The long and twisting road from formation to the current day started in 1975, when bassist Steve Harris and guitarist Dave Murray met up. Thirty years later, the two remain at the helm of Iron Maiden.
             
Iron Maiden had twelve different line-ups in the 1970s, paying their dues on the mostly punk club circuit in London's rough East End. Although Iron Maiden were a metal band influenced by Deep Purple, Yes, Wishbone Ash, and Black Sabbath, the earlier music had undoubted punk overtones. Original singer Paul Day was replaced by the outlandish Dennis Wilcock, a huge KISS fan who used fire, make-up, and fake blood on stage. Neither vocalist possessed both the stage presence and vocal ability to take the band to the next level. This changed in 1978, with the addition of Paul Di'Anno at the helm, and Doug Sampson on drums.

Iron Maiden were a sensation on the English rock circuit by 1978. The band had been playing for three years and gained a tremendously loyal following, but had never recorded any of their music. On New Year's Eve 1978, the band recorded one of the most famous demos in rock history, The Soundhouse Tapes. Featuring only four songs, the band sold all five thousand copies within weeks, with originals selling for thousands of dollars until a re-release in 1996. Two of the tracks on the demo,"Prowler" and "Iron Maiden", went straight to number one on the English metal charts. Their first appearance on an album was on the compilation Metal for Muthas (released on 15 February 1980) with two early recordings of Sanctuary and Wrathchild.

In several of the early Iron Maiden line-ups, Dave Murray was joined by another guitarist, but for most of 1977 and all of 1978, Murray was the sole six-stringer in the band. This changed with the arrival of Tony Parsons in 1979. Drummer Doug Sampson was also replaced by the dynamic Clive Burr, and in November 1979, the band landed a major record deal by signing to EMI, a partnership that would last for nearly 15 years. Shortly before going into the studio, Parsons was replaced by guitarist Dennis Stratton. Initially, the band wanted to hire Dave Murray's childhood friend Adrian Smith, but Smith was busy singing and playing guitar for his own band, Urchin.

Iron Maiden was released in 1980 to critical and commercial success, and the group become one of the leading components of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM). The band went on to open for KISS on their 1980 Unmasked tour, with the management of Rod Smallwood, as well as opening select dates for the legendary Judas Priest. After the Kiss tour, Dennis Stratton was fired from the band as a result of creative and personal differences. Finally, the timing was right for the arrival of Adrian .

Smith brought a sharp, staccato sound to Iron Maiden. His tight, experimental style was the complete opposite of Murray's smooth, rapid take on blues. One of Iron Maiden's trademarks is the double "twin lead" harmonising guitar stylings of Murray and Smith, a style pioneered by Wishbone Ash and Thin Lizzy, and developed further by Iron Maiden.

In 1981, Maiden released their second album, titled Killers. This new album contained many tracks that had been penned prior to the release of the debut album, but were considered surplus. Only two new tracks were written for the album; Killers, and the energetic Murders In The Rue Morgue.

As a group, Maiden partied and drank hard, but drug taking was rare (although not unheard of). Vocalist Paul Di'Anno partied harder than the others, which inevitably took its toll. Just as the band were beginning to achieve large-scale success in America, Di'Anno exhibited increasingly destructive behaviour, and his performances began to suffer. In 1982 the band replaced Di'Anno with former Samson vocalist Bruce Dickinson.

Dickinson vowed from the start that he was his own man – in his own words, he "wasn't going to wear frilly collars and cut his hair". Legendary DJ, Tommy Vance had told Dickinson not to join the band – advice which was ignored. Dickinson's debut with Iron Maiden was 1982's album The Number of the Beast, which is recognised as a classic of the heavy metal genre. This album was a world-wide success providing definitive songs such as "The Number Of The Beast", "Run To The Hills" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name". For the first time the band went on a world tour, visiting the United States, Japan and Australia. The tour was marred (or perhaps promoted) by controversy coming from religious groups that claimed Iron Maiden was a Satanic group because of their dark lyrics, which supposedly spoke of Satan. The allegations centered around one song, "The Number Of The Beast", a song ostensibly about a bad dream. The members of Iron Maiden tried to deflect this criticism by insisting that the lyrics were based on a dream of Steve Harris's, but the accusations persisted. A group of Christian activists decided that the band's records (along with those of Ozzy Osbourne) should be destroyed - resulting in a mountain of vinyl records being burnt in a large fire. Pandemonium ensued when the activists were forced to flee the resultant fumes. It was then decided that smashing the records with hammers would be a better way to dispose of them.

