The Beast Tours Abroad

The band had trouble finding a producer for their debut album, Iron Maiden.  Eventually someone was hired, Will Malone, who was apparently a weel known producer who had worked with Black Sabbath.

Maiden were disgraced with Malone and if it was not for their studio engineer the band believe that the album would have been a disaster.  Their debut album however was completed and turned out to be a great success.

The 15th February brought about the release of Maiden's debut single, Running Free.  Top Of The Pops wanted them to play on their TV show, but Maiden were not happy.  The programme wanted them to mime to a backing track, something which Iron Maiden were unprepared to do.  Many arguements followed but in the end Maiden were allowed to play 100% live.  The previous band to do this was The Who eight years before.

A month before the album Iron Maiden was released the Judas Priest tour began.  Maiden gained alot from being Priest's special guest on the British tour.

On April 11th April 1980 Iron Maiden was released and debuted at no. 4.  The band were very surprised at getting such a high position but Rod, their manager, expected something along those lines to happen.

Eddie was seen in detail for the first ever time, a distinctive mascot for the band created by the superb artist Derek Riggs.  It was also the first widely available material of the band, excluding the Running Free single.

Maiden set out on their own tour with Eddie taking to the stage as well as the band, making the fans go crazy.  The second single Sanctuary was released on __ and reached __. Maiden had already started up some contraversy in the form of the sleeve for the single.  Eddie is seen stabing Maggie Thatcher after she had just torn down a Maiden poster from a wall. UK released singles had a black band put across her eyes.

From August 24th to October 13 Maiden toured Europe as a support band for KISS.  This tour was great fro Maiden reaching new audiences and was definitely worth it even if it was very expensive.  That year they also performed at Reading Festival with healining act UFO.

On tour with KISS, Dennis Stratton often travelled with the road crew instead of travelling on the bus with the band.  Some members were slightly offended by this.  Stratton said this was because he wanted a change of company and enjoyed helping the road crew by taking his turn of driving.  He aslo enjoyed to hang out with KISS and he got on well with the band, which linited the time he spent with Maiden.

Rod, their manager, wanted Maiden to be together, like a gang and so was not happy with the situation.  Rod Smallwood had a quiet word with Dennis, but he did not see what all the fuss was about.  Maiden felt that Stratton was not putting 100% commitment into the band and so he was sacked.  Even to this day Stratton pleads that it was all just a big miss-understanding.  The last thing done by Stratton was the recording of the single Women In Uniform.

Strattons' replacement Adrian Smith joined Maiden and he appeared on a German TV program with the band straight away. 

Smith had known Dave Murray since school and so settling in was not a major problem.  Maiden had 12 tourdates lined up allowing Smith to get used to the band members and to get him more relaxed.  One date included The Raindow (21 Oct 1981) where a video was recorded.

Murray and Smith were Maiden's first real twin guitarists and they worked excellently with each other.  Smith's excellent songwritting abilities would also be seen later on in his career.