Day After Day #284: Killers

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Killers (1981)

Continuing the look at scary songs in the runup to Halloween, today the spotlight is on the early days of Iron Maiden. This is also doubling as a tribute to the band's singer on their first two albums, Paul Di'Anno, who died on Monday at the age of 66. 

As noted in my previous post about the band, Iron Maiden was formed on Christmas Day 1975 by bassist Steve Harris. There were many personnel changes in the early years of the band; in November 1978, they auditioned Di'Anno (who went by Paul Andrews before he joined the band), a gruff but powerful vocalist and gave him the job. The band's self-titled debut came out in 1980 and was immediately successful, debuting at #4 on the U.K. Albums Chart thanks to songs like "Running Free." After opening for KISS and Judas Priest, the band was riding high, but guitarist Dennis Stratton was fired and replaced by Adrian Smith, a childhood friend of their other guitarist Dave Murray. 

Maiden didn't like the production on their first album and hired veteran producer Martin Birch to work on their second studio album. Except for "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "Prodigal Son," the songs were written before the band recorded its debut album. Harris wrote all the songs himself except two: "Killers" with Di'Anno and "Twilight Zone" with Murray. 

Thanks to Birch's production, the album sounds a lot better than the debut, even if the songs on the first album are a bit stronger. Murray and Smith provide a potent twin guitar combo, Harris is a monster on bass and drummer Clive Burr's drumming is superb, but another highlight is the aggressive vocal style of Di'Anno. It's kind of become fashionable for Maiden fans to claim they like Di'Anno over his successor Bruce Dickinson, who had a more traditional operatic metal singing style; I like the Dickinson albums better, but there's no denying Di'Anno's power and street-tough attitude. Some even said he brought a punk sensibility to Maiden.

That is especially evident on the title track, which is a coiled and menacing tale of a killer on the loose that switches between the third and first person.

"You walk through the subway/His eyes burn a hole in your back/A footstep behind/He lunges prepared for attack/Scream for mercy/He laughs as he's watching you bleed/Killer behind you/His blood lust defines all his needs."

Still a young band, Maiden plays with precision as Di'Anno steps into the role of the killer.

"My innocent victims/Are slaughtered with wrath and despise/The mocking religion/Of hatred that burns in the night/I have no one/I'm bound to destroy all this greed/A voice inside me/Compelling to satisfy me/I can see/What a knife's meant to be/You'll never know/How I came to foresee, see, see."

The instrumental passages give a preview of the galloping metal sound the band would refine on future albums, even as they move away from classic horror tropes and start writing more literary songs about ancient mariners, historical figures and war. 

"My faith in believing/Is stronger than lifelines and ties/The glimmer of metal/My moment is ready to strike/The death call arises/A scream breaks the still of the night/Another tomorrow/Remember to walk in the light/I have found you/And now there is no place to run/Excitement shakes me/Oh God help me, what have I done?/I've done it again."

The album was a little less successful than the debut, hitting #12 on the U.K. chart, but it was the band's first foray onto the Billboard 200 in the U.S., reaching #78. Maiden played in the U.S. for the first time on this tour, opening for Judas Priest.

Although the band was building its profile around the world, Di'Anno was struggling with the increased demands of the job and began going overboard with cocaine and alcohol abuse. After the Killer World Tour ended, the band fired Di'Anno and replaced him with the former singer of Samson, Bruce Dickinson. Maiden's next album, The Number of the Beast, was a huge hit and the band rocketed to the top of the metal heap.

Meanwhile, things didn't go as well for Di'Anno. He formed a band called Di'Anno that moved away from the metal sound of Maiden to the AOR vibe of bands like Journey, although they did play Maiden's "Remember Tomorrow" in concert. The group released one album before breaking up. Di'Anno then joined a would-be supergroup called Gogmagog that was assembled by producer Jonathan King. The band also included Burr, future Maiden guitarist Janick Gers and former Def Leppard axman Pete Willis and bassist Neil Murray. King forbade the group from writing their own material; they released a three-song EP that had them perform a Russ Ballard song and two written by King. It didn't chart and the group disbanded.

Di'Anno then started a band called Battlezone (also called Paul Di'Anno's Battlezone) that made two albums before splitting up, after which he formed a power metal band called Killers, which would release four albums. In the late '90s, Di'Anno put together a new version of Battlezone and made another album. He continued to play with various bands over the subsequent decades, relocating to Brazil in 2008. In 2011, he was sentenced to nine months in prison in the U.K. after being convicted of fraud but was released after two months for good behavior. 

He struggled with health issues for years, including a knee problem that had him performing live in a wheelchair the last several years of his life. It couldn't have been easy to watch his former band ascend to such heights without him. Di'Anno was able to meet up with the guys from Maiden a few years ago and they seemed to be on good terms, judging by the photos posted of them. He was a troubled man who led a troubled life, but Di'Anno left behind a couple of killer albums.