Line #9 Trivia/IronMaiden


1	!!Subpages by album:
2	[[index]]
3	* ''Trivia/TheNumberOfTheBeast''
4	[[/index]]
5
6	!!For the band:
7	* ApprovalOfGod: [[Creator/MidwayGames Ed]] [[Creator/NetherrealmStudios Boon]], creator of ''Franchise/MortalKombat'', [[https://twitter.com/noobde/status/632229642473091074 acknowledged]] the nod to his series in the video for "Speed of Light".
8	* BannedInChina:
9	** In TheEighties, the band was banned from playing in Chile due to the Catholic Church's concerns over their "[[RockMeAsmodeus satanic]]" lyrics. The ban was eventually lifted and they were able to perform in Chile in the 2000s. People loved them, if the Flight 666 DVD and the fact that ''En Vivo'' was recorded there are anything to go by.
10	** Weirdly enough, the Chinese government only allowed "Powerslave" to be played at a 2016 gig if the title was not sung. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QFcK2GaFJk Bruce had a rather weird workaround]].
11	* BreakawayPopHit: Bruce alone recorded "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter" for ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet5TheDreamChild''. Maiden's version became their sole British #1.
12	* ChartDisplacement: See above - out of a stretch of seven straight UK Top 10s, the one that topped the charts is also the song fans like the least.
13	* CreativeDifferences:
14	** Dennis Stratton was composing things that didn't fit Maiden.
15	** Paul Di'Anno was bored of the band's material by Killers, as the majority of tracks on the album had been part of the band's setlist for several years by that point.
16	** Adrian was tired of Iron Maiden's heavy sound, so he went to do his own project. He eventually returned with Bruce.
17	** Bruce left Maiden tired of Harris's "tyrant attitude". He eventually returned with Adrian.
18	* CreatorBacklash:
19	** Paul Di'Anno and Steve Harris have bitter memories about the Di'Anno years. Paul would call the band "The Music/SpiceGirls", on his shows, before doing a Maiden song from that era, while Steve despises the SelfTitledAlbum for its production and sound, as he said on ''The Early Days''.
20	** Both ''No Prayer for the Dying'' and ''Fear of the Dark'', where Adrian was absent and Bruce getting much more satisfied with his solo career, seem to have reached this. Only the title track from the latter is a mainstay in concerts, although songs such as "Afraid to Shoot Strangers" are still played quite often.
21	** Song-wise, Steve Harris hates "Flight of Icarus", which is why it doesn't appear in most of the band's setlists.
22	** Most of the Iron Maiden "best of" albums either omit the first two albums (which had Paul Di'Anno as lead vocalist) or replace them with live versions sung by Dickinson. The band still averts this, by playing almost all of the first album sans "Strange World" and "Transylvania"; and "Wrathchild", "Murders In The Rue Morgue", "Another Life" and "Drifter" from ''Killers''. Of note are "Wrathchild" and "Iron Maiden" (the song) being part of their concerts even on our days. The latter, also, serves as the song where [[{{Mascot}} Eddie]] appears.
23	* HarpoDoesSomethingFunny: Both Janick and Steve revealed that for ''The Book of Souls'', rather than spending weeks in the studio writing stuff and laying it all down, then recording it in two weeks as done in the past, the majority of the work was done in-studio- most of the songs were written, rehearsed a few times and then recorded while they were still fresh, to provide a sense of immediacy and spontaniety, as well as a "live" feel.
24	* HitlessHitAlbum: Out of their first five albums, only ''The Number of the Beast'' had an UK top ten hit in "Run to the Hills" (#7), yet all were certified at least gold. Their post-reunion era has plenty of those too, with ''The Final Frontier'' not having hit singles but opening atop the charts in 29 countries!
25	* LicensedGame: The rail shooter ''Ed Hunter'', included in the eponymous GreatestHitsAlbum, and the mobile RPG ''Legacy of the Beast'' (a name shared with [[Pinball/IronMaidenLegacyOfTheBeast a pinball table]]).
26	* TheMerch: They're known for their pretty damn awesome merchandise, which ranges from simple shirts and posters, to pens and binders, to tankards and various pieces of metalwork, to ''their own beer''. There are even some Eddie the Head action figures!
