the stage.

And there was a mixture of aggression and power and passion, but unlike a football

match, it was all directed in supporting the same team.

And it was fairly apparent from right at the beginning of the evening that these

guys that were going to be up there on stage, which being treated like gods,

you know.

And outside of that circle of people at the soundhouse, they were virtually unheard of.

It's quite fun, it's made me really more or less made to be signed by the fans.

What's what happened was a friend of mine, EMI John Darnley, came to see the band,

I think it was the Marquis.

I really liked it.

He got his boss, Brian Shepherd, to come up to the bandwagon.

And Brandwell is right up in Kingsbury Circle.

And anyway, Shepherd got really lost on the way up there.

And now he's going, you know, the band's nearly

finished, you know, what the hell's happening.

He finally rides about 15 years before the end of the set.

Shepherd isn't, is not particularly tall.

Sorry, Shepherd.

And he came in right about the place was packed.

And he got there and he was going like this, you know, trying to see the band.

Now, I saw him come in.

And as soon as he started trying to see the band, some kids in front of him.

So he spent the whole scene in this corner, couldn't see nothing behind this banner.

And I'd say, well, what do you think?

He says, well, I didn't see anything of the band and couldn't hear them.

But boy, the fans liked it, it's all signed in.

It's all right.

Bye, guys.

Bye, guys.

Bye, guys.

All right, well, here we are in the marquee dressroom.

And the first time we come here, we've got a bit nervous

out of the marquee, you know, this is the big gig.

So it's like peep out for behind the door and see all the kids out there.

It's a great rush, you know.

Especially like, also tools, you know, you

finish your set, you'll come out here and stuff.

And gigs over and the crowd will still be going crazy out there.

So we got to do it was open the door and see a reaction.

And so we'd come out for a new year's time.

We'd just keep playing, you know, to close the bar.

A couple of pops was a really experienced because

we didn't really know what to expect at first.

Because when we went down there, we thought, oh, great, we want to play totally live.

And the guys thought, I said, oh, I don't think you can do that.

So we insisted in the end, but we were so quiet.

To see me bring up trouble, I don't believe, I don't love, I got nowhere, come on.

It's the guys that here I go, I'm running free, I'm

running free, I'm running free, I'm running free.

I'm in the night, an NHL.

This is two, silos well.

They ain't got anything on me.

I'm running well.

I'm running free here.

I'm running free here.

I'm running free here.

I'm running free here.

Get out of my way!

I'm running free here.

I'm running free here.

Just after that, we did our first support tour, playing to the biggest audiences.

Nobody had ever done gigs that big before, and we're all real excited about it.

We're traveling in a gold van, you know, a little buck style.

We're all together.

But the truck was some distance behind us.

I don't know how they happened to be something.

I think they got held up at customs, something like that.

By the time we got to the hotel in Rome, I decided I made a mumby plane.

There wasn't enough time.

So we jumped a cab that was a message to make road at the gig.

So we got in the cab, left the truck at the hotel.

Needless to say, he was excited to see us until he realised we didn't have the gear.

But it was alright, we got a cab back to the hotel and followed the cab back

through Rome at 900 miles an hour and played the gig.

We've

told him what was not good to give it nowhere.

He took me to the stage for a rare ten, and back to the bend of pushing past the red.

We're gonna set for a seven, a student is playing me for a cow in heaven.

We'll look to the hour and see what I can see.

She ain't gonna pretend to give it to me.

Why are they from round and huge?

And now I set the clinic at my horror booth, gave me a message, hanging around.

Masked in my temperature, never enough.

I have to get the order.

Can't keep taking it up, no gun.

We'll be able to rid of this hair so far.

All the dinners threatened to be in the bend, and gone.

We got managed to get Adrian who actually joined, and we couldn't decide.

But we decided for him to sit like you were in, that's it.

That was a bayonet I'd been in since school, really.

And it carried on up until about, I don't know, the early 80s.

Which gave me and Dave kind of started out.

But it was called various things.

