Paul Di’Anno

Iron Maiden vocalist, 1978–1981 · 17 May 1958 – 21 October 2024

Paul Di’Anno sang on Iron Maiden and Killers, the records that took Maiden from London clubs to an international audience. His rough voice drove the early songs, but he could also sing with warmth and restraint, as on “Remember Tomorrow”.

Di’Anno’s time in Maiden lasted only three years. He spent the next four decades making records and touring with other musicians, often returning to the songs he had helped establish. His later career brought melodic rock, harder metal and punk influences together in changing proportions, through bands including Di’Anno, Battlezone, Killers and Warhorse.

East London beginnings

Di’Anno was born Paul Andrews in Chingford on 17 May 1958. He grew up in East London and later described a childhood shaped by hard work and little money. In a 2009 Cyprus Mail interview, he recalled delivering milk and newspapers, working on a market stall and learning the butcher’s trade while still at school. [1]

He liked both punk and hard rock. He named Bon Scott and Steve Marriott as singers who made him want to perform. He also cited the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, the Ramones and UK Subs. In an interview with Unstoppable Force, he said he had sung in a punk band called the Paedophiles before Maiden. In the same interview he rejected a recurring claim that he had belonged to a band called Bird of Prey. [2]

Joining Iron Maiden

Di’Anno joined Maiden in 1978, after the departures of earlier singers Paul Day and Dennis Wilcock. He was not Maiden’s first singer, but he was the first to sing on their records. In a July 2024 interview, he recalled that a mutual friend suggested the audition. He sang Deep Purple’s “Dealer” and made up the words he did not know. He said he was unenthusiastic until he heard Steve Harris’s songs. [3] [4] [10]

The band recorded a demo at Spaceward Studios in Cambridge in December 1978. DJ Neal Kay played it at his Soundhouse heavy rock nights. Three tracks became The Soundhouse Tapes, released independently in 1979: “Iron Maiden”, “Invasion” and “Prowler”. [4]

Maiden built their audience through repeated club appearances, including the Ruskin Arms in East Ham. Harris later remembered Di’Anno’s powerful voice and confidence as a performer. By the first album, the line-up was Di’Anno, Harris, guitarists Dave Murray and Dennis Stratton, and drummer Clive Burr. [4] [5] [6]

The first album and the road, 1980

Iron Maiden appeared on 14 April 1980, produced by Wil Malone. Di’Anno shared writing credits with Harris on “Running Free” and “Remember Tomorrow”. “Running Free” is a short, defiant singalong. “Remember Tomorrow” moves between quiet verses and heavy sections, and needs control as well as power. Di’Anno said he wrote it for his grandfather. [2] [6]

The rest of the album gave him room to vary his approach. “Prowler” demands a sharp, insistent delivery; on “Strange World” he holds a soft melody over quiet guitars. “Phantom of the Opera” puts the voice inside a much longer arrangement, with changes of pace and extended instrumental passages.

Di’Anno disliked the album’s production, as Harris did, but remained proud of the songs. Before the album came out, “Running Free” took them onto Top of the Pops, where they played live. The album reached number four in Britain. They toured Britain, played Reading Festival and supported Kiss in Europe. Within months, Di’Anno had gone from pub stages to festival crowds. [5] [7] [19]

Killers and the break with Maiden

Adrian Smith replaced Stratton before Maiden made Killers. Martin Birch produced the album, released on 2 February 1981, and gave the band a fuller recording than its debut. Di’Anno co-wrote the title track with Harris. Its opening screams and clipped lines show how he could tell a story through phrasing. “Prodigal Son” gives him a gentler part. [8]

The tour took Maiden to Japan and North America. Interviewed during the American dates, Harris described Maiden supporting Judas Priest there while already headlining in Europe. Maiden Japan, recorded in Nagoya and released in September 1981, preserves Di’Anno singing the early repertoire live. [9]

Di’Anno played his last Maiden concert in Copenhagen on 10 September 1981, and Bruce Dickinson replaced him. The two sides remember the split differently. Harris describes a dismissal after Di’Anno had been given chances to change. Di’Anno sometimes called it a mutual parting, driven by his unhappiness with the music and the touring. His accounts of drug use also changed. He admitted heavy drinking and cocaine use in some interviews, but in 2019 he told Eonmusic that the drug problem had been overstated and that he had lost interest in Killers. [5] [7] [10]

