For the first time in 10 months former principal of ‘Eden High School’ Sharon Burns will tell her side of the story on what really happened in the attempt to have her removed/ transferred from her job as principal over an Iron Maiden picture associated on Instagram.
Exclusive Live interview on The Metal Voice
When asked if she wanted to make a statement about the situation “This is why I wanted to talk to you guys about this There is a bigger story. The parents (of the school) are great and the kids (at the school) are great, it’s a great community and they weren’t out to get me (the parents) willy, nilly there is a history. It was a bad and poor decision on my part to post (Eddie 666) picture, unthinkingly. I should have thought and known better from working at that school for 5 years. It (666) has biblical and religious connotations. I kind of knew that but I didn’t even think about it when I posted it. I posted 666 picture in a school where we were having this shift from what they were used to as a private Christian school to a public school. At one end I was insensitive and at the other end offensive so I took the post down. I should have been aware of the sensitivities around the number (666). So lesson learned, wouldn’t do it again but I will still continue to enjoy Iron Maiden
When did you remove the Eddie 666 picture before or after the parents petition to have you transferred “Prior to that, it was the same day, Sunday, it was when my kids said Mom look at your Instagram it’s blowing up and I said let’s delete the whole post and maybe this will be all over tomorrow.”
When asked if she could go back in time would she re-post a picture of her and her husband behind Iron Maiden posters (no 666) “Probably, it’s nice to see that the Principal is a woman and a metal fan. I think that this is an unusual thing for a Principal in High School. So if it helps to connect with a couple more kids who feel like they can come and chat with me if they are having a problem I would. “
When asked if she could go back in time would she re-post Eddie with 666 on Instagram “No, I would definitely not post Eddie with 666, I would not do anything with that number anymore.”
When asked if the Iron Maiden camp had reached out to her after the incident “The official Iron Maiden photographer John McMurtrie sent me a big poster, it just showed up in the mail and I didn’t even know about it . I think he is traveling with Maiden to Hamilton Ontario in the fall, in October 2022. So John reached out and said he is going to try and get me into the Trooper Room, which sounds pretty cool.”
Back story Oct 2021 Sharon Burns the then principal of ‘Eden High School’ in St. Catharine’s, Ontario Canada (public school) posted photos associated with Iron Maiden ‘Eddie mascot’ on Instagram. The main source of controversy was a photo of Iron Maiden’s mascot Eddie, which featured a hand-drawn “666.”
After the Maiden Eddie picture posting, a parents group from the school attempted in removing the Ontario school principal by launching a petition accusing Burns of “allegiance to Satanic practices.”
The petition, titled “Eden High School Principal, Sharon Burns, Needs to Be Transferred Immediately!” claimed that this image was “not inclusive.” The statement further read, “Please replace her with another principal who aligns with the values of the families at Eden and will not sabotage the teaching or upholding of those values and will not try to introduce impressionable students to Satanic practices or symbolism.” The petition received 553 signatures.
However a counter-petition in support of Burns was kick started by the students and supporters that received over 20,000 signatures entitled “We need Mrs. Burns,” “The principal has made so many efforts to remind students that Eden is a diverse place. She has even turned a whole room into a prayer room for students who are practicing religions other than Christianity, like practicing Islam. She has made Eden a safe space for so many people. She spreads nothing but love and kindness, and is probably one of the best and most enthusiastic principals the school has ever had.”
The original petition seeking Burns’ removal was taken down, as well as the Iron Maiden associated photos posted by Burns on Instagram but the news went global.
Now retired Sharon tells her side of the story after being silent for 10 months.
Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon from The Metal Voice spoke to legendary guitarist of AcceptWolf Hoffmann about the bands tour plans, new music, the status of their documentary and the possibility of ever doing an Accept Fest
When asked about North American Tour “I’m currently in Europe as we have we all have been here for the whole summer because it’s summer festival season here and we played more shows than I can remember ever playing. I mean we usually do festivals for a few weeks here and there but it’s been almost three months for us now because I think there was all this pent up demand because of the pandemic. So this summer has been busier than ever it’s been awesome. So now we’re getting ready to do this U.S. tour which is coming up soon. It’s actually the first full-blown U.S tour for Accept in a decade, it’s time I don’t know.”
