During an interview with Joel McIver for the latest edition of Record Collector magazine, Bruce Dickinson was asked about his first encounter with IRON MAIDEN.
“The first time I saw MAIDEN was at what was then the Music Machine in Camden. SAMSON [Bruce‘s then-band] were headlining because our management had bankrolled the gig and said, ‘We want the top slot,’ although we didn’t really deserve it. That became obvious when MAIDEN came on, because the whole place was rammed. I’d heard rumors about how good they were, and I thought I’d better see them. When they came out, I thought, ‘I’ve never seen DEEP PURPLE, but this is what it must have felt like to see DEEP PURPLE in their prime, rocking up a storm.'”
When asked about his opinion on Paul Di’Anno as the lead vocalist of MAIDEN at the time, Bruce remarked: “He was okay, but he didn’t have a lot of flex to his voice. I thought his voice had come as far as it was going to get. I saw what the rest of the band were capable of straight away, and I remember thinking, ‘Good God, I’d love to front that band.’ And as soon as they finished playing, everybody in the venue left and we were headlining to about three people.”
Di’Anno performed on two classic albums with IRON MAIDEN — a self-titled effort in 1980 and Killers in 1981 — before being fired and replaced by Bruce Dickinson.
During a 2022 interview with Sakis Fragos of Greece’s Rock Hard magazine, Di’Anno discussed the factors that prompted his exit from MAIDEN and whether there’s validity to the notion that it was related to his vocal performance.
“My record stands for itself,” he said. “I’ve played more shows than IRON MAIDEN have ever played… They play a lot of concerts, but I played a hell of a lot more than they ever had. So it was nothing to do with my voice. It was nothing to do with that. I was just upset about certain things, which were private things in the band. And the way I dealt with them maybe was not right, but I dealt with them. And that’s the end of it. And that’s as much as I’m gonna say.”
When questioned further regarding the veracity of claims that he wasn’t properly compensated for his contributions to the initial two IRON MAIDEN albums, Paul responded: “I have nothing to comment on that at all, because, to be honest with you, it’s nobody’s damn business. I got paid very well. I’m very happy with that. See, if I try to say, ‘Oh, IRON MAIDEN didn’t pay me enough money,’ it’s a bad reflection on IRON MAIDEN. And I’m not taking that. I got paid very well. They looked after me. End of story.”
