Steve 'Loopy' Newhouse's blog

Forostar

Ancient Mariner
For those who are into early days Maiden stories, check this blog by Newhouse, who became a crew member for Maiden when Di'Anno joined.

Ok, where do I start? At the beginning I guess, so let me introduce myself.

Born Steve Newhouse on May 1st 1957, in the London Borough of Hackney, I had the nickname of Loopy given to me some twenty years later by the same guy who introduced Paul Di'Anno to Steve Harris in a pub in Leytonstone. We'll come to that guy in a while.

The rest, as they say, is history ( his story???) or at least it's somebody's story.

But it's not my story, which goes something like this...

Part 1: http://metaltalk.net/columns/20104601.php
Part 2: http://metaltalk.net/columns/20104602.php
Part 3: http://metaltalk.net/columns/20104603.php
Part 4: http://metaltalk.net/columns/20104604.php
Part 5: http://metaltalk.net/columns/20104605.php
Part 5A: http://metaltalk.net/columns/20104606.php
Part 6: http://metaltalk.net/columns/20104607.php
 
That stuff about Paul Cairns is interesting.
Anyone know anything further?
 
After the revelations in the Clairvoyant book, I guess that's the latest development on the Soundhouse Tapes story. Now I seriously take into account that there was a second guitar player on it, namely Paul Cairns.
 
The serious suggestion that Paul Cairns played on the Spaceward demo (which was made into The Soundhouse Tapes).

The author of The Clairvoyant book managed to get in touch with Paul Cairns.
Cairns gave a detailed account of the parts he played on each track of the Spaceward demo.
There's also a photo from him with the rest of the band, in front of the studio.
People from the current Maiden camp have never reacted to the suggestion idea that Dave Murray was not the only guitar player on it. According to them (biography and other sources) they talk as if only Dave was playing on it.

On Loopy's site we see a (I admit: strange looking) e-mail from Cairns written to Nicko, asking Loopy to get in touch with him or anyone else in the Maiden camp, trying to get an official statement from Steve or Dave or anyone else, that he played on it.

http://metaltalk.net/columns/20104605.php &
http://metaltalk.net/columns/20104606.php
 
Interesting. It doesn't sound surprising to me that there was another guitar player, and it doesn't sound surprising that Maiden would not mention that.
 
I guess they have to hold up an old story now.

But why the secrecy from day one? Maybe it didn't look cool to give a sacked member a credit.
 
Was Cairns ever an official member? Maybe he just helped them out this one time.
 
I don't think he was. It's not unheard of to have an uncredited session musician throw in some parts. Definitely an oddity with Maiden, but they were still a very new band. They probably either don't see it worth mentioning or Steve wants to keep Maiden's reputation of not having outside musicians.
 
I'm guessing if anyone were to want secrets of that time period, Paul Di'Anno wouldn't have a problem giving them up if they were to ask him. But then again his credibility would be scrutinized.
 
Yeah, I'm not sure I'd believe anything Paul has to say about it.
 
Official member? There wasn't anything "official" around that time. Maiden had no contract, no manager, no label. Maiden (Steve) had people they played with and they had a couple of crew members who helped them. People came and they went.

But I have never read that Maiden had session members in the way of just hiring someone temporarily to do something and then go. It just worked with people or it didn't, but that wasn't planned. With some it worked out a little longer (Burr, Di'Anno) and with some shorter, or in some cases: very short.

I thought up a theory which I find more believable than hiring someone temporarily for a demo:

The band went back to the Spaceward Studios, hoping to work a bit more on the demo.
Perhaps they actually went back to see if they could make Dave Murray replace Paul Cairns' parts. By the way: One of these parts is said to be the intro riff of Prowler: the very first recorded Maiden sound people ever heard.

In the world of music, it happens more often that members get fired right after (or even during) a recording session, and it happens occasionally that the rest of the band (or a bandleader) does not have a good feeling about the "legacy" of such a person. They want to "forget" him. On Horror Show, Schaffer wanted to re-record the bass parts, if he had the time. Unfortunately for him, he hadn't. On Aqualung, a new bass player came in Jethro Tull, in the midst of the sessions. Some stuff was replaced by the new player, and most of it was recorded anew by him, but there are still parts which can be identified by Glenn Cornick (the previous bass player), who recognized some of his own parts.

I think this may have happened with Paul Cairns and Maiden's demo. Cairns recorded his parts, he got fired soon afterwards, Maiden came back to replace his parts, but it was too late.

All that Maiden could do, was to keep his parts, but because they didn't want to be associated with him anymore (for whatever vague reason) they left him out of its history.

Just a theory, but it explains all sides of the story the best, imo.

edit:
If they really didn't want to have an outside member credited, or mentioned in their history then why use someone else? Dave could have done Cairn's parts himself, but then the band needed more studio time , and they couldn't afford that.

No, it's more likely Steve was looking for a second guitar player and he had hoped he found the right one.
 
Official member? There wasn't anything "official" around that time. Maiden had no contract, no manager, no label. Maiden (Steve) had people they played with and they had a couple of crew members who helped them. People came and they went.

You've got a point there, but in that case, you can't exactly speak of "firing" him then, either.

I still think that Cairns' involvement might just be a sort of helping them out. No, Maiden are not known for doing that, but it's not impossible that they did it this one time. After all, it was about a studio recording, something they'd never done before. Maybe they felt they needed a second guitarist, and Cairns was available that day, but he didn't want to actually join the band? Who knows...
 
Yeah, that's also vague: the reason why he left.
Maiden needs to tell their side, and as long they are not willing, they help keeping Cairn's side of it alive. :)
 
I don't know if they "need" to tell it, to me personally it doesn't make any difference. But I guess it would be interesting if somebody told a story we didn't know.
 
I don't know, to me personally, what matters is the music. I get that a lot of people are interested in the history of the band, but I only really care for it as long as it helps to explain how the music came to be, or what it was meant to represent. I don't see band politics to be of any particular relevance to that. But again, that's just me personally.
 
Paul Cairns could have just been a guy that was hanging around the studio for whatever reason, and they used him at times that Dave was working or couldn't make it for whatever reason. This kind of stuff happens all the time. The clock was ticking and they just needed to get something on tape. Just theory of course.
 
Dave didn't do other work during the recordings of these demos. Doesn't make sense to me at least.
And there are clearly these different roles of the guitar parts such as the opening riff in Prowler, the answering lead guitar by Dave.
 
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