When asked was it a good idea to release their last studio album ‘To Mean to die’ during the pandemic “It went really y well, I have to say people love the album and I think that we’re very grateful that we didn’t hold back until times got back to normal. People got to enjoy the album and the fan reaction was fantastic. We sold really well, of course nobody knows what it would have been like had we had the tour to support the album.”
When asked about the upcoming set list “We incorporate a whole lot more songs than I had anticipated at some of these festival shows that we did. We played like five new songs and they all had a great reaction from the fans because normally a lot of times when we have a new album we play only two songs sometimes three but there’s so much good stuff on this album, so much good live songs, that it’s really fun to do and people really appreciate it. I do put the setlist together every night but we do make stuff up sometimes last minute. I make a small adjustment and we also like to mix it up sometimes more than we’ve ever done before. A lot of times in the past we arrived at what seemed to be the perfect set list and we kind of kept it as is. Lately we all said why don’t we just mix it up a little because it’s also fun for us and if somebody comes to more than one show they get a slightly different set list. I can tell you this some songs we will always play like ‘Princess of the dawn’ , ‘Fast as a shark’, ‘Metal heart’, ‘Balls to the wall’.”
When asked if he ever heard the AC/DC original Demo of the song ‘I’m A Rebel’ which was given to Accept to record for their second album “I have yeah and Bon Scott singing on it from what I remember. It’s unreleased and they probably will keep it in the archive or their vault or whatever forever I can tell you why it will be unreleased because it was a demo. Apparently AC/DC did not like the song enough or they didn’t want to record it properly they just had the demo and said, we are not going to do properly record it. So that’s how we ended up with the song. I thought their version was fabulous. I thought it was much better than our version, sorry. I remember that was clearly Bon Scott on it, kind of a rough demo. I believe it was recorded in Hamburg at a demo studio or maybe not. I know that Alex Young (who wrote the song) lived in Hamburg at the time or at least he had a really close connection to our publisher that’s how we ended up with a song. They said we’ve got these unreleased songs and I think the song would be great for you guys and we actually met him (Alex Young).”
When asked if they would even do a tour playing a whole classic album from start to finish “I’m not a huge fan of all these anniversary things because it always reeks a little bit of desperation, like I don’t have a new album we’ve got nothing else to say, so we celebrate something that happened 40 years ago. Maybe if we’ve come to the point where we don’t have a current album and it happens to be anniversary? I don’t want to really get caught up in that too much and as far as like playing an album in the entirety we’ve done that once or twice but an album is an album and it has a certain running order and the show has a different running order to me and it’s not necessarily the best live show. But it doesn’t say we don’t want to do it, actually we committed to do to that in Japan but that show never happened. We were supposed to play the entirety of ‘Metal heart’ and ‘Balls to the wall’ in two different shows in Japan as a special thing. We rehearsed for it but then pandemic uh put a stop to it it never happened. “
When asked if he would ever consider doing an Accept Festival brining back the former members, like Schenker Fest “I mean anything is possible but at this point no interest, no thanks. I learned to say never say never because one day you might look like a fool otherwise.”
When asked if you have been inspired to get ideas ideas down for a new album “I tell you what is inspiring, it is to be out on stage and to see the reaction of fans. When you ask me was I creative during this pandemic time, no. I wasn’t, I kind of fell into a slump. I’m totally honest I didn’t know when life would resume and I didn’t know when the tour would actually happen that we had planned and there were so many unknowns and so I didn’t feel inspired. But now that I’m back out on the road and we’re on stage every night and I’m fired up and I actually wrote a bunch of stuff already sitting in hotel rooms and such. That’s when I get creative. Time just flew by doing this pandemic and I wasn’t really creative at all. I wish I would have been but you can’t force it.”
When asked about the status of the Accept Documentary “I don’t know where it stands, I need to check but I think it came to a halt because there wasn’t enough stuff (video footage) that that we could find. We wanted some fan footage but there really isn’t much fan footage yeah it’s kind of disappointing in a way.”