It was called Evil Waze at one point.

And Stone 3, you have a great fun thinking of all his names.

You know, your first bands.

And we did a couple of singles.

But we never got, we always wanted to do an album deal.

But it's very hard starting off, obviously.

Well, I had a few personal crises going on at the time, like, my life and things.

And it was a little difficult to sort of get me act together.

I was also getting a little bit disillusioned with what was going on with me.

And, you know, some of the stuff in the band.

And I thought the best option was for me to

watch out, instead of getting the band's way.

And the band was thinking that at the same time.

So when we all actually met up, it was quite interesting

to say the least that we decided to sort of call it a day.

So we just party company, basically.

When Rod asked me.

I mean, he hadn't actually asked me to join.

All he said was, would you like to go to the audition?

You know, whatever it was, you know, sing with

a band or whatever the phrase was it used.

And I started off, I sort of went, look.

I said, for a start, don't expect me to get dressed up in all that black leather

gear and all that and cut all my hair off and wear a frilly collar.

I said, because I'm not the same as the previous

singer, I've got my own ideas about what should happen.

And if you don't like it, stuff it.

And I never got the job.

So I thought he's either going to turn around and hit me and throw me out the window.

Or he's going to sort of go, well, you know, it's sort of attitude.

So I guess it must have been the right attitude.

I

was going to go to the studio by eight.

I was going to start to play.

I'm not a hundred and a six-strack.

I'm not a rose to the scene in the play.

But I'm a friend who's going to put you for me to close the layers of my side.

Now burners in the room arms to breathe.

This and people come down the street and they have the suffering put it back on.

I did that

first tour in 1980, and I went up to Newcastle to see them down at the Mayfair.

And actually, I went along dressed more or less

the way I am now, and turned up at the door.

And this security guard sort of stopped me and said, you know who's playing here?

And I said, I think it's Iron Maiden, isn't it?

He said, well, we don't actually get many people dressed like you.

I just thought you'd better come to the wrong place.

Children of the Down!

I think it was the second US tour we'd done.

All we get out of there, now of a sudden, there's

all this stuff that I made and been devil worshipers.

And it was the strangest thing, but we had people out there with placards.

It wasn't just ours, but I think we really took a lot of the brunt of it,

and a lot of it started or restarted again around the number of the Beast album.

And it would be on local TV stations and the religious stations.

Actually, every time they were saying, see this album, burn it.

It was one situation where they got a whole load of Iron Maiden as your hospital

albums, burn them, and then everyone ran away apparently.

It was the scared of the fumes.

So the next time around, they used a hammer to break them.

The whole thing about that devil thing, you know, and all the number of the Beast

bit, I mean, basically it was one song that was about that.

I mean, they're not into devil worshiping and all

that, but they were just making a comment on the song.

But throughout the recording, I had a bizarre incident because I had a car,

and I was driving up to London.

And a car pulled out of a side-turning and hit me.

Anyway, it turned out this bloke was a black guy, and he was willing to the church.

He was going to pick some nuns up.

I believe this or not, but it's true.

And he started having me in the middle of the road saying prayers and all this,

you know.

It wasn't this man's fault and everything.

I was going, well, this is really odd.

Anyway, it turned out, a cut-long story short, turned out, that the bill I got for

the damage of my car was 666 pounds, exactly.

Well, you know, and I was telling the lads about it, and we were going, oh,

yeah, so... When I picked the car up, I refused to pay the bill.

I said, you either make it 668, or you make it 670.

I'm not putting that figure.

For the general sentence of the most people.

Those people who have understanding, reckon, the number of the beats.

For it is a human number.

Its number is six hundred rooms between the two.

My first appearance with Maiden, believe it or not, was as Eddie.

Around 1981, there was a TV special that the

guy has had to do in Brussels in Belgium.

And Clive was sick.

So Rod phoned me up one day and said, look,

Nick, could you come and step in for the band?

I got to record this sort of, like a top of the pops in England, in Belgium.

And I said, yeah, okay.

