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... He would have left, or be sacked, later anyway. Or Maiden would have disbanded a couple of albums - at most - later.
I love the Di'anno era but it couldn't have gone on for much longer. Paul obviously didn't want huge, demanding world tours. Steve obviously wouldn't allow the band progress to be stopped. It would have happened anyway.
 
The Boyfriend once happened upon me just after I had been listening to "Killers" and I asked him "what if Di'anno hadn't thrown it off?" (inference: in which case he would probably have been retained). He just shrugged and said "well, it would have been a different band."
 
Paul Di'Anno isn't a third of the singer or a fiftieth of the showman as Bruce Dickinson. Maiden would have had a bigger peak than all other NWOBHM bands, but that peak would be much much lower than what it has been, or continues to be, depending on how you judge success.
 
Sabbat (UK) comes to mind as an example of what might have happened: a fantastic innovative band with a couple of great albums, worshipped by devoted fans, nothing like the global business Maiden became later.
 
Magnus said:
Sabbat (UK) comes to mind as an example of what might have happened: a fantastic innovative band with a couple of great albums, worshipped by devoted fans, nothing like the global business Maiden became later.
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Which begs the more important question, “What would Maiden have become without Rod?”
 
Magnus said:
Sabbat (UK) comes to mind as an example of what might have happened: a fantastic innovative band with a couple of great albums, worshipped by devoted fans, nothing like the global business Maiden became later.
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Yeah, that's a pretty good parallel. I keep thinking of Saxon as a good parallel as well.

MrKnickerbocker said:
Which begs the more important question, “What would Maiden have become without Rod?”
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Love him or hate him - and as Maidenfans it's frequently both - he is absolutely a huge reason for the band's success.
 
LooseCannon said:
Yeah, that's a pretty good parallel. I keep thinking of Saxon as a good parallel as well.


Love him or hate him - and as Maidenfans it's frequently both - he is absolutely a huge reason for the band's success.
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While researching more things for my next book I came to the conclusion that Rod joining Maiden was the final piece Maiden needed to be successful because of his contacts. But I wouldn't say he's a HUGE reason for the success of the band. Just look at these facts.

By 1979 Maiden had been gigging for almost 3 years now and had already a pretty big following, they had the support of Neal Kay who not only had exposed the band at the Bandwagon (in a good night there could be 500 people there), he also exposed them to a wide audience (with his HM chart) and even had gone on to various record labels to have them signed. Also, because of Neal the band got exposed by the first review Geoff Barton did about the NWOBHM (which of course expanded by 100 the media exposure of Maiden). John Darnley from EMI had already seen Maiden even before Rod had come in contact with the band, so they were already aware of them and THEN is when Rod came into the picture...

What Rod brought to the band was his contacts. He was able to get them venues they were unable to play before him which, of course, exposed Maiden even more to other audiences and more record labels, however, as I said before EMI had already thoughts about contracting them (that why they had 2 tracks in the Metal For Muthas album) so that's what I see, at least at first, as Rod's contribution... Maiden did had everything they needed at the time and maybe it was just a matter of time before they were signed...
 
Luisma said:
While researching more things for my next book I came to the conclusion that Rod joining Maiden was the final piece Maiden needed to be successful because of his contacts. But I wouldn't say he's a HUGE reason for the success of the band. Just look at these facts.

By 1979 Maiden had been gigging for almost 3 years now and had already a pretty big following, they had the support of Neal Kay who not only had exposed the band at the Bandwagon (in a good night there could be 500 people there), he also exposed them to a wide audience (with his HM chart) and even had gone on to various record labels to have them signed. Also, because of Neal the band got exposed by the first review Geoff Barton did about the NWOBHM (which of course expanded by 100 the media exposure of Maiden). John Darnley from EMI had already seen Maiden even before Rod had come in contact with the band, so they were already aware of them and THEN is when Rod came into the picture...

What Rod brought to the band was his contacts. He was able to get them venues they were unable to play before him which, of course, exposed Maiden even more to other audiences and more record labels, however, as I said before EMI had already thoughts about contracting them (that why they had 2 tracks in the Metal For Muthas album) so that's what I see, at least at first, as Rod's contribution... Maiden did had everything they needed at the time and maybe it was just a matter of time before they were signed...
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All of that is most likely true, but Rod is also responsible for turning Iron Maiden into a brand - capitalizing on the mascot, the t-shirts, the ancillary markets. Bruce had a big hand in some of this too (if not in the early years, definitely in the last 20), he wasn't just responsible for popularizing Maiden because of his performances.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
All of that is most likely true, but Rod is also responsible for turning Iron Maiden into a brand - capitalizing on the mascot, the t-shirts, the ancillary markets. Bruce had a big hand in some of this too (if not in the early years, definitely in the last 20), he wasn't just responsible for popularizing Maiden because of his performances.
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Hmmm some of the things you say are true, however, the T-Shirts and even the Fanclub were ideas that were floating around even before Rod came into the picture.
 
I think Maiden could still have been very successful without Rod, simply because of their own intrinsic merits and Steve's work ethic. But I think they would have had a much harder time of it without Rod on hand to give them good advice.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
All of that is most likely true, but Rod is also responsible for turning Iron Maiden into a brand - capitalizing on the mascot, the t-shirts, the ancillary markets. Bruce had a big hand in some of this too (if not in the early years, definitely in the last 20), he wasn't just responsible for popularizing Maiden because of his performances.
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It's also no coincidence that Bruce never contemplated leaving Rod, when he left Maiden.

Also, to be fair, it says a lot about both Rod and Maiden, that he never left Bruce and that Maiden didn't put pressure on him to leave Bruce.
 
Luisma said:
Hmmm some of the things you say are true, however, the T-Shirts and even the Fanclub were ideas that were floating around even before Rod came into the picture.
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You'll know far more than me, but didn't Keith Wilfort have t-shirts as early as 77?
 
srfc said:
It's also no coincidence that Bruce never contemplated leaving Rod, when he left Maiden.

Also, to be fair, it says a lot about both Rod and Maiden, that he never left Bruce and that Maiden didn't put pressure on him to leave Bruce.
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stand up guys, all around.
 
srfc said:
You'll know far more than me, but didn't Keith Wilfort have t-shirts as early as 77?
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Yes and since I'm writing a new bookm, with loads of trivia I'm going to explain the matter a little bit: Keith is famous, among other things, because he made the first Iron Maiden shirt which read "Charlotte Rules Ok!" which, was a phrased used by Maiden to advertise the gig they played at The Harrow on July 16, 1977. So it is quite possible that Keith walked in with the shirt at a gig not too further apart in time.

However, it must be noted that the first OFFICIAL shirt was sold at Maiden's first concert at The Marquee (but it was produced in September as it can be seen in Maiden's first official photo shoot with Ross Halfin)
 
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