What or who got you into Iron Maiden?

Love the OP, iron maiden shoes as a kid lol.

I thought the only iron maiden footwear that had ever been around were those ltd edition vans with the killers and trooper eddies. You would expect only a hardcore fan (one with very little fashion sense lol) would hunt these out and purchase them yet the OP reads so casual like it wass something normal to have iron maiden shoes as a kids. Surely the parents were fans otherwise why on earth would any kid have iron maiden shoes on
I got them from my mom's friend's son. They had the trooper design and we got rid of them before I even got to know about Maiden. People at parties complemented me but I didn't know what to say so I was just going with the flow.
 
My teacher in religion class playing us The Number of the Beast as an example of satanist music with a poorly translated lyrics sheet.

That's what you get for attending religion class.
Anyways, we had this topic, in one form or another, several times now. 1st grade high school, got a tape from a friend - this is Iron Maiden, you might like it. Put it in the deck, hit play, Aces High starts. Mindblown for the next 20 years and counting.
 
It was December of 2007. I was home for winter break after my first semester of college and looking to expand my musical horizons. I was curious about Iron Maiden, who I had heard of but hadn't listened to previously, so I downloaded The Essential Iron Maiden compilation album. The very first song on that album is Paschendale, and I was immediately hooked. Soon afterwards I discovered The Iron Maiden Commentary, and I used that as an aid to learn as much as I could about each song as I listened to the discography in order.

Since then I have seen Maiden every single time they have come to Chicago, four times total, with number 5 coming up in two weeks! :edmetal:
 
I first heard The evil that men do by a friend in 2000, it was a cool song but never ended up buying a Maiden album then.

Then I bought Brave new world album some time later (very randomly), and still I didn't get why Maiden was so great. But a couple of years later, I bought Rock in Rio DVD, and I was hooked! So during summer 2003, i bought more and more albums, and I was finally a Maiden fan forever.
 
My older cousin was/is great Maiden (metal in general) fan, and had his room full of Eddie/Maiden posters.
The other kids feared to enter that room, so when wanted to be "older" and couldn't stand beeing around other kids I went to his room, where he listened some of his LPs (mostly metal).
So, when I was 12 I bought Fear of the dark tape (somethime in '93) and the rest is history... Can't remrember what was 1st Maiden song or album I heard - but he had complete collection...
 
Number of the Beast from Guitar Hero 3. I slowly started listening to the rest of their stuff, but Dance of Death from DOTR is what really blew my mind.

Similar to mine, except it was with The Trooper and Guitar Hero 2.

Back in 2006, I joined all of my friends at the start of the guitar/music genre of gaming and impulse bought Guitar Hero 2. I had enjoyed music up until then, listening to various groups such as Rammstein, Quiet Riot, Metallica, you know, all of the "popular" names at the time. But I had never really settled on a favorite or experimented. Just kind of went with the flow.

One of the final songs in Guitar Hero 2 was "The Trooper" (looking back now it's funny because it wasn't even the Maiden version, but a cover). But i remember loving the lyrics and Bruce's "Ohhh oh oh!" part during the chorus. This song, along with "The Number of the Beast" in Guitar Hero 3 and "Run to the Hills" in Rock Band (2007) finally made me want to venture into who exactly this band Iron Maiden were. Because I thought the songs were absolutely killer.

I didn't have to go far. My dad grew up through the 70's and 80's and so when I went to him and asked him about Iron Maiden, he immediately gave me the Live After Death CD he owned. This is when I really got into the band. I bet I listened to Live After Death on loop several times a day, every day a week, up until I obtained the albums Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, and Powerslave from him. It skyrocketed from there.

After weeks/months of listening to those albums, I sat down with my dad and we watched the Rock in Rio 2001 DVD. My 17-year-old mind was blown away by the performance I saw on that disc; the energy the band put out, the newer songs I hadn't managed to explore yet, the sick guitar solos, Bruce's unrivaled vocals. That was the day I became a man.

From then on, I was obsessed. I binge listened to all of their albums I hadn't tried yet, starting with Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son, and going up through Brave New World (the songs of which I loved from Rock in Rio), Dance of Death, and A Matter of Life and Death. When I wasn't at school or eating dinner, I was listening to Iron Maiden or watching their concerts on DVD.

In May 2008 I discovered that they were playing in Chicago (the closest location to me) the next month. It took a lot of convincing, but my parents finally granted me permission to travel the 300 miles to go and see them. Since it was very last minute, I had to settle for nosebleed seating, but I didn't care. On June 11, 2008, I saw them live for the first time and it was a night I will never forget.