“Too Mean To Die – Tour North America 2022” dates w/ Accept
Sept. 29 – Nashville, TN – Brooklyn Bowl Oct. 1 – Houston, TX – The Concert Pub North Oct. 2 – Fort Worth, TX – Rail Club Oct. 4 – San Antonio, TX – The Espee Pavilion Oct. 5 – El Paso, TX – Rockhouse Oct. 7 – San Luis Obispo, CA – The Coach House Oct. 8 – West Hollywood, CA – Whisky A Go-Go Oct. 9 – Las Vegas – Vamp’d Oct. 11 – Denver, CO – The Venue Oct. 13 – Milwaukee, WI – The Rave Ballroom Oct. 14 – St. Charles, IL – The Arcada Theater Oct. 15 – Westland, MI – The Token Oct. 16 – Toronto, ON – The Phoenix Theater Oct. 18 – Vineland, NJ – Landis Theater Oct. 20 – Jim Thorpe, PA – Penns Peak Oct. 21 – Patchogue, NY – Stereo Garden Oct. 22 – Peekskill, NY – Paramount Theater Oct. 23 – Teaneck, NJ – Debonair Music Hall Oct. 25 – New York City, NY – The Gramercy Oct. 26 – Derry, NH – Tupelo Music Hall Oct. 27 – Harrisburg, PA – XL Live Oct. 29 – Columbus, OH – King Of Clubs
Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon from The Metal Voice recently spoke to lead singer of Blind Guardian Hansi Kürsch about the bands upcoming studio album ‘The God Machine’ , which will be released on Sept 2, 2022 via Nuclear Blast.
Tell us about the cover art on the new album by Peter Mohrbacher “We were just simply blown away when we saw the artwork. It was very suitable for the music. We needed something connected to mythology, philosophy, religion and also computer games and it is all planted into that artwork, the artist is a genius and we feel it would be the next step. We didn’t feel it was so far away from what we usually do, maybe a little more intense and other than that we were so convinced it would fit the purpose. This angel is organic but still it also has an artificial approach and this is what we are also dealing with in the lyrics. There are a lot of deities and future stuff.”
Tell us about a few of the lyrical themes on the album “The song ‘Architects of Doom’ is about the cycle of violence. The lyrics were related to the new series (latest Battlestar Galactica series) because of the intensity that the series had. The song ‘Destiny’ is related to Hans Christian Andersen (writer) and the Ice Maiden (novel). It is an obsessive song, a fragile song but still threatening somehow. The Ice Maiden is about obsession. I wanted to have a sort of love story and Hans Christian Andersen is the best storyteller. He just is so great at inventing stories and there is always that deeper sense that goes along with it. It’s about the cold obsession of love. The results are just fatal at least for one party. The song ‘Let it be no more’ was a long process in creating this one we worked on it at the end of 2018 to 2019. It was when my mother passed away and that had an impact on the vocals and on the melody lines, especially in the verses. It’s about loss in general and what loss means to those who are left behind and those who depart and that was also related to the TV series, ‘The Leftovers’ which gave it an additional depth.”
Tell us about the musical direction of this album compared to the last ones ” The intensity is extremely high, more of the let your hair down then the bombastic side even though there are some bombastic moments. It would say it is the back to the roots album because there are a lot of new elements in there but it has the intensity in what we did in the 90’s. If we speak about aggression maybe it’s our most aggressive one (album) and the only other albums that come close to it are ‘Imaginations from the other side’ and ‘Follow the blind’. I think the two years (lockdown) that we all had, had an impact on the album. We started the production when the pandemic really started and that had an impact on the lyrics, performance and the music. We were all frustrated and we wanted to let the anger just go, let loose. It’s an angry album. This album is complete, for us once the album is complete it is the best album, there is no doubt about it and sometimes he have been proven wrong because the fans did not feel the same way. With this one it is so complete, it’s so defined that I would think that most of the Blind Guardian fans will fall in love with it. We also had a good amount of songs which we did not finally put on the album and we did not even work on during the production because we found our way with the songs which are on the album and we never left that path.”
