Paul Di'Anno: Early Days DVD is an Obvious Must
In a recent interview with Classic Rock Revisited, Paul Di'Anno discussed, among other things, Iron Maiden's 'Early Days' DVD and his readily apparent dislike for former Maiden guitarist Dennis Stratton. The following is a brief excerpt from the in-depth chat:CRR: The Early Days DVD is now out. Your interview is very cool. You admit Bruce is a better singer for the band. Have you watched the entire documentary? What was it like catching up with some of the "members who were almost in Maiden"?
Di'Anno: "Well, I never actually caught up with anyone during the filming/interviewing of the DVD. In fact, I had my manager instruct the film crew that I would not film my parts anywhere near that wanker Dennis Stratton, as I have already had more than my fair share of having to be around that tosser to last me a fucking lifetime; thank you. I have viewed the entire DVD and it was a great trip down memory lane. It was great to see how some of the past Maiden associates are now fairing. I think the DVD was a great idea, very well put together and an obvious must for the collection of any Maiden fans out there.
Yeah, I did admit that Bruce is a better singer for Maiden than me. I still do think that but only related only to the Maiden albums that were made after my first two initial Maiden classic albums. My feeling is that I could never have stamped my mark properly on the Maiden albums that came after Iron Maiden & Killers because Bruce’s voice is much better suited to that material than my voice ever could be. However, that aside, I am not actually comparing our voices against each other either, as I feel as much as I could not sing Bruce’s period of Maiden songs, Bruce definitely does not have – and never did have – the voice to replace me on the first two classic albums either.
My voice is, and always will be, mega-aggressive and that is what helped make those first two classic albums what they are. On the other hand, Bruce’s high pitched, and sometimes operatic voice, is what has helped give the later albums their different character. I will say this though: Bruce sounds incredible on many later Maiden tracks such as 'The Trooper, 'Number Of The Beast' and 'Two Minutes To Midnight' but let’s face it – without meaning to sound arrogant here, just saying what everyone knows – when Bruce tries to emulate me on classics such as 'Remember Tomorrow', 'Running Free', 'Wrathchild', 'Killers' or anything from the first two Maiden albums, he just does not have the tools for the job as the aggression just isn’t there. Your voice can often explain a lot about your background, and I think my voice shows the kind of rough, lower class background I came from. Bruce’s voice kind of gives an impression of a public schoolboy background."
CRR: Why do you want to castrate Dennis Stratton? Also, why was he axed from the band after the first album?
Di'Anno: "Firstly, he is a total prick - let me just get that out of the way as he was, and still is, a shit pop guitarist who actually hates metal, who happened to get very lucky to get into Maiden. As soon as I met the arsehole I knew that this tosser was not the man for the job. He’s an arrogant, ninth rate guitarist who has this knack of pissing off the whole fucking planet with his stupid ideas. He kept trying to get Maiden to be the next Eagles with four part harmonies and all that shit. Of course Maiden were not that kind of band. I guess they realized, eventually, that Strap-on, being Mr. Pop and Mr. Fucking Know It All, was definitely not a metal person, but a fucking Pop Pussy and a total big mouthed wanker too who was now in the wrong place at the wrong time. Obviously, Steve had to lose the poor old donkey as soon as possible.
During the Kiss tour in Spain he had a big bust up with Steve and Rod because he refused to wear metal type clothes. He called the metal clothes 'The C*nt Kit'. He wanted to wear red spandex trousers and frilly shirts like a big fucking women's blouse! The fucking ironic thing is many years after Maiden, I had to work with that c*nt again – twice for fuck sake – because I was broke and needed the bloody money. Firstly, I had to tour Japan with him in 1990 – and even fucking worse – playing with fucking Praying fucking Mantis, who are another set of total no hope wanking losers. The tour was a fucking abortion, especially as I totally refused to rehearse for the tour with that tosser and the other tossers. So I took the money and ran after the tour was thankfully finished. To my fucking horror, a live album – total crap – was released from that tour. We all make fucking big mistakes in life eh? Then, my fucking manager has this bright idea of me working again with wanking Strap-On doing two albums together! Again, I needed the money but this time I only attended the studio when shitface Strap-On was not there. Now he is back to his true roots playing in East London pubs every weekend playing fucking Robbie Williams and Oasis. What a fucking waste of good oxygen on that tosser eh! He's a telephone engineer during the daytime and he could at least do the world a favor and now throw his guitar in the sea and stick to telephones!"
