Why did Steve Harris fire Clive Burr ?

Luisma said:
There are many reasons why they had to let Clive go as I explain in my book which you can get here bit.ly/3wuKMJ5. The reasons were explained to me by a person who worked closely with the band between 1980-1990, Keith Wilfort and Adrian Smith. And can be summarized as follows:

Clive was having personal problems (family and girl friend) since the beginning of '82. While the band was in the UK, things were kind of sorted because the proximity of his relatives, friends and girl friend but as soon as the band went outside of the UK, things started to get complicated. The band was obviously getting bigger by the minute and with fame, as both Adrian and Bruce comment on their book, access to drugs and booze become much easier. Now, imagine young Clive having to sort his personal problems, being famous and having access to drugs and booze and really no one to rely upon because you're the young and handsome drummer of a now World famous Heavy Metal band, what do you do? Overindulge... He was given four opportunites to sort himself up (all well explained in the book), the last being after the Beast On The Road tour on December 10, but ALAS two things happen during the last weeks of December. First, the relationship with his girlfriend ends in a bad way and secondly, and more important, Clive's dad dies. This is all too much for Clive and the band (Steve) has no other option but to let Clive go because there was no chance at all they can give him more time to sort himself up before they had to go to Jersey to start work on Album No. 4.
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But what does this "sort himself out" mean? His drumming is excellent to the end of the Beast tour. I sometimes wonder if Steve just thought Nicko is a better drummer and think about what the 82 following albums would have sounded like with Clive on the drums and i cant imagine they could not sound good with Clive. Clive was an awesome drummer and to my ears better than Nicko. Maybe some of the fast bass drum stuff of Nicko would be too hard for Clive to handle, but as a live performance drummer i think Clive was better than Nicko the band sounded tighter. But i trust the drumming experts who say Nicko was a lot better technically . But i can imagine Clive doing just fine on post Beast stuff
 
paulfan said:
But what does this "sort himself out" mean? His drumming is excellent to the end of the Beast tour. I sometimes wonder if Steve just thought Nicko is a better drummer and think about what the 82 following albums would have sounded like with Clive on the drums and i cant imagine they could not sound good with Clive. Clive was an awesome drummer and to my ears better than Nicko. Maybe some of the fast bass drum stuff of Nicko would be too hard for Clive to handle, but as a live performance drummer i think Clive was better than Nicko the band sounded tighter. But i trust the drumming experts who say Nicko was a lot better technically . But i can imagine Clive doing just fine on post Beast stuff
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"Sort himself out" = Get his problems fixed, get your act together or at least don't consume drugs and alcohol to the point you become a different person and unreliable. I band who is working their way up on the Metal world that can't count on their members ALWAYS being able to do what they're supposed to do, puts a lot of pressure not only on the band members, but also on management who have to try and not make it to the magazines for wrong reasons
 
paulfan said:
In Rock and Roll this drugs and booze stuff is not thought as bad
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I wasn't reading magazines in the 80s but my general perception is that Maiden weren't publicly renowned as a party band at the time, not like GnR or the Crue, for example.

This says nothing about what the band were actually up to but I think it tells us more about the image that the band/management wanted to portray.

I haven't read Luisima's book but reading between the lines, my guess is that Clive was hard to deal with when he was fucked up. Some people can handle these characters, some can't, or don't want to.

I accept the judgement of those who have listened to the boolegs and see little or no performance issues with Clive so I assume the issue must be personal. Maybe Clive was just too much drama for Maiden. Maybe Maiden were just too boring for Clive.
 
Niall Kielt said:
I wasn't reading magazines in the 80s but my general perception is that Maiden weren't publicly renowned as a party band at the time, not like GnR or the Crue, for example.

This says nothing about what the band were actually up to but I think it tells us more about the image that the band/management wanted to portray.

I haven't read Luisima's book but reading between the lines, my guess is that Clive was hard to deal with when he was fucked up. Some people can handle these characters, some can't, or don't want to.

I accept the judgement of those who have listened to the boolegs and see little or no performance issues with Clive so I assume the issue must be personal. Maybe Clive was just too much drama for Maiden. Maybe Maiden were just too boring for Clive.
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You got it perfectely mate.

Maiden weren't saints at all but their personal problems and clashes were very well kept behind scenes. In all my years of research I have only read 3 or 4 accounts about them (Dave) getting in trouble because of their party habits. As a matter of fact, as I comment in the book, the fact that even though Dave was also having drug problems, he wasn't kicked out of the band, shows that drugs weren't really the problem, not with Clive nor with Paul, it was various things and one of those things are exactly what you say...

When Clive overindulged, the character that sometimes appeared was VERY hard to deal with and this was one of the issues that ended up being his demise.

One thing I learned while researching is that sometimes people judge to hard certain persons without really knowing what lead them to do certain things. I mean, most people say that Paul is this and that because he got fired from Maiden because of too much partying, but also most people don't think what lead certain people to use drugs in the first place. All in all, some people can deal with fame better than others.
 
