Iron Maiden

www.ironmaiden.com

No band has ever meant more to me. I first became aware of Iron Maiden in junior high from my friend, Billy. I knew he loved this band and had all their tapes, but I didn’t know anything about them. Then, one night whilst watching Headbanger’s Ball, I heard my first Iron Maiden song when the video for Can I Play With Madness aired. It sounded like the music I liked, but different. More mature.

I remember a short while later, while out with my family we went to a Strawberries Records, which was my go-to place to buy music as a kid. I could get one tape and the thought of that Iron Maiden video popped in my head. I couldn’t remember the song’s name exactly, but I bought their most recent album – which was 1988’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

I brought it home and immediately fell in love – and even still it wasn’t until Madness came on that I was like, oh yes this is the song!

That was a Saturday. On Monday at school I immediately went to Bill to tell him. He then basically became by dealer, bringing in different tapes for me to borrow and get more and more obsessed with Maiden.

The fact that I’ve seen them in concert 12 times – he definitely takes some of the blame for that, ha! Especially since he’s been to those 12 same concerts. We’ve never gone to a show together, but we always wind up looking and finding each other – every time over the past 30+ years.

That October, I broke my elbow and ended up in the hospital for a week. To make me feel better, my grandmother actually went to the record store in the Methuen Mall and bought me to Maiden tapes. I love that my parents and grandparents were never uptight about the music I listened to.

Between those tapes and the tapes I got that Christmas, I was cemented as a Maiden fan for life. And it really has turned out that way.

There have been bands I’ve fallen in love with and bands I’ve stopped listening to over the years – but there has only been one Iron Maiden.

Up The Irons.