This would all take a turn for the worse as my mom died suddenly and unexpectedly just three days after the Chicago concert and I lost my dad another couple of years later. It was a very dark time of my life that I still haven't recovered from even to this day. But my love for Iron Maiden has persisted, perhaps grown stronger as I've bonded with the music over time. While I am still the super fan I was ten years ago, I am more mature now and look at it more in a musicianship way. I started learning how to play guitar back in 2011, and have gotten good to this day because of my idols Dave Murray (love Adrian and Janick too, don't get me wrong!). They've also opened my mind to expand to all music and I now appreciate any music genre (even though there are some I still don't like, just personal preference).

I am not content with my life as it is right now, but Iron Maiden remains the most important thing to me. Seeing them, to me, is like the Disneyland vacation most other families get to take, for example
 
Ages 6-10 I was into rock and roll - Beach Boys, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Beatles, etc.

Age 10: I moved, made a new friend who got me into AC/DC, Cheap Trick, and the local rock station. I borrowed my dad's LP of Led Zeppelin IV, which he'd bought only for "Stairway to Heaven," and listened to the rest of it.

Age 11-12: discovered Ozzy Osbourne. Not long after that, Randy Rhoads died. But I first heard the term "heavy metal" around then, and liked Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" and BOC's "Godzilla" when I heard them on the radio. Bought "Speak of the Devil" with saved-up allowance money.

Age 13: started listening to the "Metal Shop" syndicated radio show. The intro featured a lot of metal fans yelling about their favorite bands, "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" style. One of them yelled "Iron Maiden rules, man, nobody's better." Started noticing Piece of Mind in record store bins. Heard a snippet of "Flight of Icarus" on a radio ad for Maiden's local tour stop. Bought Piece of Mind with with saved-up allowance money. It was all over from that point forward.
 
Curiosity got me into Iron Maiden around the time Dance of Death came out. Saw a clip from RiR (think it was Blood Brothers), heard a few songs from Dance of Death and a couple of other classics (Fear of the Dark, Hallowed) and was hooked.

First gig I attended was the one in Bergen, november 2006 (AMOLAD tour).
 
I saw the video for "Out of the Silent Planet" on a TV music show. I asked to get Brave New World for my next birthday and then that was that. Don't think I listened to any other band for about two years.
 
I am not content with my life as it is right now, but Iron Maiden remains the most important thing to me. Seeing them, to me, is like the Disneyland vacation most other families get to take, for example
I know the feeling of not being in a good place, and music being an out. Remember that Iron Maiden fans are with you, all of them. Even the ones who seem like dickweeds.

And I agree about going to see Maiden live...it's amazing.
 
My Dad got me into them by accident back in early 1991. He had read an article about Bruce Dickinson's fencing in an issue of Sports Illustrated and decided to check out the band and bought their then current album. This was back when we had very few CDs in our house and as luck would have it one day I was thumbing through the collection and came upon No Prayer For the Dying and thought the artwork was really cool.

I decided to check it out and put it on the stereo. Now I know this is one of their worst albums, but to my ears at that time it was the most incredible thing I had ever heard. I knew from those first notes of Tailgunner that I had stumbled upon something extraordinarily special. I promptly made a tape dub of it and proceeded to listen to it multiple times a day until I could afford another CD (which ended up being Seventh Son, my favorite to this day). I was completely obsessed with it for the longest time, and honestly, if anything that obsession with the band keeps growing over time some 26 years later.

As it turns out, my Dad had also purchased AC/DC's Razors Edge the same day and never got around to listening to the Maiden album until I shared it with him. So I guess it was a bit of a reciprocal experience. The two of us just got back from seeing the band in London last week!
 
My older cousin played me the Run to the Hills single in 1982 when I was 13, and then gave me the 1st ten issues of Kerrang once she went all New Wave.

I loved the single, read about Maiden, and then bought TNOTB vinyl the week it came out... my first ever album.

I quickly saved up and bought the previous 2 albums (well it took a couple of months actually!). From then onwards, I sourced all the previous vinyls (including 7" and 12"), and bought everything from Flight of Icarus onwards on the day of release, although my last vinyl was actually the gatefold Fear of the Dark album, before switching to cds. :)
 
This is my first forum post and this got so much attention! :blink: Thanks to everyone who has commented, I've read every single one of these.

Get into the chatroom, we'll give you all the attention you want!
 
A pal at school gave me a tape in 1987, Hammersmith Odeon 1986, and I was hooked immediately. Next year my dad brought me Killers and Seventh Son vinyls from Italy - totally unobtainable in my country then, which happened to be on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.

What country is that?
 
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