I was a teenager when singer Bruce Dickinson departed Iron Maiden. It was 1993 and years away from the internet, soon to be our tool for crawling up the asses of any celebrity, even a metal musician. So at the time, I was left to make sense of his resignation using only his words and those of his former bandmates, i.e. official sources.

So I could only speculate about the real story: To me, the culprits were probably burn-out (due to Maiden’s relentless schedule) and bassist Steve Harris’ tight control of Maiden’s creativity. I also suspected that Harris harbored a belief that his Maiden could prosper regardless of personnel; after all, he and manager Rod Smallwood had unflinchingly replaced guitarist Dennis Stratton, singer Paul Di’Anno, drummer Clive Burr, and then-guitarist Adrian Smith just in the band’s first decade as recording artists. My friends called this ‘Arrygance.

But what I didn’t know until now was that Bruce Dickinson had gone slightly, charmingly bonkers. Click to read more…

One of you recently sent us the video for “No Salvation” by the band Hostile (and I lost your e-mail so I apologize for not properly crediting you by name), pointing out that the band was noteworthy because their bassist, Alex Hill, is the offspring of Ian Hill, who, in case you know nothing about anything, is the bass player for Judas Priest. In fact, it turns out that Hostile’s debut album, Eve of Destruction, was produced by K.K. Downing, who, of course, just recently left Judas Priest. And you’d hope that a) Ian Hill had transferred some of his talent via his sperm, and/or b) Downing was able to bring some of his Judas Priest magic to these Hostile proceedings.

Alas, your hope would all be for naught. Hostile is pretty terrible. I mean, I guess it starts off as passable enough Swedecore, but then the singer, who apparently has no higher aspiration than to be in Five Finger Death Punch, starts his bit, and the whole thing becomes more or less completely fucking awful.

And what’s kind of amazing about this is that Ian Hill is not the only child of a metal star who somehow totally failed to inherit any of his father’s talent.

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Andy McCoy, one of the founding members of Hanoi Rocks, wrote a book. In 2008. [Our own Corey Mitchell reviewed it in 2010. - Ed.] I read it pretty recently as it came to me with a bunch of Christmas/Hannukah/New Year’s loot. My family doesn’t celebrate anything, so we basically give each other presents because the year is over. Yeah, I don’t know. We put up a tree, too.

Anyway, I kind of dropped the ball on Andy, and that’s kind of a recurring thing these days, because every once in a while I get caught up on that “having a life thing.” I did finally read it, though, and I quite enjoyed it. To an extent. Now, I love books. Reading = fun times for me. I usually have three or four books I’m juggling and one of them is almost always a music biography. But Sherriff McCoy; Outlaw Legend of Hanoi Rocks goes on the pile of band books that really could’ve used a good edit.

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Paul Di’Anno — the former Iron Maiden singer who once compared Steve Harris to Adolf Hitler — just keeps getting smarter and smarter.

His latest staggering act of genius? He claimed benefits of £45,000 — close to $72,000 — after allegedly suffering nerve damage in his back, which was said to have prevented him from working between 2002 and 2008. Fair enough, except that investigators received an anonymous tip (Harris taking revenge, perhaps?) that Di’Anno had, in fact, been performing during that time period. So these investigators, y’know, investigated, and found online videos of him not just singing, but apparently jumping and running around on stage — things he couldn’t do if his back was really in such terrible shape.

But here’s the kicker: THE VIDEOS WERE POSTED ON DI’ANNO’S OWN WEBSITE AND YOUTUBE PAGE.

What.

A fucking.

Moron.

Di’Anno has apparently admitted to screwing taxpayers out of that money, and a judge has told him to expect prison time when he’s sentenced on March 11. I have no idea what the penalty is for insurance fraud in the U.K., but I’m hoping it’s steep. Because this twit has no one to blame for himself. Fuck Iron Maiden; he should just join The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight and get it over with.

-AR

[via The Daily Mail]

In the early moments of our conversation, I confirmed with busy Atheist frontman Kelly Shaefer that we would limit our interview time to the industry-standard 15 minutes. Shaefer responded amiably, “As much time as you need, man.” To this, I replied jokingly, “Gosh, how much time have you got?” And though we shared a chuckle at this, neither of us could’ve expected our little phone chat to stretch to 2.5 hours over two days. (Of course, it eventually became clear that nothing less should’ve been expected from two lefty pothead metal guitarists who drink a shitload of Mountain Dew and love talking metal.)

Last week, part one found Shaefer and I delving into big, brainy, conceptual stuff, like his approaches to songwriting and singing, the birth of his genre, and the right-on-time return to awesomeness by his classic band (the new record is called Jupiter, but duh you know that).

Today, MetalSucks unsheathes partie deux, in which the tirelessly gracious, funny, and plainspoken Shaeffer (above, right) indulges my questions about more tangible Atheist business, like record label politics, the importance of good packaging, former Atheist guitarist Rand Burkey, current Atheist guitarist Kelly Shaefer (he and his “guitar still are very best friends”), the squashing of inter-band beefs, America’s shameful marijuana policies (I started it, sorry), and so very, very much more. (Spoiler: We do eventually stop talking on the phone.)

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Boy, Paul Di’Anno sure is a forgiving guy. He thinks that Iron Maiden is “boring” and compared Steve Harris to Hitler, but earlier this year, he announced that he’ll be doing a set consisting entirely of songs from the first two Maiden albums at the Hard Rock Hell IV festival in the UK this December. Now he’s gearing up for a U.S. tour, and, hey, guess what? He’s going to play Maiden’s self-titled debut in its entirety on each and every date.