When asked if the band went far enough with Orchestrations and now it’s time to go back to basics? “Everyone in the band has a slightly different perspective. For me there was a necessity to just let go, After we finished ‘the Legacy of the Dark lands’ album’ I did not feel the urge to back back there again. It was time for a new starting point, for a new era. For me it felt like going home (new Album) or getting home, with distorted guitars and having a band accompany me. I also felt like if there was something bad about the ‘Legacy of the Dark Lands’ or ‘Beyond the Red mirror’ , it was that the band does not shine enough, there is so much going on, there is so much information and this takes away attention from the band members. For me from the beginning I wanted to make an album that just features the band. When we discussed it everyone in the band was on the same page even though I believe that André Olbrich would like to do another orchestrated album, for me that is not what I want to do within the next 5 years.”
The cover artwork for the CD was designed by Peter Mohrbacher and can be seen below.
Tracklist: 1. Deliver Us from Evil 5:21 2. Damnation 5:20 3. Secrets of the American Gods 7:28 4. Violent Shadows 4:17 5. Life Beyond the Spheres 6:02 6. Architects of Doom 6:20 7. Let It Be No More 4:48 8. Blood of the Elves 4:37 9. Destiny 6:46
Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke in depth to Queensrÿche singer Todd La Torre and Producer Zeuss (Rob Zombie, Over Kill, Sanctuary, Hatebreed) about the writing and recording of the bands upcoming new studio album Digital Noise Alliance that will be released on October 7 via Century Media.
Chris “Zeuss” Harris, previously worked with Queensrÿche on 2015’s “Condition Hüman” and “The Verdict” LPs.
When asked who did the drumming on the new album? “It was a 100% Casey. The only thing I was just inputting was ideas. Like oh man I thought of a cool thing here and I might talk to Casey or I would get on the drums and show him the part that I was hearing and if he liked it or the band liked it or it might have been implemented. I did not play one single drum bit nothing. This was a hundred percent Casey. I was just a co-collaborator as is everyone else in the band.” Todd
“We did some writing sessions in a mansion in Florida at Hulk Hogan’s old house. So we were working there and they have this huge ass room that’s just simply amazing and I said to Todd, we have to do the drums here (mansion) This has got to happen, we need to make this happen. And the kind folks that owned the house let us go there to record the drums. It’s probably some of the best drum sounds I’ve ever gotten. And by the way, to all the jackoffs out there that think they are fake (drums) or they’re all sound replaced, trust me there’s a mic on the top and bottom of every drum, everything that you hear is 100 percent .” Zeuss
When asked how many songs they wrote for the new album “I think the hardest part with the new album was choosing the songs because we had a lot of good stuff this time. We had like 20, 23, 24, songs ideas. I would say some of them might have been not as far along but they could have been probably made into a song. We also have to think like how the album is going to be. So sometimes there was a choice on picking a song not that it was better than another one. For example we need like a faster paced song on the record because we have like 6 mid tempos songs ” Zeuss
“At some point Zeuss was like, guys we have to commit and pick the songs and then we’ll refine those and if there’s a chunk from something else that we really love we can try to find a way to incorporate that into the chosen tracks.” Todd
When asked about if there was a strict a deadline when making the new Album “When Zeuss was down here (Florida) right before we went out on the Judas Priest tour, I was still cutting vocal tracks to finish up some loose ends, even some lead vocals like the night before he had to tear all his (studio) stuff down and and he went to bed at 3, 4 in the morning. It was like down to the last literally, last second. The record label has a deadline and there’s a lot of stuff that is involved behind the scenes. Not just well, we’ll put the record out whenever we want. There are deadlines and commitments and tours routed around a release date so if we didn’t put this thing out we wouldn’t be doing the touring that’s already scheduled to support the record and so on. So there’s a lot of things involved. ” Todd
“But obviously if you know that it’s totally not ready you have to say it’s just not ready, which we’ve done before. When you get to a certain point, like on this record, we knew that we could complete it but it was just down to the wire.” Zeuss
