Paul Di’Anno’s favourite Iron Maiden album: “The songs are fantastic”
Not every band solidifies their sound as firmly as Iron Maiden. Even though people spend endless hours trying to work out the bugs, there’s no telling whether they are going to make something that sinks without a trace or becomes the latest trend in music until they actually release it upon the world. Although Paul Di’Anno wasn’t long for Iron Maiden, the roaring frontman made a lasting impact with the band.
In the grand scheme of Maiden’s history, though, Di’Anno tends to get left by the wayside far too often. While he was responsible for getting the ball rolling in some respects, Bruce Dickinson would tend to take most of the glory for being the group’s main voice, especially when he hit the massive notes on tracks like ‘The Number of the Beast’ and ‘Run To The Hills’.
Then again, Di’Anno’s voice was always more suited to the type of hard rock that was happening around that time. Considering that most people were still coming out of the punk regime, his leather jacket persona and gruff voice gave metal the clearest replacement for John Lydon or Joe Strummer.
And on the group’s debut, their sound had already been fully formed. Since Steve Harris was responsible for writing most of the tunes, everything about the group seems in place, especially on the opening song, ‘Prowler’. Compared to most other metal artists around that time, Di’Anno had the kind of passion in his voice that could reach for high notes like Rob Halford on occasion while also having the kind of gravel that Lemmy from Motörhead had at the best of times.
Considering Maiden’s track record for writing epic anthems throughout their discography, this is also the most well-rounded record of their early days. ‘Prowler’ was the proof of concept, but ‘Remember Tomorrow’ is a great dark ballad that predicted ‘Children of the Damned’, and ‘Phantom of the Opera’ was the first time that fans got to see a more episodic tune from them that would come to define their sound going forward.
Between the two records that he worked on, Di’Anno always preferred the debut, saying, “I love the first album. The songs are fantastic. The production’s a piece of dogshit. They should remix that, you know? It’s a fantastic album! I prefer the first album, always have.”
While Killers is a much more metallic affair than the debut on tracks like ‘Wrathchild’, Di’Anno often said that he wasn’t as comfortable with where the band were going on the record, explaining, “I like[d] the [second] album a lot, but it didn’t have as much impact on me as the first album. I couldn’t give 100% of myself, which was not fair on the band, on the fans, or on me.”
Despite Di’Anno leaving after only two records, what he brought to Maiden’s sound was far from being some fly-by-night journeyman of rock and roll. This was someone deadset on making something no metal fan had ever seen, and with only two records under his belt, he helped lay the blueprint for the group the same way that Harris or Adrian Smith had done in their salad days.