27	* NoHitWonder: In the United States, they never charted in the Hot 100, and in the Rock Charts, their first entry was also the highest, #8 with "Flight of Icarus".
28	* PermanentPlaceholder: The cover art for ''Dance of Death'' was just a mock-up, but Steve Harris and the band's management used it as it was for the final product. Artist David Patchett even asked to be uncredited, revolted at the result.
29	* ThePeteBest:
30	** Anyone who played in the band before the debut album. Sometimes extended to Dennis Stratton, who was in that album. Subverted by Clive Burr, he played in ''The Number of the Beast'' and was only replaced by Nicko [=McBrain=] afterwards.
31	** Doug Sampson is probably the closest example as he played for the band for a good two years, including on their demo The Soundhouse Tapes as well as the session that produced the Axe Attack version of "Running Free" and the b-side "Burning Ambition". He departed before the first album was recorded because he didn't want to go on the long tours that their management had planned. He remained friends with the band and is thanked on the credits for the debut album, also appearing in The Early Years documentary. His replacement Clive Burr ended up lasting three albums before he himself was replaced by Nicko [=McBrain=], who has stayed in the band ever since.
32	** Paul Di'Anno has had a similar career path to Pete Best. Popular in his day, the band got much more popular after they fired him, and he is somewhat bitter about it. His opinion on Bruce Dickinson varies - on ''The Early Days'' documentary he praises Bruce Dickinson's singing, and in a live concert from a few years later he says he doesn't like opera singing, because he's a punk.
33	* RarelyPerformedSong:
34	** Some tracks have less than ten performances, usually at the start of a tour, namely "Out of the Silent Planet" (the only one where all appearances were at the end of the tour), "The Fallen Angel", "Invasion", "Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger", "Burning Ambition", "The Ides of March", "Women in Uniform", "Back in the Village" and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" (the last one only once!).
35	** "Charlotte the Harlot" was a mainstay with Paul, but Bruce only sung it twice in 2006.
36	** Even though "Twilight Zone" was a single, it didn't make it beyond the Killers tour, and neither the band nor Paul solo have attempted it since. As Bruce replaced Paul for the last leg of the Killers' tour, however, you can at least hear [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2pcKS7Q3k0 recordings]] him singing it.
37	** "Alexander the Great", despite being a long-time fan favorite, wasn't played until the 2023 Future Past Tour, ''37'' years after its initial release.
38	** As for ''never'' performed songs, about 44 from across the discography (the debut and ''A Matter of Life and Death'' being the only albums played entirely), with "Face in the Sand" never having a chance for being the only song where Nicko [=McBrain=] used the double bass drum he dislikes, and "Empire of the Clouds" was just too complicated [[https://loudwire.com/exclusive-iron-maiden-bruce-dickinson-may-turn-empire-of-the-clouds-theatrical-production/ to even be considered]] (though Bruce [[https://loudwire.com/bruce-dickinson-iron-maiden-senjutsu-interview/ said]] he was willing to do it by himself with an orchestra).
39	* RefittedForSequel:
40	** The song "Burning Ambition", from the ''Running Free'' single, dates from Gypsy's Kiss, Steve's former band.
41	** Every song from ''Killers'', barring the title track, "Prodigal Son" and "Murders in the Rue Morgue", was written before the SelfTitledAlbum.
42	** "Purgatory" is a faster re-arrangement of one of the band's earlier songs, entitled "Floating".
43	** "Wasting Love", from ''Fear of the Dark'', dates from Bruce's solo effort ''Tattooed Millionaire''.
44	** "Blood Brothers", "The Nomad", "The Mercenary" and "Dream of Mirrors" started being written during ''Virtual XI'', and Blaze Bayley claims he even provided some lyrics for the last one.
45	** For ''The Number of the Beast'', the band had to decide whether to include "Gangland" or "Total Eclipse" in ''The Number of the Beast''. They went with the former, leaving the latter for a single. Later re-releases of the album, in formats with extra capacity such as CD or digital releases, include both songs from the get-go.
46	* RoleEndingMisdemeanor:
47	** Early guitarist Bob Sawyer was fired for outright embarrassing the band by pretending to play with his teeth.
48	** Temporary drummer "Thunderstick" was dropped from the band after falling asleep ''during a gig'' among other things, although the band did offer him the chance to return in 1980 (he declined).
