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In 1981, KILLERS became the second album released by Iron Maiden.
The entire tracklist includes:
1.The Ides of March
2.Wrathchild
3.Murders in the Rue Morgue
4.Another Life
5.Genghis Khan
6.Innocent Exile
7.Killers
8.Prodigal Son
9.Purgatory
10.Twilight Zone
11.Drifter
Killers continued Iron Maiden on their rise to prominence, selling over four times as many albums after its release than did its predecessor. Overall, Killers is an excellent album, although it lacks the usual epic track that almost all the other Maiden albums contain (for example: 'Phantom Of The Opera', 'Hallowed Be Thy Name', 'To Tame A Land', and 'Rime Of The Ancient Mariner'). However, it contains a great deal of innovative material, including two of Maiden's best instrumental tracks.
Killers is not a concept album, but many of the songs do share a certain commonality. It is an interesting and complex thread, which explores the "killers" concept from several different perspectives including the angry searcher, the fleeing suspect, the innocently accused, the cold-blooded killer, the repentant disciple, and finally the reformed drifter. In this sense, with a bit of imagination the album can be viewed as a progression beginning with anger and violence and ending with repentance and reformation. This is not unlike 'Rime Of The Ancient Mariner', in which the mariner begins as an impulsive killer and ends as a repentant traveller and teacher.
A second and less obvious thread also exists in Killers, relating to the meaninglessness and hopelessness of life. In this sense the Killers album begins what has become a familiar Maiden topic out of which has emerged some of their very best material. But in contrast to some of the later material, the Killers exploration has an extremely depressing, regretful, and suicidal motif. This second thread is most obvious in 'Another Life', 'Twilight Zone', and 'Purgatory'.
It may take quite a few listens to fully appreciate Killers. The style of the Di'Anno albums is a bit different from Maiden's later sound, and can require some adjustment for those who are unfamiliar with it. But after you've given it a chance to sink in, it'll quite probably be one of your favourite Maiden albums.
Killers, the second Iron Maiden album, was the one that confirmed Maiden's status, not only as leading lights of the then burgeoning New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM), but as Britain's best new all-out heavy rock band since Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath first shook up the world in the early-Seventies.
Released in the UK for the first time in February 1981, "for me, it's still one of my all-time favourite Maiden albums," says bassist and founding member Steve Harris. Many of the tracks had been on-stage favourites in the band's show since before their first album, Iron Maiden, a year before, and in many ways Killers can be seen as a companion-piece to that earlier collection.
There had been a line-up change since that first album – guitarist Dennis Stratton, whose musical taste had always been at odds with the rest of the band, being ousted before recording began in favour of the more musically compatible Adrian Smith. But it was a change for the better that left Maiden sounding even more focused and purposeful than before.
As Steve explains: "Dennis was a few years older than us and just into other things. He liked the Eagles and 10CC and stuff like that. I'm not saying Dennis didn't like Maiden's music, I just didn't think his heart was really in it – not like it was for the rest of us." Stratton's last appearance with Maiden had been at the Drammenshallen arena, in Oslo, on October 13, 1980 – the last night of the band's groundbreaking European tour that year supporting superstars, Kiss.
Back home in England, they immediately started working with Adrian on Killers. Laid back and affable, Adrian had been to school with Maiden's other guitarist, Dave Murray, and the two had played together in Adrian's band, Urchin, before Dave joined Steve in Maiden. Adrian had actually been offered the gig in Maiden before Dennis came along, but opted at the time to stick with Urchin, whose 1979 single, Black Leather Fantasy, had just been released.
Since then, however, Urchin had struggled for recognition, while Maiden had hit the ground running in 1980 with a Top 5 debut album and two Top 40 singles (Running Free and Sanctuary). When a chance meeting in the street with Dave and Steve lead to a second invitation to join the band, Adrian, as he confesses, "jumped at the chance!" (Interestingly, the other guitarist Maiden had considered approaching was singer Paul Di'Anno's old East End mate, Phil Collen, then the lipsticked guitarist of retro-glam-rockers, Girl – who later joined those other former NWOBHM stars, Def Leppard!)
With the Maiden line-up now comprising Steve, Adrian, Dave and Paul plus drummer Clive Burr, the first thing they actually did together was an appearance on TV in Germany, followed by a string of year-end UK dates, by way of easing the guitarist into the band before work could begin in earnest on Killers in December. The tour culminated at the Rainbow Theatre in London, where the show was filmed and later released as the classic Dave Hillier-directed half-hour EMI video.
