Does Iron Maiden dislike the USA?

Sea of Madness said:
I just notice that hardly any of the influences they name are American bands. Except Dave or Adrian who were influenced by Hendrix maybe. I think Rush is like the only American band Steve admits to being influenced by. It just seems as though they just don't really like us very much for ______ reason.
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I don't think a lack of American influences has anything to do with any reasons Maiden might dislike the US.
 
bearfan said:
Also ... I am pretty sure Adrian lives in Los Angeles ...
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Is that just a hunch, or have you read that somewhere? I always assumed, what with him randomly turning up in pubs in London (i.e. this January), that he still stayed (for the most part) in the UK. He certainly lived in Buckinghamshire in the late 90's.
 
I could be wrong, that was what I got from that interview .. which is probably somewhere in the maiden interviews thread. Of course having Maiden-money it is possible he splits his time between Los Angeles and the UK. I am guessing all these guys can afford more than one house and some plane tickets.
 
What American artists were there for a up and coming heavy metal band to be influenced by in the late '70s? How about Kiss, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Steppenwolf (Canadian-American), Cheap Trick, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Boston, Foreigner, Journey, Kansas, Heart, The Doors.
 
Aerosmith and Hendrix are already mentioned, Cooper I just forgot about when I wrote my post - but the rest? KISS debuted only a year before Maiden was formed. and the rest - although they are well-known names - are hardly Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. And many of them were in general much bigger in the US than in Europe. Maiden not mentioning them as influences cannot be used as an argument for Maiden disliking the US - the bands were simply not big in Europe at the time.
 
I'm not saying that's evidence they dislike us. Just something I noticed. Later on they named some newer US bands they liked such as Kings X etc.
 
I don't think Maiden's preference for touring in Europe and South America has anything at all to do with bands that influenced their sound...

As others have said, a lot of American audiences aren't as excited as those overseas. Also, they are a business and they follow the money. I'm sure that ticket sales and merch sales are vastly higher in South America and Europe. Whereas if they only play 20 U.S. shows a tour, they'll sell out and fans will be rabid. Makes more business sense than playing 50-60 shows and not selling out/selling as much merch.
 
bearfan said:
I am an American and I can say first hand the crowds are better elsewhere. I had a chance to catch Maiden in Poland on the last tour and the crowd there was 10X better than the average US crowd. What is sad is that it was not always like this, in the 80s the crowds were much better. But part of the problem might be half their crowds in the US are those same people (myself included) that were there in the 80s.

I only have one show to base this on, but the crowd in Poland also skewed younger than the crowds in the US on the last several tours (there were certainly some fans from the 80s there, just a smaller percentage it seems). I think metal is connecting better with the younger crowds overseas than in the US

Also ... I am pretty sure Adrian lives in Los Angeles .. so half the band lives in the US and Steve is closer (geographically) to the US than the UK at this point .. FWIW
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I know what you mean because I've been to metal shows that draw mostly a younger crowd and between songs, they would let out a small cheer and then go completely silent before the next song began. Avenged Sevenfold was one of the shows I saw that drew a somewhat larger crowd of maybe 4,000. While that's not as many as Maiden draws here, it's still enough to where the crowd should have been louder between songs. And club shows are a real joke.
 
Steve now shares most of his time between the Bahamas and Los Angeles (and when he is in Europe, he favours Portugal) ; so he lives part time in the US. As for the influence thing (which I agree doesn't have any kind of impact on their comments about the audience), he also named Blue Oster Cult. And he appreciates Mastodon and Dream Theater, just to name two american bands. I think Maiden just love to play for dedicated audience, and for some reason don't get that kind of crazed reception out there.
 
harrisdevot said:
Steve now shares most of his time between the Bahamas and Los Angeles (and when he is in Europe, he favours Portugal) ; so he lives part time in the US. As for the influence thing (which I agree doesn't have any kind of impact on their comments about the audience), he also named Blue Oster Cult. And he appreciates Mastodon and Dream Theater, just to name two american bands. I think Maiden just love to play for dedicated audience, and for some reason don't get that kind of crazed reception out there.
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That is probably more his dislike for UK taxation than pro-anywhere else. There are plenty of British tax exiles all over the world, my understanding is he loses that status if he spends more than X(not sure what X is) days in the UK per year
 
You are right, and the fact that he loves sunny areas. But he could have choosen many countries, and he spends a part of his time in the US, so I assume he has nothing against the country.
 
Actually, he is spending his time there to support the establishment of the Marxist Committee of Wahhabi Nazism under the pseudonym of Vladimir Abd-al-Schneider.
 
Sea of Madness said:
What American artists were there for a up and coming heavy metal band to be influenced by in the late '70s? How about Kiss, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Steppenwolf (Canadian-American), Cheap Trick, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Boston, Foreigner, Journey, Kansas, Heart, The Doors.
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Maiden - and most notably Steve - originate from unassuming parts of London, which were a bit downtrodden in the 60s/70s, and got their primary support in the early days in the same neck of the woods. It might just be the case that the music of big American acts of the day had little in common with the scene the Maiden boys emerged from.

I certainly don't think they dislike the US - if anything, I've felt they've been chasing the US market more than ever. Like Wingman (I think it was) said earlier, there's a bit of tongue-in-cheek rivalry or banter goes on, but nothing more.

Disclaimer: am British.
 
I'm sorry no, Maiden...or I mean Bruce Dickinson (because he is the one coming up with all these rants all the time) don't hate America. Bruce Dickinson rants about everything really. Music critics, magazines, rappers, pop stars. People who don't like metal, reunions,, music charts, music that isn't metal, television shows etc etc etc...

"....Now this is a song called Blood Brothers"

If he can create a us, right here, right now vs them. He'll do so. It's part of the show. Don't take it personal :D
 
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