When asked about the second single Forest “This is one of my favorite songs on the new record by the way. What I love about the song is the space. It’s spacious, it’s mature, there’s layering, it’s not linear and on 11 the whole time. There are peaks and valley’s. This song to me is a mature piece of music. it’s simple but it’s very effective, it’s profound and I love the the spatial qualities about it, it’s just such a refreshing change from the constant sing high notes or chugs on the guitars. That music too is all fine and good but the beauty of Queensrÿche is the backyard is pretty big and we can do stuff like this and the song is still kind of within the boundaries of the yard that we have.” Todd
“The great thing about the band is I can suggest something really weird and odd and it would still work with the band because they have done so much in their career with experimenting and trying things and they have a lot left in the tank.” Zeuss
When asked about the lyrical theme on first two singles, ‘In Extremis’ and ‘Forest’ “I write dark content, I don’t usually write happy sounding stuff. That song ‘In Extremis’ is about being on your deathbed and you’re in the hospital and your hearing is the last sense to go when you pass away. So it’s about that perspective they think that you’re not responsive, that you probably can’t hear them, that you’re just laying there, they’re talking to you but you’re not responding. If I’m writing something that’s grim or dark or whatever or it’s in the less comfortable side of life that people should try to shy away from or they don’t want to go there. That song has a profound meaning. That’s where I live and there are a lot of times I will approach it this way, not a pessimistic way but a very pragmatic way. But then it will evolve into there’s light at the end of the tunnel and in the song ‘Forest’ it says help me find a way through this maze of misery lost without a trace, yesterday’s a memory. But then it says come see me in my dreams you know it’s inviting that presence to come see me I’m not afraid of you come, l embrace. I think everybody was expecting another rocker and we were like you know what they’re going to get all that exactly let’s really put this out because we believe in it and it is something different there’s a million bands doing hard heavy stuff we are not we’re gonna cut right through all that because we’re just doing something different. On this song it’s such a an important topic I have blown away by the support and the feedback people are sharing their stories, things like I just lost my mom two weeks ago or I buried my 15 year old daughter a year ago, all these stories that people want to share. They’re grown men, man I’m crying as I type this thank you, you really this is this is that’s what music’s all about you know striking a nerve.” Todd
When asked about other lyrical topics on the new album “There’s another song I’m not gonna say which one yet because there’s a music video for that song coming soon but it talks about today’s generation with this constant almost like a lack of respect you know there’s this overstepping, this traffic. It’s all this fast-paced stuff and it talks about this social change that’s happening with people on Tick Tock, look at me but they don’t promote anything. Everyone is so attention starved. This song on the album talks about this newer age that we live in. If I didn’t have to promote Queensrÿche or my music, I would delete my Facebook today. I would delete my Twitter today. I’m very thankful of the interaction and the positive feedback and the support that people give through those platforms, so it’s not to undermine them for using those platforms. That is not what I am saying. What I’m saying is I have no need to say look at me just because I feel like I need attention believe me I would rather be off the grid but because I do have this thing that I’m trying to promote and it’s how I earn a living that’s why I have it. And that is not knocking other people that don’t have anything to promote that are on these platforms that support the bands, that’s it’s just me personally. I do engage with the audience that supports what I do. That being said I really could be totally happy probably happier if I weren’t involved on the grid. ” Todd
When asked about the musical direction of the new album for someone who has never heard of the band before ” I would say this, it can be heavy at times, it can be intimate at times, the vocal range is all over the map. There’s dual leads for the guitar players out there and there’s really classic dueling harmony solos, creative drumming and interesting keyboard work. As far as the compositions on the record there’s a lot of variety, there’s a lot of ups and downs there’s a few surprises for sure. This record has some really cool industrial- ish ear candy. On Rage for Order’ they had all this like sampling and programming and sequencing and stuff like that and there’s some of that stuff in this record too ” Zeuss
“I would say it’s a melodic hard rock band with metal and progressive elements, there’s softness and real heavy stuff and there’s everything in between so there’s a nice variety.” Todd When asked what Queensrÿche album in the back catalog it can be compared to “It has elements of all their best material. I would say if you took all of the songs the are summarized from albums one to six. The first thing I wanted to do when I first started working with the band is get the F- guitars back (higher in the mix) and I think we succeeded with that ” Zeuss