So, I sent me a tape.

I had three songs to learn.

Killers, Rothschild and one other, which sticks my mind right now.

And the stipulation was that I had to wear an Eddie mask.

Recklessly, it's stayed the same for about the last four years.

I can't believe it.

I've always wanted to stay all iron up.

Because, I mean, before, you know, the recording line up, I mean,

we had so many changes, unbelievable.

You know, like, one Geezer was in the band about three days.

No one lost about six weeks.

And he'd get someone to come down and join the band.

And, you know, it was all happening and really sort of wanting to do things.

And then, about two months later, their girlfriends

wouldn't come to rehearsals and stuff like that.

So, a big elbow.

Everything's basically the same.

It's still been the same core of the crew

that we've used for years and years and years.

It's still the same atmosphere.

It's just that there's more bits and pieces, really.

It's just not called total!

It clips some!

That's these!

There's nowhere!

The idea of Eddie came from a punk album.

Didn't know.

It came from an idea for a punk album, which...

I worked out from a head, which I saw stuck on a

Vietnamese tank, supposedly an American's head.

But I'm suspicious about this.

I think it was a ploy by the American government to gain sympathy.

There was a joke at the time called Eddie the Ed.

And what we had, we had the Iron Maiden logo,

which was a box probably about this big.

And it had the same thing.

They had Christmas lights around it, but the bulbs all the way around it.

The Iron Maiden.

And then we just had a head on it.

And there was a joke about Eddie the Ed at the time.

And that's how that started.

And we had like a...

It used to cough up blood, because the song Iron Maiden, if you ever listen to

the words, it says Iron Maiden's going to get you black black black.

We used to use a fish tank pump in the back a bit with a small tin.

And in that song, that bit of the song, the old figure switched on the old thing.

And the fish tank pump had to stop.

Come out of this map, which was just the tube, which had been cut off.

And come over the drummer.

The poor saw the sticky zed up.

And then stuff would come.

And it was anything from, you know, emulsion paint to food dye.

You know, a few times I got slapped seriously, because he's edged with,

you know, red and you couldn't get it out.

And they said that one started.

Well, we killed him at Dortmund, and nobody told me about that for years afterwards.

Iron Maiden!

Iron Maiden!

Iron Maiden!

Well, the idea for sanctuary came from the lyrics, originally.

The lyrics said I'd never killed a woman before, but I know how it feels.

This is a rather peculiar thing for somebody to say, really, really think about it.

So I did a picture of Eddie being rather

unfriendly to somebody who was lying on the ground.

And I thought about having the female as Margaret Thatcher.

And I thought, no, that's been now.

I didn't mention it to anybody.

And then the band came back and said, look, can

you make the figure look like Margaret Thatcher?

And I said, do a portrait in two days.

I haven't even got a picture of the woman.

So anyway, I phoned up Margaret Thatcher's press office and asked them for a

photograph of Margaret Thatcher because I was a member of her constituency,

and they sent me one.

And I painted it.

And nobody liked it except the band.

So they banned it.

The press didn't like it.

They thought it was nasty.

The fans thought it was good.

I think quite a few people thought it was a fairly decent idea.

Not the painting, just the idea.

She's Iron Maiden, is it?

Well, I've got another Iron Maiden here for you.

Going Iron Maiden.

Good day to you.

I would like to say that... do you mind?

I would like to say that the entertainment value provided by a gentleman such as

yourselves is of immense value in these difficult times.

May I express my thanks?

Edward and Bruce had a number of the beasts on the prisoner,

which was based on the prisoner series with Patrick McGowan.

And they wanted to use a part of the actual prisoner series at the beginning

when he says, what's my number, number one?

You know, no, that's a number nine.

They wanted to use that, so I went to EMI to get them to get permission.

We got permission from the people, the film people,

but we needed Patrick's personal permission.

So I had to get the phone number and ring up.

So I'm ringing up Patrick McGowan and the older band are in the office, right?

And we do always rock stars and stuff like that, but not including them, of course.