  On the same tour, producer Martin Birch was involved in a car accident with a group of church-goers. Ironically the bill for the repair came to £666, a figure which Birch refused to pay, instead opting for a higher amount, £668.

On a more positive note, actor Patrick McGoohan was very accommodating when a request was made to allow the band to use a spoken intro from the cult TV series, The Prisoner,, in which McGoohan was the lead actor. McGoohan was a big name in 1982, and Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood was nervous about making the request. The conversation between McGoohan and Smallwood allegedly went:

McGoohan: "What did you say the name of the band was again?"
Smallwood: "Iron Maiden"
McGoohan: "A rock band, you say... do it!"

Box cover from Powerslave Album, 1984, before heading back into the studio in 1983, they replaced drummer Clive Burr with Nicko McBrain and went on to release four albums which went multi-platinum world-wide: Piece of Mind (1983), Powerslave (1984), Live After Death (1985) and Somewhere in Time (1986). The band gathered huge audiences worldwide, especially in South America, Asia, Australia, and the United States. Support in these areas remains to this day, with the possible exception of the United States.

Satanic accusations persisted - there was a lot of controversy about occult messages in many bands' music at the time, normally discovered by playing the offending track backwards. On the Piece Of Mind album, from 1983, a backward message was placed at the start of the track "Still Life" as a kind of internal joke. Reverse this track, and you will hear drummer McBrain clearly saying "Hmm, Hmmm, what ho sed de t'ing wid de t'ree bonce. Don't meddle wid t'ings you don't understand", followed by a belch. McBrain later admitted this to be his "famous" impression of Idi Amin Dada. It translates to the following: "What ho said the monster with the three heads, don't meddle with things you don't understand."

Also on the Piece of Mind album, renowned author Frank Herbert came into conflict with the band when they wanted to record a song named after the book Dune. Not only did Herbert refuse to allow the song to be called "Dune", he also refused to allow a spoken quotation from the book to appear as the track's intro. Bass player Steve Harris' polite request was met with a stern reply from the agent: "No. Because Frank Herbert doesn't like rock bands, particularly heavy rock bands, and especially rock bands like Iron Maiden". This statement was backed up with a legal threat, and eventually the song was renamed  "To Tame A Land" and released in 1983.

                                     
In 1988, the band tried a different approach for their seventh studio album, titled Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. This was a concept album featuring a story about a mythical child who possessed clairvoyant powers based on the book Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card.

For the first time the band used keyboards on a recording (as opposed to guitar synths on the previous release). In the opinion of some critics, this produced a more accessible release. The band also headlined the annual Monsters of Rock festival for the first time this year. The 1990 edition of the Guinness Book of Records contains the following entry:

"Largest PA system: On Aug 20th 1988 at the Castle Donington 'Monsters of Rock' Festival a total of 360 Turbosound cabinets offering a potential 523kW of programme power, formed the largest front-of-house PA. The average Sound Pressure Level at the mixing tower was 118dB, peaking at a maximum of 124dB during Iron Maiden's set. It took five days to set up the system."

For the first time in seven years, the band suffered a line-up change with the major loss of guitarist/vocalist Adrian Smith. Former Gillan guitarist Janick Gers was chosen to replace Smith, and in 1990 they released the raw sounding album No Prayer for the Dying. This album went back to the heavy style of the band, and whilst commercially successful, was not as well received by most fans.Vocalist Bruce Dickinson also began experimenting with a raspier style of singing that was a marked departure from his trademark operatic style. Nonetheless, the band obtained their first (and only, to date) number one hit single "Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter". It was released at the start of January, the slowest time of the year for record sales, and was one of the first records to be released on several different formats with different B-sides, thus encouraging fans to buy several copies. The song was originally penned and recorded by Bruce Dickinson for the soundtrack to the fifth Nightmare on Elm Street movie.

Before the release of No Prayer for the Dying, Bruce Dickinson officially launched a solo career alongside Iron Maiden, with Gers as guitarist. Dickinson performed a solo tour in 1991 before returning to the studio with Iron Maiden for the album Fear of the Dark. Released in 1992 it had several songs that were popular amongst fans, Fear Of The Dark and Afraid To Shoot Strangers.