What’s the meaning behind that of the album title Digital Noise Alliance “It’s actually more complicated than I can explain it. When we you look at the DNA of the Tri-ryche and you’re like what does that mean? You have this evolution of society where we are in a digital age. There are people that meet online that never met in person before, there are people that are part of support groups online that they feel comfortable whether it’s they were abused or it’s substance abuse problems. There’s a lot of support and help with groups and things that are online. People might not have the courage to go in person but there’s this buffer because they’re behind their computer but they can still be part of this network. There’s so many things that are intertwined with the digital aspect of the title it’s how we’re evolving as a society right. The noise aspect, it’s pretty noisy out there it’s there’s a lot happening, social media is a big example. For example if you if you took away the internet what would the political divide really be in the United States. There’s a lot of there’s a lot happening, it’s a very noisy environment. Then the Alliance you know we are Queensrÿche and we are evolving, societies are are evolving. I’m probably doing a disservice to the title right at the off the top of my head but it’s all encompassing of society, geopolitical things, human nature and the evolution of the human species and the human condition and all of that is encompassed in the lyrics of this record. That was one of the things we loved about the album title and Zeuss was there coming up with the album title with us. We were talking about these concepts and he said you know what about this this it sounds really cool. And Michael Wilton and the guys have always said you know it’s in our DNA. ” Todd
” A fan messaged me and he said something about the DNA of the band and I kept bringing up DNA, not Digital Noise Alliance but just DNA as a as a topic, and I was like well I wonder if we could like take that as and run with that somehow and it ended up working out.” Zeuss
Track List for Queensrÿche Digital Noise Alliance
In Extremis Chapters Lost in Sorrow Sicdeth Behind the Walls Nocturnal Light Out of the Black Forest Realms Hold On Tormentum Rebel Yell (Cover)
Jimmy Kay from The Metal Voice recently spoke to legendary Canadian Icon Lee Aaron and guitarist Sean Kelly (Lee Aaron, Helix, Coney Hatch). The two spoke about the upcoming new studio album ‘Elevate’ and their upcoming show at the famous El Mocambo Club in Toronto.
Plus Lee Arron’s autobiography, new coffee blend ‘Bodyrock’ and the time she shared the stage with Iron Maiden Bruce Dickinson and Steve Harris at L’amours (Club) in New York.
Guitarist Sean Kelly Spoke about the writing process on the new album, “I am constantly pestering Lee with ideas because I think it’s the buzz that we are chasing at this point in our lives. The process of creation that comes out of friendship and sharing our influences getting in a room. That happened again with the new album ‘Elevate’ getting together in the room working with Mike Fraser ( record producer, engineer, and mixer) and Lee producing. We are just vibing off each other, it’s a special chemistry and it’s one that I appreciate more and more especially after Covid where we had to be separated and I am so grateful for it. “
Lee Aaron continued, “The new album Elevate is the Covid Baby. ‘Radio On’ our last album came out in 2021 and we have just finished another studio album (Elevate).The new album springboards from where ‘Radio On’ left off (musically). ‘Radio On’ was written literally just before Covid hit and we recorded the bed tracks and finished the album during Covid. ‘Elevate’ the new album was created during Covid too. It was the process of sending files back and forth. So the vibe is a little more different, even a little more structured but well thought out. I think it takes ‘Radio On’ to a whole other level. I also think we dove into a little more pseudo political territory with some of the lyrics. We are all growing up in this bizarre age and there are so many weird things going on in our world right now and that was reflected on the material from the new album. We are hoping to release the new album pre Christmas but if it doesn’t work out because of the timeline it will probably be the spring of next year. There will be ten songs but we recorded 14. A couple of the songs are long. My husband explained to me that vinyl sounds best under 45 minutes long so I had to come up with running order that was 45 minutes long, so we ended up shaving it to about 10 tracks. Now we have extra tracks left but I am not sure what we are going to do with them yet but they will come out on something in the future.”
