AlphaBands Week IX: I is for Iron Maiden

Here's my latest entry for AlphaBands!  

This week I'm drawing a band who had a great impact on my life, but not for their music.  They are the only group whose album I bought solely on how bad ass the artwork was.  The album was released on May 16, 1983 but I didn't buy it until 1990. I was 15.

I'd heard of Iron Maiden.  My brother had a poster in his room with their logo across the top, featuring a gruesome image of a mechanical hand being thrust through the head of a zombie-like monster, its fingers clutching the brain. I knew guys in school who had the band's logo sewn onto their denim jackets, on their t-shirts, and also on their bedroom walls.  Somehow I'd never gotten around to hearing the band.  Aside from the deathly visage that often accompanied their logo I knew nothing about them.  They all called him Eddie.

One day I walked into Waxie Maxie's and browsed their selection of albums.  I wanted some new music so I began going through the alphabet to see what would catch my eye.  I was immediately drawn to the image of Eddie, wearing a straight jacket with his neck chained to the walls in the shadowy light of a padded cell.  Above him, Iron Maiden's iconic logo and  a beatific script that said "Piece of Mind."   He was caught frozen in a painful scream, his sunken, hollow eyes seemingly beseeching for release.  His arms and legs strained against the confines of his restraints.    His head had had its top removed and replaced, and blood seeped down his face from the wound.  He appeared both pathetic and scary, and I couldn't take my eyes off him.

I had to own this CD, even if only to get a chance to study this album cover.  So I coughed up the dough and returned home to see what this band had in store for me.  It took some time for me to become used to their sound, but Eddie captured my imagination.  I copied that album cover a dozen times or more.  I drew Eddie all over the place.  He became a favorite doodle of mine.  He led to the creation on my only original character, Smiley.

Derek Riggs is the man behind the scream.  He breathed life into Eddie as a concept for a possible punk album.  Iron Maiden hired him to design their album covers and so Eddie became their mascot.  Eddie appears on every Iron Maiden album cover, and on most of their singles.  Riggs did all their Eddie artwork from 1980 to 1992, when the band began using other incarnations of him.  Eddie is widely regarded as being the most recognizable band mascot in the world.

I've grown to like Iron Maiden's music very much.   Bruce Dickinson's operatic vocals, Steve Harris's churning bass, the dueling guitars of Adrian Smith and Dave Murray, and Nicko McBrain's pounding drums have inspired countless metal and rock acts over the decades.  They bring power, melody, and incredible composition skills to a genre that's chock full of simple noise.  They belong near the top of anyone's list of favorite metal bands.  But I still love them more for Eddie.