Iron Maiden: The heavy metal band that still drives audiences wild 50 years later

The true measure of a long-established rock band lies in how they handle their low points. In 1993, Iron Maiden played in Madrid at a venue called Canciller, a small club for their stature: only 1,800 people. Bruce Dickinson, the singer, was leaving the band, and they decided to tour smaller venues. From early afternoon, the line of fans stretched for several blocks.

“Dickinson arrived in one car and the rest of the band in another,” recalls Sócrates Pérez, Canciller’s manager, describing a clear sense of distance between the two factions of the group. Before the show, an odd press conference was held in the venue itself, where they laid out the reasons for the vocalist’s departure, though the answers were full of evasions.

“I went into the dressing room to take some photos, and the atmosphere was normal. There was a certain coolness, but no hostility,” explains Socrates. “That said, even though the relationship wasn’t good, they were very professional. They had been rehearsing in the morning, and the concert was amazing.”

That concert marked the beginning of a downward spiral that would last about six years, but it couldn’t bring down the biggest band in heavy metal. Now, a new documentary, Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition, is shedding light on the British group and its challenges. “Any long career is going to have ups and downs, and you just kind of ride with it,” Steve Harris, 70, the leader of the group, says in the documentary.

Iron Maiden turns 50 at the peak of its popularity: the band has never filled so many stadiums. Iron Maiden is on their Run For Your Lives 50th‑anniversary world tour, running from May 2025 in Budapest through late 2026 across Europe, the Americas and Asia. Last year, they packed Madrid’s Metropolitano with 55,000 fans, and they’ll draw thousands more in Spain as headliners of two festivals: Resurrection Fest in Viveiro (Lugo) on July 2, and Rock Imperium in Cartagena (Murcia) on July 4.

They’ve emerged from the fringes of heavy metal to reach a non‑specialist audience, transforming into an all‑audiences rock band, like The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, and Metallica. And here come the paradoxes that so often hover over the genre: on the one hand, this surge in popularity is an undeniable triumph for a style — hard rock — that has long been ignored or treated condescendingly in cultural sections. But on the other, die‑hard metalheads who were fans since the beginning now wince at seeing their idols attract such a mixed crowd.

Fernando Leal, 53, has seen Iron Maiden — brace yourself — 384 times. The Spaniards’ devotion to the British band has taken him to 53 countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Singapore, China, South Africa, and New Zealand. Leal has been spending his holidays following Iron Maiden for decades. “With what I’ve spent, I could have paid off my mortgage years ago, honestly,” he says with a smile. “Iron Maiden inspires me today the same way they did when I first saw them in 1988. The day I don’t get goosebumps right before they walk onstage, I’ll go home. And I still feel that excitement,” he says.

Leal views the band’s current moment through the lens of someone who has seen them in every possible situation — including some very far from today’s success. “I remember a show in 1995 in an arena that was only half full. Honestly, I don’t think they’re a stadium band. They’re filling them now because we’re living in a moment when everyone wants to go to big concerts, but a good part of the crowd only knows two songs. Maiden is more of an arena band — 15,000 to 20,000 people.”

Iran Maiden was formed in East London in the mid-1970s, and came from working-class backgrounds. For British youth, the band served as a response to the economic crisis that gripped the British middle and lower classes, largely due to Margaret Thatcher’s conservative policies. While not an overtly political band, they attracted young people seeking an escape in the form of aggressive music to forget their bleak daily lives. Harris and his bandmates spearheaded a movement known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Through many lineup changes — especially in the early years — one thing remained constant: Steve Harris’s leadership, exercised from an unusual position. He was a bassist and songwriter who didn’t sing, a tough, street‑hardened figure for whom expressing feelings felt like a sentimental indulgence he couldn’t allow himself. Nicknamed (as he himself recounts) “the Ayatollah” or “the Drill Sergeant” for his firmness, he had to show several members the door. The most significant early departure was Paul Di’Anno — who called Harris “Hitler” — the voice of the first two albums, a good singer but too fond of partying and too unprofessional for a taskmaster like Harris. The bassist also weathered the 1994 exit of Bruce Dickinson, the vocalist who had launched the band to stardom, and coped as best he could when audiences struggled to connect with his replacement, Blaze Bayley.

In the documentary, guitarist Adrian Smith, 69, who also stepped away from the band for a few years, speaks highly of Steve Harris and his vision for the band. It’s rare to see such overwhelming deference within a rock group, a world where egos tend to expand. Smith also highlights the important role played by Rod Smallwood, the band’s implacable manager. According to the guitarist, he was like the “seventh member of the band.”

