Over the last few months Iron Maiden have managed to release two live albums, and there’s another one on the in January. Why is this so? Are the band just filling gaps, hoping that we’d be patient with them or is this the year of the live albums?

Since their tortured conception in 1975, Iron Maiden has gone through four vocalists. They started off with Paul Day, who then vacated his chair to Dennis Wilcock in mid-1976. In the middle of 1977, Paul D’Anno joined the band, only to be ousted in October 1982 by Bruce Dickinson. Bruce then went on to become the band’s most famous and long-standing vocalist until he terminated his contract on August 28, this year.

The British press are speculating on his replacement, even going as far as to say that Paul D’Anno may rejoin the band. Other likely candidates range from Michael Kiske (Helloween) to Joey Belladonna (ex-Anthrax), but Wolfsbane front man Blaze Bayley looks like the man who will get the job.

Bruce Dickinson announced his retirement from the band on February 22. At the time, the rest of the members were away in different places. Steve (Harris) was in Florida, Dave (Murray) was in Hawaii, Nicko (McBrain) was in Miami and Janick (Gers) was in India. Dave looks back on the shock announcement and what was going through his mind at the time..

“It was something he wanted to do so it was his choice totally”, stated Dave in his thick English accent. “He wasn’t happy being in the band any more so he decided to take off. The rest of us decided that we should carry on because we didn’t see any reason to split up. At first we were a bit upset, but having lived with it for a while, we now feel very positive.

“Actually, we’re quite excited about it at the moment ‘cos we’re looking at singers right now and the standard of singers that we’re seeing is really high, so we feel that we’ll definitely find someone.”

There was no use with the band trying to change Bruce’s mind because he wanted to do something completely different. The music that he was working on is much softer than Iron Maiden’s. His family seems to be more important to him now and Bruce also seems to be establishing himself as a reputable author.

But air-raid sirens went off in Bruce’s head for the last time as he decided to raise hell at the famous Pinewood Studios. It was one of the most spectacular shows that Maiden had ever staged. It was broadcast om satellite/TV throughout the USA and Canada. What was it that made this last concert of Bruce’s so good?

“Well firstly we hooked up with a guy called Simon Drake,” expressed Dave, as he picked the right words to explain what happened. “Simon was a magician who used to have his own TV show, but the sort of stuff he was doing was like gothic, horror and magical. It was like lifting rabbits out of hats, it was more of the medieval torture instruments sort of thing, so it was pretty much a Magic-horror show really.

“We set up at Pinewood Studios, who had two-stages, one for Simon and one for us, and we had an audience of about 600. We went out and played a normal show and Simon Drake did some magic stuff in between. He was getting people on stage, did some sort of ritual and started chopping people’s heads off.

“It was that sort of scenario. It worked out very well ‘cos what they did on the video (to be released next year) was that the band played a song and in the middle of it Simon cuts in doing his thing and it’s then back to the band. Eddie’s on there and at the end Bruce gets it because it’s his last gig. It was something that hadn’t been done before”

Do you feel it was a nice way to say goodbye to Bruce?

“Yes, it was, laughed Dave. “Although he nearly had an accident when they were torturing him, half his hair nearly got torn out on one of those instruments that had on him, so he looked like a monk at one point but it was all done in good humour.”

“The tour was something we were committed to do anyway, but it was a good way to finish it ‘cos he’d been with the band for a long time and contributed a lot to it.”

When Iron Maiden decided to release a live album to coincide with Bruce’s leaving the band, they wanted to make it a double. After talking to the record company about it, they found that it would be too much for people to pay, so instead they felt it would be better to release two separate CD’s and fit as much as they could on them. Martin Birch was supposed to produce them, but then, right at the last moment, turned the tables around and said that he wasn’t available. This left Steve holding the can and he was forced to do the producing instead. A Real Live One was a rough album on the whole and wasn’t received that well in Australia.

“Actually, it did pretty good world-wide. The last time we released a live album was in 1985,” said Dave. “We felt that this was a good period to release a couple of live albums, ‘cos we’ve done a lot of albums since 1985 and it was good time to come out with a live version of them. Another reason is that there hasn’t been any live stuff with Janick on and also because it was Bruce’s last tour.”

The first one, A Real Live One featured live versions of songs written since 1986 and the next one, A Real Dead One, features songs prior to that. Originally due to be released to tie in with the band’s sold out European Arena tour in May earlier this year and with Bruce deciding to fulfil his commitment with the tour, the band recorded some different songs and added them to the second live CD. Apart from Iron Maiden releasing A Real Live One and A Real Dead One, in January next year the band will be releasing Live At Donington, a limited edition, two CD set. But what’s in store for the band in 1994 and have they figured out where they want to go to?

“Besides down the pub,” jokes Dave. “We’ll always wanna go down there. It’s hard to say at the moment. I think it’s going to be different with a new singer. I think it depends on what sort of material gets written this time. At the moment we’re just auditioning as many people as we feel could become part of the band and we’ll take it from there.”

Any real Iron Maiden fan should be prepared to listen to whatever material comes out when the band gets a new singer. Every time the band has a new member, they get stronger and stronger, so 1994 should be a prosperous year for Maiden.