But then, right, a real good actor, right, Hollywood style, and all this,

I'm ringing Patrick McGowan like terrified.

So, hello.

And you know, Scrambles, can we use your song and all this?

And he explained the situation, he goes,

what you said the name of the band was again.

I said, I made it, and he says, there was a

silence and very McGowan, and he says, okay, do it.

Who are you?

The new number two, who is number one?

You are number six.

I am not a number.

I am.

All

right, good evening.

This is a message to all the customers.

Please do not leave your seats and go into the

aisle, or tackle your seats or rush this day.

I'm sorry, but I will please do what I'm actually doing, or what I'm doing.

You're leaving the movie, fuck.

Yep.

I missed it.

Did you get it?

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

Thank you.

I'm fine.

Right, Bob.

I've been here for a long time since I've been here a lot.

Yeah.

Still?

Yeah.

More than singing, even?

No, not recently, no.

No, I've been doing singing for nine months.

Uh-huh.

Quite a lot.

It would be difficult to do more fencing than singing at the moment.

No, I see.

What do you do to Cynthia?

Yeah, I've claimed yesterday and Tuesday and Saturday.

I'm trying to use it two, three days a week, wherever I am.

We're the first two on this story in time.

I've been here in Yugoslavia.

You're in Yugoslavia, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I've been here in Yugoslavia, and then Hungary, and then Poland.

Yeah.

What's the reaction of the audience?

That's early.

Ah, it's great.

You work with

the Polish agency out there, which is state-owned.

And it's very well organized.

You almost lose track of them once they enter into the country.

It's very difficult to phone out.

I remember the first tour that happened.

I never heard from anybody for a week, and I knew it was going great.

Otherwise, I'd have had a phone call with some loud words at the other end.

Yeah, Poland was interesting.

Really depressing, you know, to see that a lot of things they haven't got though.

I mean, we took our first time we went now.

We arrived through the border and had a TV company there.

You know, it's big news.

It was on major network news that we were coming to Poland to do this tour.

We took all our own catering.

I always remember we had a day out there, and we went to Auschwitz just to see it.

I thought I should see it, you know.

And I always remember giving away some Coca-Cola tins to some kids.

We had never seen a Coke tin in their life.

And I always remember opening one for them and seeing the look of upset on their face

because they didn't want to open it, you know.

And they drank it and we'd go for more of the stuff, which was fun.

I mean, that was good.

In a way, I was quite surprised to see that they were

very similar to Western fans in attitude and dress sense.

They had the denims and the leathers like old rock friends.

I think, perhaps, there was more enthusiasm over there than even some of

the bigger gigs that they've done in Europe and States because it was such a

new thing for Polish rock friends to see a band of

maid and stature going over to play with a full show.

And they really appreciated the fact that the band

had made the effort and were out there playing.

We went out trying to find somebody to go because

there's nowhere to really drink or anything.

And we found that what we thought was a disco and it was a wedding.

And we got so out of it, we ended up getting up to fly.

I remember Bruce Dickinson, I was apparently singing and then Bruce

Dickinson got up and started singing and wouldn't get off the mic.

The early TV show programs we used to do were all taken awfully seriously.

And we decided we were going to be really serious.

If we were going to mine, we were going to

make it look really good and really go for it.

But I've done 23 takes of mine and stuff like that.

And then the director, which they invariably do, had Steve playing the

guitar solo and the guitar solo is solo doing the singing and so on and so forth.

We just gave up on TV companies and decided they're all complete and utter

cretins, you know, with one or two rare exceptions.

And so we decided that we were going to do this TV

show for Germany, so we thought we'd have some fun.

I am made!

Well, when we first started, the productions were smaller.

The technological developments have happened in the last six years.

Obviously, precluded the use of certain effects.

And as the band have got bigger, so is the production.

We're going to do a song for you now with an album that's called The Triple!

We're going to sing our hands in the air!

We're going to sing our hands in the air!

We're going to sing

our hands in the air!