Steady Eddie!: The A—Z Of Iron Maiden

Ahead of Iron Maiden's biggest tour of Australia to date, The Music has tracked down the A-Z of the band as it celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Iron Maiden

Originally called Ash Mountain, Iron Maiden made their debut at a vicarage, St. Nicks Hall in Poplar, on 1 May 1976 in front of 20 friends and nuns, before taking on residencies in pubs.

The first singer, Paul Mario Day, was sacked because he lacked "energy or charisma on stage," according to founder Steve Harris, and was replaced by Dennis Wilcock, a KISS fan who used makeup and fake blood on stage.

Wilcock had a guitarist friend, Dave Murray, whom Harris asked to join, much to the dismay of the other guitarists at the time, Dave Sullivan and Terry Rance.

As of 2023, Maiden had sold 130 million albums, or 200 million including videos and singles. They’re estimated to be worth around $150 million. The Legacy Of The Beast turned over $100 million.

A = Australia

The November 2026 dates of Run For Your Lives are Iron Maiden’s eighth visit to this country. It will be their biggest to date, says promoter TEG Dainty.

Their first was in November 1982 as part of The Beast On The Road Tour. In Sydney, they played to an audience of 2,000 at the Capitol Theatre.

On 2008’s Somewhere Back In Time Tour, their return to Australia after 15 years, 40,000 tickets were snapped up in the first hour. Sydney sold out in 25 minutes, and Melbourne in 15 minutes.

B = Barnyard Studios

Barnyard Studios was situated in bassist Steve Harris’ former 9-acre property in Essex, Sheering Hall, where some of their albums were recorded.

The 14th-century property included a fully equipped pub with ales on tap, bar stools, and a pool table; a football pitch; an indoor pool complex with a gym area; a games/cinema room; a conservatory; 8 bedrooms; 5 reception rooms; 2 bathrooms; and 3 shower rooms.

A few years ago, with Harris spending more time at his homes in Los Angeles and the Bahamas, he put it on the market. The initial price was £6.75 million (AU$12.9 million). But after failing to sell it, he kept slashing it until it was reduced to £3.95 million ($7.56 million).

Harris’ plan was to turn the property’s eight bedrooms into a boutique hotel for Maiden fans.

C = Cover Art

The high detail that goes into Iron Maiden’s album covers gives them the chance to throw in little Easter eggs for their fans to find. Powerslave, for instance, had the message “Indiana Jones was here 1941”.

But Somewhere In Time went over the top, with no less than 39 droplets. They included music venues they played at, and past images as trash cans and the black cat with a halo.

Lyrical references include a clock at 23:58 alluding to 2 Minutes To Midnight, and Sand Dune signifying that the song To Tame A Land was inspired by the novel Dune.

For a more in-depth look at the bombs, head here.

D = Dawson, Simon

Simon Dawson took over from Nicko McBrain as sticksman for the Run For Your Lives 50th Anniversary tour. He was in Steve Harris’ side project, British Lion. There were rumours that Maiden were also considering US-born Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater) and Brazilian Aquiles Priester, but opted for someone British.

E = Eddie

How did long-time illustrator Derek Riggs come up with the features of Eddie, their mascot? It was an old magazine photo of a soldier’s head stuck onto an enemy tank.

He told CNN, “I wanted to paint a picture of a decaying, semi-skeletal figure in the streets of London. I needed some source material to draw from because I didn't really know how a human head decays.

“Then I remembered a photo collage I had done in the 1970s when I was at school. Part of it was a photograph of a decaying head which had been stuck onto a tank.

“It came from Time magazine and it was captioned as being an American soldier's head which had been stuck onto a Vietnamese tank.

“Many years later, I found the same picture in a collection of Time photos. There it was, captioned as being an English soldier's head stuck onto a Nazi tank. So now I kind of doubt that it was anything but a bit of war propaganda. Anyway, I used that picture as reference for painting the monster’s head.”

F = Fencing

Bruce Dickinson began fencing at 11 years old. He ended up a competitor. On January 19, 2025, he represented Britain at the Circuit Européen 2025 fencing tournament in France. He ranked #13 out of the 31 fencers in the Veterans category.

Golf is a popular pastime in the Maiden ranks. Dave Murray says he tries to play "a couple of rounds in each week" and his handicap "can be anywhere from 15 to 24.”

Adrian Smith got hooked on fishing as a kid and made the front cover of the coarse-fishing bible The Angler’s Mail. He takes his gear with him on tour, checking to see which legendary fishing areas coincide with towns Maiden plays at.

His first sturgeon was a massive 100-pounder from Canada’s Fraser River. Another time in the Virgin Islands, he went wading waist-deep for bonefish and almost got collected by a shark.