In 1993, Iron Maiden suffered a huge loss when Bruce Dickinson left the band to further pursue his solo career. However, Bruce agreed to stay with the band for a farewell tour and two live albums (later re-released in one package). The first, A Real Live One, featured songs from 1986 to 1992, and was released in March 1993. The second, A Real Dead One, featured songs from 1980 to 1984, and was released after Bruce had left the band. He played his farewell show with Iron Maiden on August 28, 1993. The show was filmed, broadcasted by the BBC, and released on video under the name Raising Hell and released on video under the name Raising Hell. Magician Simon Drake performed grisly illusions on the performance, culminating in Dickinson's "death" in an Iron Maiden. However after Bruce's departure from the band there was a great deal of bad feeling toward him from the other band members.

The band auditioned hundreds of vocalists and finally chose young gun Blaze Bayley in 1994, formerly of Wolfsbane. Bayley had an altogether different style to his predecessor, which received a mixed reception amongst fans. After a three year hiatus, Maiden returned in 1995 with the hour-long album The X Factor. The album was generally seen as having dark, brooding songs that seemed more melancholy and introspective than usual. Chief songwriter Steve Harris was going through serious personal problems at the time with the break-up of his marriage and the loss of his father and many feel the album's sound is a reflection of this. The 11-minute epic "Sign Of The Cross", opening the album, is perhaps the stand-out track, and even Bayley's detractors tend to recognise it as a classic.

The band spent most of 1996 on the road before returning to the studio for Virtual XI (1998). The album contained few notable tracks, with only "The Clansman" and "Futureal" surviving on future tours, and chart positions were observably lower. One of the most criticised tracks was the single "The Angel and the Gambler", which was all that many people heard of the album before deciding not to buy it.Virtual XI failed to reach the one million mark in worldwide sales for the first time, and thus sounded Bayley's death knell.

Bruce Dickinson left the band in 1993, before returning in 1999. In February 1999, Bayley left the band, apparently by mutual consent. At the same time, the band shocked their fans when they announced that both Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith were rejoining the band, which meant the classic 1980s lineup was back in place, plus Janick Gers, who would remain. Iron Maiden now had three guitarists for the first time. This led to a successful reunion tour.

In 2000, a more progressive period began for the band when they released the album Brave New World. The songs were longer and the lyrics spoke about both dark themes and social criticism. The band gained a new fan base when they began exploring the genre of progressive metal, and the world tour that followed ended in January 2001 with a show at the famous Rock in Rio festival.

The band continued with their progressive trend in the album Dance of Death released in 2003. The album went platinum in several countries and left no doubts that the band was still a force to be reckoned with.

In 2005, Iron Maiden announced a tour to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of their first album and the 30th anniversary of their formation. The band re-released the Number of the Beast single, which went straight to number three in the UK charts. The band hit the road to support the 2004 DVD entitled The Early Days, in which the band celebrates the music mainly from its 1980-1983 period.

In the Eddie's Rip Up's tour, the band's show in Gothenburg on Saturday 9 July 2005 was broadcast live on TV across Scandinavia. The Swedish back catalogue album charts published just over a week later were as follows:

Iron Maiden - Number Of The Beast
Iron Maiden - Edward The Great (Best Of)
Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden - Piece Of Mind
Iron Maiden - Killers
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Iron Maiden - Live After Death
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
Iron Maiden - Fear Of The Dark

Iron Maiden toured the United States with a stint on the 10th anniversary Ozzfest tour, playing before Black Sabbath from July 15 through August 20, 2005. The band performed a shortened version of its Early Days European set, usually lasting about an hour. Several nights of the Ozzfest tour saw Iron Maiden headlining due to Ozzy Osbourne experiencing throat problems. Iron Maiden also played several "Off-Fest" dates headlining in places such as Toronto and Denver. During this tour, the band were added to the Hollywood Rockwalk.

At Iron Maiden's last Ozzfest performance, the band had their sound turned off several times, eggs were thrown towards the stage, and chants of "Ozzy" were shouted through the PA system. This was the work of Sharon Osbourne, who took to the stage and called Bruce Dickinson "a prick" after they performed their encore, followed by a large portion of the crowd booing her off the stage. She officially admitted this in a scathing letter, accusing Bruce of heckling her husband, which she signed "The Real Iron Maiden".

Fuck you Sharon !!!!!!
Up the Irons !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The band headlined the Reading and Leeds weekend festivals on the 26th and 28th August 2005, playing classics from the first four studio albums to a combined audience of approximately 120,000.