It was the bassist and the manager who, in the late 1990s, made the decision that saved the band at its closest point to dissolution: orchestrating the return of Bruce Dickinson on vocals and guitarist Adrian Smith, today fundamental pillars of the band.

The musicians never appeared on the covers of their full‑length albums, never changed record labels, and never let themselves be seduced by trends. Most heavy or hard‑rock bands succumbed to short‑lived styles that sold well but didn’t endure: hair metal, grunge, rap metal. Rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy appears in the documentary to highlight the power of the band’s iconography, led by their mascot Eddie — a kind of zombie that evolves with each era, a monument to marketing. “This group created its own universe,” he says in the documentary.

They also showed originality in their themes, rejecting the material most rock bands relied on. They didn’t sing about girls or partying; they drew on mythology, told narrative stories about ancient battles, and explored the human struggle to overcome adversity.

For Jaime Barbosa, 30, drummer of the Spanish band Alcalá Norte, the first hook was the spectacle: “I must have been about nine. My older brother bought the Raising Hell DVD, which captures a live show they recorded in a club. Between songs, a magician would come out and do his act: he fought with Eddie, they put Dave Murray [another guitarist] inside an iron maiden full of spikes, he cut off heads… Fire, explosions, all of it. At that age, I thought every heavy‑metal concert had magic tricks. And since I loved magic, I was blown away.”

Barbosa saw them for the first time at 16, in Valencia, and then again at the Sonisphere festival in Madrid in 2011. “While Dream Theater was playing, I smoked a joint, and I had such a bad experience that I ended up on the ground. Just when it passed, Iron Maiden came on. And that was one of the most incredible moments of my life, because when the high wears off, you feel amazing. And suddenly, Iron Maiden walks out. Wow.”

With a sharp business instinct, the band has always embraced new formats to expand the brand — from video games to pioneering websites. Juan Antonio Muñoz, 40, the promoter (as director of Madness Live!) behind Iron Maiden’s shows in Spain, says: “One of their great strengths is that they’ve managed to reach new generations, and that’s hard in rock and metal. They’re very consistent, and they don’t make musical concessions. Their latest album, Senjutsu (2021), is uncommercial and thrilling. Long, progressive‑rock compositions. People pick up on that authenticity.”

Indeed, Iron Maiden’s sound is unmistakably their own, driven by Harris’s galloping bass and the interplay of Dave Murray, 69, and Adrian Smith on guitars. In the documentary, Smith lists Thin Lizzy and Wishbone Ash as influences, while Harris has always cited the Peter Gabriel era of Genesis, Jethro Tull and King Crimson, progressive‑rock classics.

Muñoz adds another detail after working with them for eight years: “They’re not divas in the dressing room. I was surprised that in 2018, when they played the Metropolitano, they stayed in a four‑star hotel. We’ve worked with Kiss, Scorpions… Some ask for a limousine, a bulletproof car. Them? Nothing. You can easily run into them strolling calmly around whatever city they’re playing in.”

Among so many virtues, there’s also a hint of complacency. Leal complains that on tour the band’s setlist is always the same: “I think that’s their big flaw — at least speaking as a fan. On tour, they don’t change a single song. When I’ve had the chance to talk to Harris, six or seven times, I’ve mentioned it, and he tells me it’s because everything is programmed with the lights and stage effects, and changing songs is complicated. But Metallica, to name a big one, change up to six songs from one night to the next.”

In the documentary Burning Ambition, where Spanish actor Javier Bardem appears showing off his metalhead side, they don’t take many risks either. It’s a hagiography that avoids any thorny issues — and there are some, like the rivalry between Harris and Dickinson or certain members’ struggles with alcohol and drugs. The film works as a solid introduction for newcomers, but it will leave die-hard fans wanting more.

Iron Maiden’s future lies in making the most of this golden moment, despite the health problems they’ve had to face. In 2015, Dickinson announced he had throat cancer. After 10 months of chemotherapy, he recovered remarkably well, as he now proves onstage. Drummer Nicko McBrain, 73, however, had to slow down. He suffered a stroke in 2023 and, although he fought to keep going, he ultimately decided to step away from touring.

But for Iron Maiden, there is no stopping. Steve Harris makes this clear in the documentary: the plan is to keep touring until they can’t any more.

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