G = Guinness Book of World Records

Maiden were listed in the 1990 instalment for achieving a level of 124 dB (decibels) at the 1988 Monsters Of Rock festival. Health authorities warn that listening to more than 7.5 minutes of exposure to 120 dB can cause permanent hearing damage.

On the Run For Your Lives World Tour, they are moving 35,000 kilograms of gear, integrating air (chartered 767 freighter aircraft), ocean (40-foot containers), and ground transport (53-foot trailers and a fleet of wing box trucks).

H = Horus

Throughout the World Slavery Tour in 1985, on the song Powerslave, about a dying Egyptian pharaoh, Bruce Dickinson wore a mask based on the appearance of the Egyptian god, Horus.

I = Iron Mask

Around the time he was putting the band together, Steve Harris saw the film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Man In The Iron Mask. The title reminded him of the iron maiden torture device, a solid iron cabinet large enough to hold a human being, with a hinged front and spike-covered inside.

J = Japan

Their first visit to Japan took 36 hours. Steve Harris says that in the early ‘80s, they didn’t have much money. “It was unbelievable. We flew to Frankfurt, then Abu Dhabi, then Karachi, then Bangkok and finally Tokyo.

“It was pretty horrendous, but it was the cheapest way to get there. We’d only had a couple of records out. It was all we could afford.”

K = Keychains

Maiden’s Ed Force One planes, sometimes piloted by singer Bruce Dickinson, who holds an airline transport pilot’s license, included a Boeing 747-400 (registration: TF-AAK) and two Boeing 757s, the first registered as G-OJIB, and capable of seating 60.

The 747-400 became owned by Air Atlanta Icelandic. In 2025, Maiden announced it was going to be scrapped, and they would create 12,000 keychains from its fuselage. These were sold for €66.66, a reference to The Number Of The Beast. The tags measured 1.5 by 3.5 inches with an Eddie engraving on the rear.

The first 757 was used by FedEx Express, while the second was scrapped in 2011.

L = Legacy

Maiden’s legacy also includes its own beer, video games, and comic books.

Their first beer was made in 2013, with its name and artwork from the song The Trooper. Critics’ response was that it was average, but 3.5 million units were sold in the first year. The range was expanded, and it has now sold 30 million pints globally.

The latest addition comes in June 2026, an American beer coming from a collaboration with California-based Lagunitas Brewing Company. When the Run For Your Lives Tour hits the US in September, there will be Eddie’s pop-up Dive Bars.

Lagunitas stated: “Crafted with Krush, the newest ‘hot’ hop variety making waves in the brewing world, this IPA delivers a pungent, resinous, and unmistakably West Coast profile.

“At 6.6% ABV, the beer offers a slightly elevated strength that strikes the perfect balance between intensity and drinkability, appealing to hop enthusiasts and casual craft beer fans alike.”

In mid-2016, the band released a video game for iOS and Android devices called Legacy Of The Beast. In the game, Eddie is fragmented through time and space, and players have to violently fight through different dimensions that are visually stunning and reflective of Maiden's music and art, to put him together again.

The game was designed by Nodding Frog, 50cc Games, and Roadhouse Interactive.

A comic book series came with the game, which was meant to expand the universe's overall lore.

M = Moving Parts

Their lighting rig has had 400 to 500 moving parts and 600 lamps. In an interview this January, long-time lighting designer Robert Coleman explained how he put together the visual spectacle of the Run For Your Lives shows.

N = Now, Apocalypse

The 1979 Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now, which looks at how the madness of war can compromise the ordinary person’s personal convictions, inspired Edge Of Darkness (1995) from The X Factor album, which lyrically looks at the same theme.

O = One Pound

The title of The Number Of The Beast detonated accusations that Maiden were into satanic worship. There was even mass destruction of their records at rallies.

The band generally regarded this with their usual humour. But when producer Martin Birch crashed his car, the bill came to £666. Alarmed, he might be a victim of Lucifer’s lure, he demanded the bill be increased by £1 so it wouldn’t be that number.

P = Polish

Janick Gers’ father, Bolesław, served in the Polish Navy and went to England during World War II to fight in the Royal Navy. After the war, he stayed on in England and married a British woman, Lois, in 1956. They had four children, of whom Janick is the oldest.

Q = Queen

The song Fear Is The Key was written about HIV, and was inspired by the death of Queen’s Freddie Mercury.

R = Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

One of their live highlights, Rime Of The Ancient Mariner (1984) ran 13 minutes and 38 seconds – their longest until Empire Of The Clouds in 2015 clocked in at 18 minutes.