Lee Aaron had several hits in the 1980s and early 1990s, such as “Metal Queen”, “Whatcha Do to My Body”, and “Sex with Love”. Her last album ‘Radio On’ was released in 2021. She won three Toronto Music Awards for Best Female Vocalist and received ten Juno nominations.
The Metal Voice’s Jimmy Kay talks to legendary DJ Neal Kay (Part 2) of an exclusive live interview. Topics covered in the chat: Blaze Bayley; Clive Burr’s Exit; Dennis Stratton; Iron Maiden songwriting court case; joining Rush on the Hemispheres tour and his thoughts on Iron Maiden continuing without Steve Harris.
Neal Kay’s new official biography will be released Sept 2022 by author Stjepan Juras with a forward by Iron Maiden Steve Harris.
Neal Kay was asked to confirm if there was indeed a second guitarist who played (rumour Paul Cairns played guitar and was uncredited) on the legendary Iron Maiden Soundhouse tapes or was it just Dave Murray who did all the guitar work, Neal Kay said,” Dave Murray unquestionably, Dave Murray played on it. When I met the band there was only one guitarist in the band. Paul Di’anno was singing, Doug Sampson was on the drums, Steve Harris was playing Bass and Dave Murray was the guitarist. .”
Neal Kay continued,” I have also been involved in some crazy court case about all this recently. I got a letter from a lawyer who said listen we want to borrow your Soundhouse tape Cassette because we want to check it out more precisely. The London lawyer left a phone number and I was really annoyed. These guys (the people the lawyer represented) were claiming that they wrote some of the chord structures to some of the songs and some of the lyrics. I got this letter that kind of said if would I help them and basically I just wanted to tell them to F-off. I phoned them up and said listen you, whoever you are, I hope you got the deepest pockets on the planet if you think you are going to tackle Iron Maiden in the court of law. Not only is this stuff you are telling me rubbish but I never knew any of these guys when I first met the band (Iron Maiden). None of them were there, there was only Dave Murray and I have been repeatedly told that Dave played on the recordings at Spaceward studios. They came to me out of desperation thinking I would back them, I don’t know where these people get off, they must be damaged psychologically “
The Soundhouse Tapes is the debut E.P. by Iron Maiden, and features the first recordings by the band. Released on 9 November 1979, it features three songs taken from the demo tape recorded at Spaceward Studios on 30 and 31 December 1978. The three tracks (“Iron Maiden”, “Invasion” and “Prowler”) appear in a rougher form than they would on the band’s eponymous debut studio album and subsequent singles, as they were all recorded in one session.
Neal Kay is a NOWBHM legend for whose biographical book the legendary bass guitarist and founder of the band Iron Maiden Steve Harris decided to write foreword. That fact alone speaks to how crucial Neal Kay was to Iron Maiden’s early success, and in this book we’ll find out everything that hasn’t been talked about to date! Strictly limited to 333 copies, hardcover, full color edition, with a special certificate signed and dedicated by Neal Kay, is called the ‘Soundhouse Premium’ edition and will be a gem in any serious book collection.
The special, luxurious, hardcover, full color edition of this book with the cover page printed in gold print is a unique edition that only the first 333 fans will be able to buy and which will never be on sale again. What makes this edition special? In addition to being a very heavy, large format book, printed on the highest quality paper, every customer of the ‘Soundhouse Premium’ edition will receive a special A4 hard paper certificate of authenticity of this edition of the book as a gift with the original ‘The Soundhouse Tapes’ sleeve text written by NEAL KAY back in 1979. NEAL KAY will sign each original text with a personalized dedication to each customer in a way that this classic document that witnessed the rise of the IRON MAIDEN will be perfect for framing. Each certificate will be numbered and protected by holographic printing. A special addition to this edition (in case the buyer is the owner of the original EP ‘The Soundhouse Tapes’), will be a very special gift that will put a ‘dot on and on’ to their collector’s treasure.
THE ROCK ALCHEMIST – Italian Rock Band from Turin with a strong sonic identity that blends modern rock with progressive, hard, alternative, and pop elements!
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
