Dennis Wilcock

It's basically the same thing as notarising it, only that it's cheaper.
 
harrisdevot said:
Harris has always said that he didn't want anybody exterior to the band involved in the songwrtiting process (Hooks in You being the only - partial - exception)
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What do you mean about Hooks in You? Wasn't that a Smith/Dickinson (based on hooks in the ceiling of a house Bruce was looking at buying iirc)? Or was someone else involved? It's surely not the first song without Steve's songwriting involvement?
 
Well, the song came out after Adrian had left the band. But I guess he was in the band when it was written.
 
I admit that's always made me scratch my head when I thought about other credit policies like Blaze's songs on Brave New World or the 'Early Days' songs we're talking about in this thread. Although I consider it an exception to the rule that non-band members don't get credited with songwriting for whatever reason.
 
Let's stop all the guesswork now. There are a few known facts that establish how Maiden deal with outside songwriters.

  • On the Samson album Head On, there is a track called Thunderburst. It is exactly the same song as The Ides of March, except for the fact that it's a different recording and the arrangement is slightly different. On Head On, it is credited to the Samson band (apparently, the all shared writing credits) and Steve Harris. On Killers, it is credited to Harris only. This speaks volumes about the willingness of giving credit to writers outside of Iron Maiden in those days. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Samson blokes weren't too happy about that. I think it is also known which individual co-wrote the song with Steve, but I don't remember who it was.
  • Bruce co-wrote several tracks on The Number of the Beast, but he is credited nowhere because he was still signed with Samson at the time.
  • Blaze co-wrote several tracks on Brave New World, but is credited nowhere. He was not informed of this and was gutted when he learned later on.
  • Hallowed be thy Name and The Nomad lift elements from the song Life's Shadow by Beckett. Nobody from Beckett is credited, but the band did cover a Beckett song and release it as a B-Side, with additional information given on it in the Eddie's Archive compilation. They did not seem to want to make a secret out of it, but the Beckett guys were still not informed of this, as several posts that appeared on this board in the past indicated.
  • Paul Di'anno sold all his royalty rights to Maiden after he got kicked.
  • The Maiden77 claims fit perfectly in this picture, and some information has leaked in the past on ex-members writing songs they were not credited for. It is well-known for example, that Dave Sullivan wrote the riff for Iron Maiden.
  • Adrian was credited for Hooks in You. He was in the band when it got written, he was out of the band when it was recorded. This seems to contradict Blaze's treatment, but the circumstances were different. Hooks in You was written for the No Prayer album, and everybody expected H to be on it - he only left weeks before recording started. It's possible that he still had contractual claims for the writing credit, and it's possible that the boys left the credit because they were so upset with his leaving. Writing and recording for Brave New World started long after Blaze was already out of the band and obviously, they used leftovers from the previous writing process.
 
Well put Perun.

On the first point, that was the Samson drummer, Barry Purkis (Thunderstick). Interview here.

I also noticed that, originally, the song Killers had the credit Di'Anno/Harris.

On the 1998 remaster (I don't own the 1995 release; would someone check this?) we're seeing Harris/Di'Anno. It can be argued that Harris did way more for this song, but the fact that this was changed after Di'Anno left the bands interests me as well (I admit, that it was hardly possible to "correct" it in the time he was still in the band, though). I don't remember other careless mistakes with credits on original/first releases (other than the stuff Per describes) in the Maiden discography, so I wonder why the credit was Di'Anno/Harris. That was done with a reason wasn't it? Why change it afterwards, if it wasn't wrong in the beginning? If anybody bought a recently released Killers LP, I'd be curious what is written on the record.
 