The band then entered Battery Studios, in London, and with the added technical skills of legendary former Deep Purple producer Martin Birch brought to proceedings, Maiden set out to make the album that was to define the band properly for the first time in the public mind. But a strange twist of fate, it was former Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who first suggested that Birch should produce Maiden.
"He said, 'Have you heard this new band?'" the veteran producer of such Purple classics as Fireball and Machine Head recalls. "And he played me the first Iron Maiden album. Then about halfway through it, he just turned to me and said, 'Why don't you do them?' And I thought, he's right, I should be doing this band..."
The first songs the new line-up of Maiden worked on with Martin were 'Killers', the nasty, thief-in-the-night title track which Steve and Paul had come up with, and 'Purgatory', a tasteful reworking of an old song of Steve's called 'Floating', which was also later released as a single from the album.
"They were pretty raw," Martin recalls. As a result, he decided to set them up as if they were playing a gig in the studio. "I told them just to play the songs as they would on stage. Although there were some overdubs added afterwards, essentially Killers was recorded almost like a live album." All 10 tracks had been written by Steve, with a little help here and there from the others. Six of the ten were hardcore Maiden rockers like 'Wrathchild' (miles better than the original Metal For Muthas recording), the blistering 'Another Life', the anthemic 'Innocent Exile', the aforementioned 'Killers' and 'Purgatory', and the yearning album closer, 'Drifter'.
Unafraid as always to experiment, there were also two instrumentals: the 1 minute 46 second overture, 'The Ides Of March', which opens the album in suitably grandiose style, and exactly halfway in, the monolithic 'Genghis Khan'.
The band also felt confident enough to include two more recent numbers only fully completed after Adrian had joined the band: 'Murders In The Rue Morgue' and 'Prodigal Son'. The former was a superb piece of rock theatre destined to become the centre-piece of the new Maiden show; while the latter was a surprisingly melodic, semi-acoustic ballad that showcased a new, more reflective side to the band's music. Not that you'd have guessed it from the album cover. Given its title, not unnaturally Killers featured the most gruesome Eddie yet on the sleeve; an axe-wielding monster caught moments after he appears to have claimed another victim, the blood still dripping from his blade.
Adding a touch of humour, artist Derek Riggs had set this ghoulish scene in Manor Park, one of the tough East London neighbourhoods the band had come from, and painted in such landmark locations in Maiden's history as the Ruskin Arms pub, where they used to play in the early days, with the Kinky Sex Shop right next door (look for Charlotte of 'Charlotte The Harlot' fame undressing in the red-lit room above!).
Killers debuted in the UK charts at No. 12 and the band set out on their first ever world tour – an ambitious eight-month adventure into the unknown, including no less than 126 shows in 15 different countries, headlining everywhere except America where, like Japan and Australia, the band would go for the first time in 1981.
The British leg of the tour, which began on February 17, a week after Killers was released, included Maiden's first ever headline appearance at London's Hammersmith Odeon. (Historical footnote: Maiden's support band that night was French punk-metallists Trust, then featuring a certain Nicko McBrain on drums...)
The tour single was a double A-side that paired the new version of 'Wrathchild' from the album with 'Twilight Zone', a track deliberately left off Killers that was originally intended to be a B-side, but which the band liked so much when it was finished that they decided to make a full A-side instead.
Released in March, 1981, Twilight Zone'/'Wrathchild became Maiden's second highest chart single in the UK up to then, reaching No. 31. It might even had gone higher had the video of the band performing 'Wrathchild' live at the Rainbow been aired on Top Of The Pops, but once again – as had happened with a previous Maiden single, Sanctuary – the show was off the air because of a strike by their technical crew. As Steve says: "We didn't really care. We never saw ourselves as a singles band, anyway. All we knew was the second album had sold more than the first and the tours were getting bigger and bigger."
From the outside, both creatively and commercially, Maiden appeared to be going from strength to strength. No-one could have guessed that Killers would also be Maiden's last album with Paul Di'Anno... As the singer now cheerfully confides: "It was my own fault. I was just a kid and I couldn't take the pressure." As the tours had grown steadily bigger and more prestigious, so, too, had Paul's desire to "escape from it all."
The result: a singer whose behaviour had become so erratic that the band had to cancel several dates on the tour. "I've got nothing against people wanting to party," says Steve. "Sometimes it's good to let off a little steam after a show. But when it starts to affect your performance, as it did with Paul, well, that's when I say enough is enough."
Losing their singer would be a huge gamble for any rock band, let alone one then looking to cement their reputation as an international force to be reckoned with. But it was a risk Maiden would be forced to take before they could contemplate going into the studio to record a follow-up to Killers.
How would they fare? Would it mean the end of the band? We would just have to wait and see...