According to Steve Harris, they had no idea when they worked on it that it was so long.

“The funny thing is, no one actually thought it was 13 minutes long at all,” he said. “We were all so into making it work, and we all enjoyed it so much that we thought it was only eight or nine minutes long, maximum.

“When our producer Martin Birch timed it at 13 minutes, we were all like, ‘Fuckin’ ’ell, 13 minutes?!’ And when we play it live, it never seems like 13 minutes at all.”

The song was based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 poem The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. It was about a sailor who killed an albatross for no reason and was cursed. Out at sea, his shipmates slowly die of thirst. But the mariner lives on, forced to suffer nightmarish encounters until he redeems himself.

Harris followed the poem’s structure. In the studio in the Bahamas where it took shape, the lyrics were pasted on sheets of paper were pasted on the wall from the ceiling to the floor.

Other band members suggested one of the reasons why Harris was drawn towards the massive undertaking – aside from his love for literature and philosophy – was his need to tap into a romantic poem to offset the loony criticisms his music caused devil worship.

In a 1984 interview with French magazine Enfer, Bruce Dickinson suggested, “[The poem is] a warning to all that imposes the respect of God’s actions. Steve says that if he hears again that we’re stuck with stories about Satan and other things, it’ll mean that people will never understand Iron Maiden.”

S = Sociology Degree

Janick Gers graduated from English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College in the 1970s. He then started in music.

But in the 1980s, after the band Gillan broke up due to huge debts following bad business decisions by its leader, Ian Gillan, the guitarist went on to earn a college degree in sociology and English literature to become a teacher as a backup profession.

T = Teeth

An early member in the mid-70s line-ups before Maiden got their record deal, Bob “Angelo” Sawyer, was sacked after a few months because he pretended to play guitar with his teeth and did other rock star poses, and the rest of the band found it embarrassing.

U = Uncredited

Janick Gers had an uncredited part in the BBC drama The Paradise Club in 1990, appearing as the lead guitarist of a band called Fraud Squad.

V = Visual Artist

Born in Portsmouth, England, and then a resident of California, long-time Maiden visual artist Derek Riggs, born February 13, 1958, is best known for creating their mascot Eddie and designing some of their album covers.

Inspired by stylised comic book illustrators Stan Lee (Marvel) and Jack Kirby (The Silver Surfer), he was expelled from art school for complaining about the course and went on to do covers for record companies.

One for a punk cover caught the eye of Maiden’s management, who put him on an exclusive contract. Eddie came from that cover, becoming one of the most iconic images of rock, and earning him an induction into the Metal Hall of Fame in 2021.

By the ‘90s, the relationship ended when Maiden started looking at input from other illustrators.

However, in an interview, Riggs said he made the decision to walk away because the ideas they were coming up with were borrowed from other media.

“[For the album] Somewhere In Time, we want a science fiction city. A bit like Blade Runner.’ Cause they just steal things out of films, that’s all they do.

“I was with them one time, and we were walking around a book shop somewhere, and they were looking at the book covers, saying ‘Oh, we can have Eddie doing this, and Eddie doing that.’ stealing ideas instead of trying something original. I just had enough of it.”

In that article, Riggs also dropped the bombshell that he owns the copyright to Eddie, not the band.

W = Wrathchild

The highest note Bruce Dickinson has ever hit in a live performance was during a 1992 performance of Wrathchild, at 1:38 in this video. The note is a C#6.

X = X-Pelled

A rebellious Bruce Dickinson was expelled from prestigious boarding school Oundle for urinating on the headmaster’s dinner.

The school had strict rules about capital punishment. For revenge, he and a friend sneaked in before a formal dinner and pissed on a plate of green beans, which were delivered to the headmaster’s table. It became such a talking point at school, and Dickinson was given his marching orders.

Y = Youngest

The youngest Maiden member is Simon Dawson, who turned 63 on February 7. Bruce Dickinson hits the 68 mark in August.

Steve Harris celebrated his 70th birthday on March 12. Adrian Smith hit 69 on February 27, and Dave Murray blew out 69 candles on December 23.

Z = Zeppelin, Led

Led Zeppelin were one of the major inspirations for Iron Maiden members as they grew up.

Bruce Dickinson, who called them “unbelievable”, says Robert Plant was instrumental in how he turned out as a singer.

He once remarked there were three main bases in metal singing – Plant, Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan and Free/Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers. “If you join aspects of these three singers, you have everything.

“My favourite stuff from that (very early) era is they did like Danish TV shows. Wow, it is completely unedited and raw, as was, and it’s just astonishing. It’s primal, it really is.”

Iron Maiden will tour across Australia and New Zealand this November. Tickets are now available.