To read the entire interview go to this location.
Many thanks to Bravewords.com
10 Comments
great interview!
i thought that paul and dennis are great mates up till now (but their works are fine for me (live at last etc etc)
No more to say!
Great interview! Thanks Shadow! 
What a wonderfully well spoken man Paul is 
Wow, revealed a bit that one did. Nice find!
I would just like to point out that Pauls words & opions should not always be believed. 
My dad played the pub circuit around the east end at the same time as maiden in bands like the roll ups, (check run to the hills) and met them many a time, and having met them he always found Dennis to be a really nice down to earth bloke and if anyone was an arsehole at that time, it was Paul. So there you go, dont always believe Pauls opions as there are often 2 sides to it.
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Brilliant.
Just read the whole interview, there's a lot more than just Strap-On. Read it, it's a little long but worth it
Cheers
Here's what Paul said about Dennis's replacement by Adrian in an interview from November 2004:
QUOTE
To be completely honest, I think that it's impossible to compare Adrian and Dennis. I don't want to show any disrespect to Den, 'cause I really like him, but I never thought he was a good guitarist. I even think that, with such limited abilities, he's really been lucky to be in Maiden, mostly that he wasn't so keen on Metal. By the way, I discovered a few years later that Dennis was more or less "anti-Metal" and that he'd only joined Maiden because he felt that the band had a great potential. Adrian was – and still is – a brilliant guitarist and one of the major elements in Maiden. He has basically contributed to make the band what it is today. In fact, Dennis had a fantastic Pop voice and should have become a Pop/Rock singer – he loved this soft style. Before he joined Maiden, I used to go often to the Cart & Horses and watch him play with his former band, Wedgwood: he was then an excellent singer and seemed to be more comfortable there than as a member of Iron Maiden. Dennis has never really been part of the Metal world and he's never accepted this universe... even if he maybe says the opposite now. He was really into Pop and he wanted to have three-voice harmonies in Maiden, or crap like that. But Steve never gave in. We even had to force Dennis to wear a leather jacket, which he hated, and we tried to get him to act "Metal"! On the other hand, Adrian never pretended, he had the right attitude, he really was into it and he loved anything related to this genre. Steve and Dennis had a few ding-dongs 'cause he didn't like the Metal gear and was only listening to Pop music: he really pissed Steve off during the Kiss tour when, in Spain, he started complaining that he had to wear denim and leather – he used to call that the "Cunt Kit". Steve was doing his nut and I think that this is when he realised that he had to get rid of Dennis. During the whole time he was in the band, we had to pretend that he was one of ours, which was a outright lie 'cause he only liked the Beach Boys and the Eagles. I hope that what I'm telling you here won't cause him any trouble 'cause I like him a lot, as well as his voice, but even now he spends his week-ends playing covers of Oasis or Robbie Williams in pubs in the East End of London. Not really Metal, is it?
Funny, innit?
I suspect that Paul was just being diplomatic in the interview that Mav has quoted. He probably hated Dennis just as much, but was trying to be nice.
I'm also surprised that Mav was able to quote that entire interview accurately. There's a word in there which should been altered by the forum. At first I thought maybe the system ignored the contents of quotes, but after some testing I found that isn't the secret. I am forced to bow before Maverick's superior kung-fu.
Paul sucks. I was just reading Terrorizer or some magazine the other day where he said he didn't plan to watch the DVD at all.