Bruce Dickison on stage with Eddie (Picture: John McMurtrie)

Growing up on Iron Maiden meant car journeys to Cornwall headbanging to Run To The Hills and screaming the lyrics to The Number Of The Beast, so to find out I was going to go on tour with the band was a literal dream come true.

But it’s been 38 years since Iron Maiden signed a record contract with EMI and went on to become one of the UK’s most prolific heavy metal bands of all time, and a lot has changed in those four decades.

Band members have come and gone and come back again, they’ve been through claims of satanism and been banned from performing in certain countries, and won Brit, Grammy, and Ivor Novello awards – but can they still put on one heck of a show?



Of bloody course they can.


During a four hour trip up the M1 on a tour bus branded The Bus Of Souls – destination Nottingham Arena where the band kicked off their first UK tour in years – we learnt more about the metal band, their passions, why they’re still leading the charge in 2017 – and the beer.

1. Their age means things are a little different these days:

The band’s average age is 60 so things are, shall we say, a little tamer these days.

‘We don’t stay up so late at night getting pissed and doing things we shouldn’t do!’ the band’s long-term manager Rod Smallwood told us.

Steve Harris on the bass (Picture: John McMurtrie)

‘I think that’s the only difference,’ he added of touring in 2017 compared to the 1980s.

‘But the attitude of touring and playing is the same, and the fans are the same – we’re playing to more people now obviously but if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. The band are all fit but then again… we were naughtier 20 years ago.’

2. The band are fond of beer – British beer.

In fact, they’re so fond of it that lead singer Bruce Dickinson was asked to create a traditional ale which ended up being named after their famous 1983 album The Trooper.

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden launches a new beer named Trooper (Picture: Getty Images)

‘I’m a lifelong fan of traditional English ale; I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when we were asked to create our own beer. I have to say that I was very nervous: Robinsons are the only people I have had to audition for in 30 years,’ Dickinson had previously said.

Trooper beer is readily available backstage on tour with Maiden – in fact, very quickly the fridge was empty and more had to be bought in – and at one point during the show, Dickinson went on a tirade against what he called ‘piss’… otherwise known as American beer.

3. ‘Where’s Ed Force One’?

The Ed Force One airplane (Picture: Getty Images)

Okay so what any Maiden fan really wants is to take to the skies in Ed Force One, but as Smallwood told us the plane is only used ‘when the average between gigs is 200 miles’; currently during the UK dates, the distances are so short that ‘you couldn’t play consecutive nights with the plane’ so there was no point taking it.

Ed Force One? As Rod Smallwood says, Ed Force One is simply just a plane: ‘It looks great on the outside with the decals on!’ The plane was originally a Boeing 757 but in recent years was upgraded to a 747. View of the Ed Force One Boeing 747 (Picture: Getty Images) ‘The 757… we couldn’t get the old equipment – 20, 30 tonnes of equipment and all the stage set, the back lights, and mixing desks [on board] – so with the 757 we had to convert the entire back fuselage and put a massive fireproof module and steel floor to take the weight; it’s a big operation, and to get the safety through was really tough,’ said Smallwood. ‘But the advantage of 747, it had a longer range so not many fuel stop overs and it’s faster, but we could also get all the gear in all the holds; 747 is bigger and more expensive but made more sense as the gear went straight on.’

4. Their passion is real:

Bruce Dickinson performing in April 2016 (Picture: Getty Images)

Smallwood first met the band at The Swan in Hammersmith; they were due to go on stage when Steve Harris, a founding member of the band told Smallwood that their singer had been arrested.



‘Steve came up to me and said, “Paul has been arrested, what should we do?”, and there was about 30 kids, we were at The Swan Hammersmith, and about 30 kids had come down from the east end and so he said to me – Maiden ethos really – he said “we’ve got to play”, and I said, “can you sing?”, and he said, “not really”, I said, “can you try?”, he said, “yes”, I said, “do you know the words?”, he said, “I wrote them all” so that’s, that’s verbatim! So the first time I saw Iron Maiden.

‘I knew then, the way that Dave and Steve looked the audience in the eye with a lot of passion and excitement and commitment then, I’ve never seen anything like it, it was quite special, and they still do – you watch those guys, they are into the audience’s eyes.’

Dave Murray, Dickinson, and Harris (Picture: John McMurtrie)

And it’s true. Watching the band banter back and forth with the crowd and among themselves, dancing around and bouncing off each other, you can tell they still love this all these decades later.

‘They make the stadium into a club,’ added Smallwood.

‘It’s amazing, it’s the relationship with the fans – it’s an unusual bond, the commitment on both sides – and some gigs are good gigs and some gigs, it takes off, unbelievable atmosphere and joy and camaraderie.’

5. The band are innovators – and are a major mission to crack down on ticket touts:

Touts are ‘taking millions and millions and millions of fans money for no real reason except for greed,’ said Smallwood.


‘We reckon that we’ve sold about 40,000 tickets this tour, and at any one time there’s only been about 200 on Viagogo – the other three websites didn’t even list it – Seatwave, Get Me In, and Stubhub – because of the process we’re doing to protect the fans.

‘Instead of 10,000 we’ve got 200. If you reckon those 10,000 are going to be £100 or more for face value, that’s a lot of money – I think we’ve saved our fans over a million pounds and you’ve got to look at it: “how will that extra money be used?” Not everyone can afford to go to so many concerts every month, but if they spend all their money on one, and they can’t go and see the new band down the pub or the theatre with a £20 ticket, because they spent all their money on the big act in the arena, how do smaller bands develop?’

He added: ‘Disposable income is limited, so if these guys are taken out – and they don’t provide any service whatsoever, surely the tickets are not counterfeit… it’s ludicrous that after eight years more hasn’t been done, but I think consumers are finally waking up.

‘Ninety-five percent of the fans are proud of the band standing up – why don’t other bands do this? There’s no gain to the band doing this so hopefully people will start taking a look at bands who are not making an effort.’

Iron Maiden close out their UK tour at London’s 02 Arena on Sunday May 28.


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