Perun said:
  • Blaze co-wrote several tracks on Brave New World, but is credited nowhere. He was not informed of this and was gutted when he learned later on.
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The following confuses me a bit. In a recent interview (that Knick posted in the Blaze topic) Blaze said this:
Bayley also spoke about his departure from IRON MAIDEN in 1999, calling it "a complete shock." He added: "It was a total shock to me. I had ideas for a third album. I had some melody ideas and lyrics and things like this, and I thought, 'Oh, this is something I'd like to work with Steve on,' and 'There is another idea to work with Dave [Murray] and Janick [Gers] and…' But no, we finished in Brazil in December [1998], and in January [1999] I was fired. There I was working on lyrics and songs for a third album, which I thought… in my own foolish heart, I thought, 'This is really gonna turn things around. Fans are gonna see when they hear the third album. And it's so positive. We have all of these great ideas, and great live songs. The fans are gonna go, 'Now we understand why Blaze is there. This is really good.'' But I didn't get that chance. So all of those ideas that I worked on I kept for myself and I put them on my 'Silicon Messiah' album. And that was it, really."
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What's also confusing, is that Blabbermouth mentions One On One With Mitch Lafon as a source, but One On One With Mitch Lafon points to Blabbermouth to read the interview there. What is real? Futureal?
 
Forostar said:
I also noticed that, originally, the song Killers had the credit Di'Anno/Harris.
On the 1998 remaster (I don't own the 1995 release; would someone check this?) we're seeing Harris/Di'Anno. It can be argued that Harris did way more for this song, but the fact that this was changed after Di'Anno left the bands interests me as well (I admit, that it was hardly possible to "correct" it in the time he was still in the band, though). I don't remember other careless mistakes with credits on original/first releases (other than the stuff Per describes) in the Maiden discography, so I wonder why the credit was Di'Anno/Harris. That was done with a reason wasn't it? Why change it afterwards, if it wasn't wrong in the beginning? If anybody bought a recently released Killers LP, I'd be curious what is written on the record.
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As for Killers, Loopy made it clear in one of his cronicles that the music was written by Steve (http://www.metaltalk.net/columns/20104611.php). He said Steve was constantly working on two ideas that he (Loopy) suggested to merge into one song, which gave birth to Killers. So my guess is that Harris wrote the music and DiAnno the lyrics (the two versions of it). The first credit cannnot mean Lyrics (DiAnno)/Music (Harris), because Maiden did the exact opposite on the first album and on all the singles. I have always assumed that Steve wanted DiAnno to get a greater share of the royalties on this song, because he was credited alone for all the other songs. But this is only a supposition. 15 years later, he could have asked for the "normal" order to be restored.
 
Forostar said:
The following confuses me a bit. In a recent interview (that Knick posted in the Blaze topic) Blaze said this: "There I was working on lyrics and songs for a third album, which I thought… in my own foolish heart, I thought, 'This is really gonna turn things around. Fans are gonna see when they hear the third album. And it's so positive. We have all of these great ideas, and great live songs. The fans are gonna go, 'Now we understand why Blaze is there. This is really good.'' But I didn't get that chance. So all of those ideas that I worked on I kept for myself and I put them on my 'Silicon Messiah' album. And that was it, really."
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The Brave New World stuff that Blaze contributed on were all leftovers from Virtual XI, so they were written (incomplete, of course) during those sessions. What he's talking about in the above interview seems to be the stuff he wrote specifically after the VXI Tour, and all that material written during that time frame which he would have put forward for Maiden/Blaze III ended up going onto Silicon Messiah.
 
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A letter by Paul Sears acting on behalf of Iron Maiden.

Very nice to learn that Belgium was already on the radar in 1977! As it turned out, Belgium indeed became the first oversees country visited by the band (5 April 1980). Who knows the band picked this location because of these early contacts!

Anyway, I am quite amazed that already in 1977, the band got letters from outside the UK. Cool. When this letter was written, Maiden had only played in London.
 
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"... Those of you who have heard the demo and enjoyed listening to it leave now.."

"We have a new biography waiting to print..."
"Nobody reads book in print these days you fool"
"We can release an e-book..."

"... There was no Maiden before Dickinson, I will have someone's bloody balls for this ..."

O man, I can go on quoting, this is so ridiculous.
 
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We've got to stop Maiden fans from writing. This one could be a true Smallwood statement. I love this stuff.
 
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