Luisma said:
You got it perfectely mate.

Maiden weren't saints at all but their personal problems and clashes were very well kept behind scenes. In all my years of research I have only read 3 or 4 accounts about them (Dave) getting in trouble because of their party habits. As a matter of fact, as I comment in the book, the fact that even though Dave was also having drug problems, he wasn't kicked out of the band, shows that drugs weren't really the problem, not with Clive nor with Paul, it was various things and one of those things are exactly what you say...
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Dave having substance problems? Thats new info for me. Your book seems very interesting , but jesus its pricey, probably for good reasons though.
 
paulfan said:
Dave having substance problems? Thats new info for me. Your book seems very interesting , but jesus its pricey, probably for good reasons thougo
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Oh yes mate. Even Loopy (roadie from 79 to 81 and then 83) comments an episode in his book. About my book, I went and interviewed a lot of people related to the band in all eras, included never before seen pictures of the band in hi-res and colour and is letter sized and 333 pages long so it takes a lot to give a quality product, therefore the prize.

You can find more info here https://forum.maidenfans.com/thread...ie-made-me-do-it-physical-book-out-now.72226/
 
Luisma said:
Oh yes mate. Even Loopy (roadie from 79 to 81 and then 83) comments an episode in his book. About my book, I went and interviewed a lot of people related to the band in all eras, included never before seen pictures of the band in hi-res and colour and is letter sized and 333 pages long so it takes a lot to give a quality product, therefore the prize.

You can find more info here https://forum.maidenfans.com/threads/the-best-way-to-tell-the-iron-maiden-story-eddie-made-me-do-it-physical-book-out-now.72
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I read Loopys book, but cant remember that part about Dave. Might have to loan it again.
 
paulfan said:
I read Loopys book, but cant remember that part about Dave. Might have to loan it again.
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Can't remember the exact page but Loopy comments that he was looking something for Clive and when he returned to the hotel, it looked like all hell broke loose as Davey had "one of those days" and the police wanted to take him into custody so Rod had to use his "charm" in order to evade problems while Dave was allowed to sleep off his problem... He also comments how after that episode, Steve called a band meeting in order to make things work again... And if memory serves well, Loopy also comments that off course things got derailed again in the future.
 
Luisma said:
Please let me know if this one works for you https://t.co/gmSDdtZdcI
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Ordered! I've chosen the fast track method with shipping cost even higher than the book but what the fuck, I want to read it asap :)
Only issue was that I couldn't manually input my lady's number, had to chose from drop down menu with my numbers, let's hope they will call when I'm not away.

Anyway, thanks! I should have it in less than 3 weeks (11 business days it says), can't wait to read it!
 
____no5 said:
Ordered! I've chosen the fast track method with shipping cost even higher than the book but what the fuck, I want to read it asap :)
Only issue was that I couldn't manually input my lady's number, had to chose from drop down menu with my numbers, let's hope they will call when I'm not away.

Anyway, thanks! I should have it in less than 3 weeks (11 business days it says), can't wait to read it!
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Awesome mate! I'm pretty sure you're gonna love it and after you have read it, we can go all geek and talk even more in depth of more Maiden things!

You should definitely get it within those 11 days as so far almost 300 people have gotten it in less time that the page says :)
 
Niall Kielt said:
I wasn't reading magazines in the 80s but my general perception is that Maiden weren't publicly renowned as a party band at the time, not like GnR or the Crue, for example.

This says nothing about what the band were actually up to but I think it tells us more about the image that the band/management wanted to portray.
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They were really successful in keeping the dirt (illegitimate children, drug use/abuse...) out of the public eye.
 
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GhostofCain said:
They were really successful in keeping the dirt (illegitimate children, drug use/abuse...) out of the public eye.
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Yes! Kudos to Rod for being able to do so. There's also the fact, and this is something I have talked with Mick Wall, Pippa Lang and the late Malcom Dome, that Maiden was very friendly with the rock press, especially in the UK so out of mutual respect, most of the press didn't print the dirt even if they saw it first hand.
 
____no5 said:
Illegitimate children? It's the very first time ever I'm hearing that for Maiden (though not unusual in R'nR)
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Couple of years ago some woman claimed in the tabloid press that she was Bruce's daughter.
 
Luisma said:
Yes! Kudos to Rod for being able to do so. There's also the fact, and this is something I have talked with Mick Wall, Pippa Lang and the late Malcom Dome, that Maiden was very friendly with the rock press, especially in the UK so out of mutual respect, most of the press didn't print the dirt even if they saw it first hand.
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Yes, Rod had a reputation of treating the press so well that they would not dare print anything negative so they would not lose all the perks that came with being part of Maiden’s inner circle.
 
So why the falling out with the press around the TXF era?
 
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