Death on the Road CD released at 29 th August produced by Kevin Shirley and co produced for Steve Harris, and the DVD released at 2nd Febuary, produced again by Kevin Shirley and co produced for Steve Harris.

A new album has been announced, to be released on worldwide on the 28th August (5th September for the US) and is named A Matter of Life and Death, and the songs featured on it are of a longer nature than a lot of their earlier work, perhaps implying a progressive nature, as shown on their previous two albums. However, it has been confirmed that it will not be a concept album. "The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg" is going to be released as the first single.


It is expected that the album will be high selling, following the increase of sales since Dickinson's return to the band. The album is likely (as previous album Dance of Death did) to hit number one in the charts of most European countries, including the UK where a number one album has eluded the band since 1992's Fear of the Dark (Dance of Death narrowly missed number one to The Darkness' Permission to Land album in 2003 during the height of 'Darkness-mania').

In Autumn 2006, Iron Maiden released A Matter of Life and Death. While the album is not a concept album, war and religion are recurring themes in the lyrics throughout, as well as in the album's artwork.
A successful North American and European tour followed, during which they played the album in its entirety, a first for the band. The band have announced that a live album recorded from this tour will be released.

Iron Maiden recorded a live session at Abbey Road Studios for Live from Abbey Road in December 2006. Their performance was screened in an episode alongside sessions with Natasha Bedingfield and Gipsy Kings in March 2007 on Channel 4 (UK) and June 2007 on the Sundance Channel (USA).
In November 2006, Iron Maiden and manager Rod Smallwood announced that they were cutting off their 27 year old ties with Sanctuary Music and have started a new company named Phantom Music Management. However, no other significant changes were made.

The tour in support of the album will start on October 4th in Hartford (Connecticut). The North American Leg includes 8 US shows and 3 Canada shows. Then Maiden will move to Japan to play 4 gigs, the first of them on October 25th at the legendary Tokyo Budokan and finally they'll start the European leg in Aalborg on November 9th. The European leg will end with 2 nights at London's Earls Court. Whilst Iron Maiden had announced as early as 2003 that they would be cutting back on the length of each tour, the forthcoming tour has been criticised for it missing out many areas usually visited by the band. In particular, the absence of any Eastern European dates (such as Poland, Czech Republic, Greece) despite a strong fan base existing there has been questioned. In addition other countries where Maiden traditionally are very successful (Germany, France, Italy, Spain) are host to only one or two gigs where usually in excess of five are played in each country respectively. Maiden have however announced extensive dates in the UK and Scandinavia, the latter possibly a reward for the area's staggering support for the band on previous tours. Most of the European shows are sold out several months before such as the Scandinavian shows and both nights in Milan.

In 2007, the band confirmed several major festival appearances worldwide for the year to form the second leg of the A Matter of Life and Death tour,  now dubbed A Matter of the Beast to celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Number of the Beast album. The band announced plans to play 5 songs from A Matter of Life and Death and 5 from The Number of the Beast as part of their set but the band played only 4 songs from The Number of the Beast. On the June 24th they ended the tour with a one-off performance at London's Brixton Academy in aid of The Clive Burr MS Trust fund.

On September 5, 2007, the band announced their Somewhere Back In Time World Tour 2008. The setlist for the tour will consist of hits from the 80s, with a specific focus on the Powerslave era for set design. The tour started in Mumbai, India on February 1, 2008 where the band played to an audience of about 30,000. The band will be playing their first ever concerts in Costa Rica and Colombia and their first Australian show since 1992. This ties in with forthcoming 2008 releases on DVD of the classic Live After Death album.
On November 20, 2007, Maiden announced their first ever UK stadium concert with a date scheduled for Twickenham Stadium in London, England on Saturday 5th July, 2008. This will be the only UK date of 2008. On November 28, 2007, it was announced on their website that Lauren Harris, the daughter of Iron Maiden's bassist and founder Steve Harris, will be the opening
act on the first leg of the Somewhere Back In Time World Tour 2008.
On December 31, 2007, Maiden unveiled their special tour plane, a white Boeing 757 decked with the band's logo and an image of Powerslave era Eddie on the tail fin. On January 8, the 757 was christened "Ed Force One" following a contest on the band's official website to name the plane.

In the same time of the beginning of new tour, the band release Live After Death DVD, this new release is the continuation of the Iron Maiden history related in DVD The Early Days.