Looking at the liner notes of that album, it’s interesting to note that Di’Anno only got a songwriting credit on three of the record’s nine songs: “Remember Tomorrow,” “Running Free,” and “Sanctuary.” Guess who’s got a credit on every song save for one? Why, it’s Steve Hitler, of course!

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Given how often we poke fun at Blaze Bayley ’round the Mansion I’m surprised that none of us had seen the below clip, sent in by MS Maniac Shane “My Newborn Baby Wears Iron Maiden shirts” Gillis, in which the disgraced former Iron Maiden singer absolutely loses his shit in the middle of a performance of “The Trooper.”

I’m dying know what went on up front that got him so miffed; does it have anything to do with the would-be stage-diver who security nabs at the very beginning? Seems like things are hunky dory in Blaze-land until around the 0:43 mark when he suddenly starts pointing into the crowd and puts on a perma-scowl that doesn’t leave his face for the entire song. I don’t think it’s just an instance of Axl Rose-type psychoses on Blaze’s part though, because for Steve Harris to get as pissed as he does at the end, chill guy that he usually is, something must’ve really been wrong.

Janick Gers, as always, is completely oblivious. Bless that guy!

-VN

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

With seemingly every band in the world now less-than-hesitant to replace a departed member, no matter how seemingly important that member was to the band’s success, this week we asked our writers:

IS THERE ANY STILL-ACTIVE METAL BAND THAT COULD NOT AFFORD TO LOSE A SINGLE MEMBER OF ITS LINE-UP?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Four albums in, the return of Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith to Iron Maiden might no longer be novel. The band’s brush with obsolesence is history, and fans have had time to again grow accustomed to a thriving, active Maiden, forever on tour and regularly releasing records. As such, it’s easy to forgive the promise of the Iron Maiden sextet’s collossal first outing, Brave New World, next to which its successors Dance of Death and A Matter Of Life and Death sound uneven (the former) and procedural (the latter).

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There has been quite a lot of debate over the new Iron Maiden artwork for The Final Frontier, both on MetalSucks and in the three dimensional world. I personally think it’s a decent idea, but poorly executed. The “alien” is, of course, Eddie, and I refuse to think otherwise because, for God’s sake, who else would it be? It’s good to branch out a bit in terms of style and artists, because the same old, same old can get a bit boring — but this seems to be case of, “If it ain’t broke, break it.” Keeping that in mind, here are my ideas on what future Maiden artwork should be. It goes without saying that I’d prefer Eddie the Head as we have come to know and love him in the following depictions. But Zombie Eddie would also be okay.

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Inspired by Ozzy Osbourne’s recent declaration that Bruce Dickinson “needs a fuckin’ psychiatrist,” this week we decided to ask our writers:

WITH WHOM DO YOU SIDE IN THE NEWLY RE-HEATED OSBOURNES VS. DICKINSON FEUD?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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In case you somehow don’t remember, Iron Maiden were one of the mainstage headliners at Ozzfest in 2005 (which I think was pretty much the last really good year for Ozzfest), and while I’ve never quite understood how it all started, there was some kind of beef between the Maiden/Ozzy camps — more specifically, between Maiden and Sharon Osbourne. And on Maiden’s last night of the tour, someone fucked with their power and some people pelted them with eggs and engaged in all other manner of pranks, and Sharon actually called Bruce Dickinson “a prick” on-stage in front of thousands of metal fans. (You can read all about that little incident here, or enjoy video of Sharon’s speech above.)

And that was really the last we heard about it… until now. I don’t recall Ozzy himself ever commenting on the incident before, he recently did during an interview with The Quietus:

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I’ve gotta admit… although I gave Iron Maiden some flack last week for compiling a U.S. Tour setlist consisting of mostly new(ish) material, I’m still pretty excited to see them live in NYC next month. This live footage of the band performing new song “El Dorado” in Dallas is just so much fun, mostly because the band members look like they’re having fun playing it:

And as I’ve already said, I’m completely tickled pink that they’ll be playing four songs from 2000′s masterpiece Brave New World. I think the problem with the Maiden tour on which they played all of A Matter of Life and Death is that a lot of that album’s songs are slow clunkers; if Maiden can stick to high-energy material, which their setlist would indicate they mostly are, then we should be in for a fun show.

Side note: Steve Harris is the man. Look at him in the above vid! Dude just rules.

-VN

Digging for duds in the formidable Iron Maiden catalogue is kinda like bitching about the heat at a beach picnic: It makes you seem like an ungrateful, silly jerk-off. But this fact doesn’t make it any less true that by 1990′s No Prayer For The Dying, Maiden was sounding a little tired, uninspired, and probably worst of all, short of patience. The entire album plays like the work of a budget bin Iron Maiden tribute band, rife with shortcuts and pressboard production. Even the usually stellar cover art looks cheap!

But this is old news, and the stunningly attractive and informed MetalSucks readership really doesn’t require a reminder that Maiden’s best record (the flawless, ass-tight Seventh Son rules your world – don’t deny it) was followed by a contender for their worst. Instead, I want to proudly defend this clunker, and I’ll start by saying that I still wear an expression of hurt surprise when NP4tD is described as “an out-and-out shitturd.” That is simply not true. Not true at all, I say!

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From the “I swear to God I’m not bitter” files: former Iron Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno apparently went off during a Q&A in Argentina last month, comparing Steve Harris to Adolf Hitler for his (allegedly) tyrannical grip over the band, which Di’Anno also called “boring.”

First of all, there’s a lot of things you can call Maiden, but “boring” is not one of them. You’ll only find Maiden boring if you hate having fun. Or happen to have your panties in a twist because you’re not in the band anymore. And being in the band is the only worthwhile thing you ever did with your life. And it was decades ago. And you’re nowhere near death. And people won’t stop asking you about it.

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