49	** Paul Di'Anno was fired for doing drugs and constantly playing gigs while drunk. The number of cancelled gigs caused him to be dropped.
50	** This was allegedly the reason that Clive Burr was forced to leave the band, with Steve Harris claiming that his offstage activities overshadowed his onstage performance. Clive always strongly disputed this, however, and claimed that Steve had unfairly forced him out, although he at points acknowledged his behaviour. In spite of this, he remained friends with many members of the band, and Bruce said that no matter if Nicko was a MorePopularReplacement, "I regret that [Clive] wasn't given more time to try and sort himself out."
51	* ScheduleSlip: ''Senjutsu'' was recorded in spring of 2019 and spent over two years locked up in a vault before being released in September of 2021.
52	* StreisandEffect:
53	** Numerous movements were organised by the religious right in America to try and ban ''The Number of the Beast'', with albums being destroyed and calls for a boycott.
54	** The band was also banned in Chile for allegedly being Satanic. Bruce credits these in hindsight for just giving the band free publicity, and indeed the band got a ''very'' warm welcome when they finally played in Chile.
55	** In an inversion, the band sent a cease and desist letter to Creator/ThreeDRealms due to ''VideoGame/IonFury'' being named "Ion ''Maiden''" back then. This gave the game a lot of free publicity it wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
56	* ThrowItIn: "Mission from 'Arry", from the ''2 Minutes to Midnight'' single, is a recording of an argument between bassist Steve Harris and drummer Nicko [=McBrain=], which took place after a show.
57	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
58	** Despite being fired for his bizarre onscreen antics, temporary drummer "Thunderstick" was offered the chance to rejoin the band. He declined in order to work on Samson, and so Clive Burr took his place.
59	** "Twilight Zone" was originally intended to be the B-side of "Wrathchild", but the band felt it was so strong that it deserved to be the A-side instead.
60	** The band wanted to include UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill's "We Shall Fight On The Beaches" speech as an introduction to "Aces High", from ''Powerslave''. It didn't made the cut for the album, though the intro is played every time the band opens a gig with the song.
61	** Bruce wrote several acoustic-based songs for ''Somewhere In Time'', none of which ended up in the album.
62	** According to Adrian, "Can I Play with Madness" started as a ballad called "On the Wings of Eagles". Bruce had a verse for it, but he wanted to change the title to the current one. Then the idea of ''Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'' as a concept album was taking shape.
63	** "I Live My Way", "Justice of The Peace" and "Judgement Day" were left out of ''The X Factor''.
64	** Before ''Ed Hunter'', there would have been another Maiden game, but it entered into DevelopmentHell and was eventually cancelled.
65	** Rod Smallwood wanted "Futureal" to be the lead single instead of "The Angel and the Gambler", to the point of having an own video, but Steve managed to turn this around.
66	** "Journeyman" was going to appear in electric format in ''Dance of Death'', but the band eventually released the acoustic version in the album, while this electric version appeared in the ''No More Lies'' EP.
67	** The opening song from ''Book of Souls'', "If Eternity Should Fail", was originally meant to be a track on Bruce's next solo album, but was used for this album instead.
68	** Iron Maiden wanted Creator/VincentPrice to do the famous intro to "The Number of the Beast", but the legendary horror actor refused to do it for anything less than £25,000.[[note]]This would be worth over £90,000 in 2021, or almost $125,000 in American money[[/note]]
69	* WorkingTitle:
70	** "Wasted Years" had the original name of "Golden Years".
71	** "Can I Play with Madness" started as a ballad called "On the Wings of Eagles"
72	* WriterRevolt: Eddie is destroyed in ''Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'' because Derek Riggs wanted to have less and less of Eddie to draw. But a kind of ContinuityReboot occurred as the band asked a "full" Eddie in the follow-up ''No Prayer for the Dying''.
73
74	!!For the pinball machine:
75	* SimilarlyNamedWorks: Admit it, you thought the pinball was based on the band...
76	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: ''Iron Maiden'' was originally designed to speak, using a MachineMonotone common to other pinball games of the era. It was removed from the final game as a cost-savings measure, though fans hold out hope that prototype [=ROMs=] will eventually surface.

Context Trivia / IronMaiden