Di’Anno, Gogmagog and Battlezone

After Maiden, Di’Anno fronted Lonewolf, which changed its name to Di’Anno and released a self-titled album in 1984. The album used keyboards and melodic hard rock rather than following Maiden’s style. Di’Anno later said he had become unhappy with that direction. [2] [11]

He also joined Gogmagog, a project assembled by Jonathan King, with Clive Burr, Janick Gers, Pete Willis and Neil Murray. The group released the I Will Be There EP in 1985 but did not last. Di’Anno later criticised the songs and the limits on the musicians writing their own material. [2] [11]

Battlezone lasted longer. Fighting Back followed in 1986, with guitarists John Wiggins and John Hurley, bassist Pete West and drummer Bob Falck. Graham Bath and Steve Hopgood replaced Hurley and Falck for Children of Madness in 1987. The band toured in America, and “I Don’t Wanna Know” was played on MTV, but the band did not last. [12]

The songs combine heavy riffs with melodic choruses and leave room for a less abrasive voice. He kept Battlezone songs in his live sets alongside the Maiden material. [2]

Later bands and touring

Di’Anno appeared with Praying Mantis in Japan in 1990, a collaboration preserved on Live at Last. His next major recording band was Killers, built around musicians including drummer Steve Hopgood and guitarist Cliff Evans. Murder One arrived in 1992, followed by Menace to Society in 1994. [2] [11]

Killers revisited “Remember Tomorrow” on Murder One. Di’Anno said he had wanted another attempt at a song that mattered personally to him. On Menace to Society, he pursued a harsher sound; he later linked the record’s anger to a dispute with the previous record company. [2] [7]

His American legal troubles led to deportation in 1993 and a long absence from touring there. In later interviews he admitted domestic violence in the years after Maiden and said he was ashamed of it. [10] [14]

He revived the Battlezone name for Feel My Pain in 1998, with guitarist Paulo Turin, and worked with Turin again in Brazil on Nomad, released around the turn of the century. Further releases included The Living Dead in 2006. He often toured with different backing bands in different territories, explaining that taking one group between continents cost too much. For his 2010 American dates, he rehearsed with Icarus Witch and planned a set mixing Maiden songs with Battlezone, Killers and solo material. [2] [11]

In March 2011, a British court sentenced him to nine months in prison for benefit fraud: he had claimed benefits while still performing abroad. [14]

Illness, Warhorse and his final years

Illness later interrupted his touring. In 2019 he told Eonmusic about a long hospital stay with sepsis and years in which he could not stand. He later travelled to Croatia for treatment and rehabilitation. Fans raised money for his operations, and Iron Maiden helped with the costs. In a 2023 interview, he thanked both the band and the people who had contributed, as well as audiences who welcomed him performing from a wheelchair. [7] [15]

Back on stage, he welcomed the lasting popularity of the early records, but in 2022 he complained that promoters wanted Maiden-heavy sets at the expense of his later songs. [15]

He met Harris backstage in Croatia in May 2022, and he and Dickinson were filmed together in Zagreb in July 2024. Some reports called this their first meeting. Di’Anno said they had met before, as MaidenFans forum members had suspected. He described their relationship as friendly and his own remarks about Dickinson as jokes. [3] [16]

Guitarists Hrvoje Madiraca and Ante Pupačić Pupi worked with him on Paul Di’Anno’s Warhorse, released on 19 July 2024. Di’Anno told interviewer Jeff Gaudiosi that the original songs had already been written when he joined; his role was to sing them. He suggested the album’s cover of Depeche Mode’s “Precious”. [3] [17]

Di’Anno died at home in Salisbury on 21 October 2024, aged 66. Conquest Music announced his death on behalf of his family. His family later said blood had collected around his heart and caused it to stop. [18]

His voice and legacy

Di’Anno would often start a phrase with a rasp and finish it on a clear note. That mix of rough and clean singing remains part of what listeners recognise as early Maiden. His later records deserve attention too, particularly the first two Battlezone albums and Murder One, which give a broader account of his musical choices.

Iron Maiden’s tribute credited his singing and stage presence with helping establish the band. Harris added a more personal memory: shortly before Di’Anno’s death, the two had still been exchanging messages about West Ham. [16]