Iron Maiden: A journey from 1975………………… (Part II)

Continued from ‘Iron Maiden: A journey from 1975………………… (Part I)’

Iron Maiden recorded a demo, which consisted of four songs, at Spaceward Studios in Cambridge on New Year’s Eve 1978. The band handed the demo copies to Neal Kay, who was then managing a heavy metal club called ‘Bandwagon Heavy Metal Soundhouse’.

After listening to the demo, Kay began to play it regularly at the Bandwagon, and ‘Prowler’ eventually went on to hit the No. 1 spot in the Soundhouse charts, which were weekly published in Sounds magazine.

A copy of the magazine was acquired by Rod Smallwood, who soon went on to become the band’s manager. The demo increased Iron Maiden’s popularity among the masses, and the band decided to release it on their own record label ‘The Soundhouse Tapes’, named after the club where the demo was played regularly. All five thousand copies of the record were sold within a week, increasing the band’s popularity further.

In December 1979, Iron Maiden eventually managed to sign with a major record company, EMI. After signing a deal, the band asked Dave Murray’s friend Adrian Smith to join the English group. However, Smith denied coming on board, as he was busy with his own band, Urchin.

Dennis Stratton was hired as the second guitarist in the band. However, Doug Sampson left the band soon after due to health issues, and Clive Burr was brought in as the band’s new drummer.

Two early versions of ‘Wrathchild’ and ‘Sanctuary’ recorded Iron Maiden’s first appearance on an album, Metal for Muthas, which was a compilation record.

Continued in ‘Iron Maiden: A journey from 1975………………… (Part III)’

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Posted by Haris Ansari on Jun 26 2012. Filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.