The Tragedy Of Iron Maiden Explained

The music of Iron Maiden, a defining and foundational band in the British new wave of heavy metal of the 1980s, can be dark, twisted, and even frightening — reflecting the myriad personal, professional, and health issues faced by its members. Over its nearly five-decade history as one of the loudest, most aggressive, most head-bangingly ear-splitting bands of all time, many musicians have filed in and out of Iron Maiden. "Run to the Hills," "Can I Play With Madness," "The Number of the Beast," and "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter," are just a few of the envelope-pushing metal classics the band ground out, all the while dealing for real with the kinds of things they made songs about. 

Iron Maiden looms prominently in the bizarre history of heavy metal music, and has certainly experienced its fair share of horrors, mortality, torment, and pain. Its members have been maimed, struck by disease, dealt with death, and metaphorically ripped apart by the music industry. Here's a look at all the quite horrible and undeniably tragic chapters in the crazy real-life story of Iron Maiden.

The following article contains references to and descriptions of addiction.

In 1988, Iron Maiden was arguably at its peak of popularity. Its seventh album, "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son," topped the album chart in the U.K., and the band filled stadiums around Europe before headlining the ninth annual Monsters of Rock outdoor festival in Donington, England, in August of 1988. A record 107,000 people attended that event to see the biggest hard rock bands of the era, including Guns N' Roses, which performed just before Iron Maiden. The massive crowd pushed toward the stage, and several people lost their footing and fell underneath the lurching horde. Two young male fans died as Guns N' Roses witnessed the tragedy.

While Iron Maiden waited to go on, they remained ignorant of the events that had transpired, and still didn't know when they took the stage. "It was decided not to tell Iron Maiden about the tragedy," concert promoter Stuart Galbraith told Classic Rock. "I considered whether or not to tell the band, but decided against it as it would serve no purpose and make it immensely difficult for them to play with their hearts in it, which would let down an awful lot of fans," band manager Rod Smallwood added. He broke the news of the deaths after their set. "When I told them what happened to these poor kids they were devastated."

Bruce Dickinson, one of a fair few musicians who left their bands, only to come crawling back, returned to Iron Maiden in 1999, and so the band fired previous singer Blaze Bayley. He'd launch a solo career, and would eventually hire his girlfriend, former dancer Debbie Hartland, to manage the band, and after a long professional and personal relationship, they married on Valentine's Day 2007. "I had a lot of problems with alcohol, severe depression, almost had a breakdown," Bayley told HeavyMetal.no (via Blabbermouth). "And then I met my wife."

In July 2008, one day after attending an Iron Maiden concert with her husband, Hartland collapsed at the home she shared with Bayley near Birmingham, England. Scans indicated that Hartland had endured a brain hemorrhage, and over the next few weeks, she underwent three neurological surgeries. However, she remained in a coma, showing few signs of improvement. In September 2008, another brain hemorrhage and an additional brain bleed occurred, leading doctors to tell Bayley that recovery was virtually impossible. Two days later, Hartland died. "That was my darkest time. When she passed, it was the end of the world," Bayley later told Metal Hammer." She died in my arms, in hospital. That's when part of me thought, 'I should stop now, just give up.'"

Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson learned that he had cancer of the throat in 2014. That's a frightening diagnosis not only because cancer can be a fatal illness, but because oral cancers can lead to the diminished ability to talk or sing. Dickinson, a lifelong non-smoker, believes a sexually transmitted disease he acquired through oral sex helped the cancer develop. "It's a virus. HPV — human papillomavirus," he told Sirius XM in 2015 (via Billboard). 

Doctors discovered two cancerous tumors in the singer. Dickinson told Rolling Stone that one was a "three-and-a-half-centimeter, golf ball-sized tumor in the base of my tongue and a strawberry-sized one in my lymph node." The musician submitted to a rigorous and aggressive treatment regimen, enduring 33 sessions of radiation concurrently with nine weeks of chemotherapy. That plan was effective, and Dickinson's doctors pronounced him cancer-free, and as of 2024, he remains in remission. 

As a cancer survivor, Dickinson stepped into an awareness-and-advocacy role. "I quite enjoy talking about it because you kind of demystify it a little bit for people. It's a scary thing," he said at a spoken-word show in 2022 (via Blabbermouth). "I have to say that the therapies that people are coming up with now are so on the edge and successful that you really do stand a very good chance. 'Cause half of us are gonna get cancer, and it's not a death sentence anymore, and you can deal with it."

Martin Birch wasn't a guitar-wielding metal musician, but he was extremely influential in developing and popularizing that genre through his work as a producer and engineer in the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. He perfected the studio sound on albums by Deep Purple, Rainbow, Whitesnake, and Blue Oyster Cult, and he helped revive a pioneering heavy band after Ozzy Osbourne left Black Sabbath. However, he was most closely associated with Iron Maiden: Birch served as producer and engineer on every one of the heavy metal band's studio albums, from 1981's "Killer" to 1992's "Fear of the Dark."

Birch, an important figure in the untold truth of Whitesnake, died in August 2020, and his death was announced by that band's frontman, David Coverdale, on X, formerly known as Twitter. "He was just absolutely brilliant. He wasn't just a producer, he was a hands-on engineer too, so he knew how to get a great sound. He was also fantastic at motivating people; he just had a knack of getting the best out of you," Iron Maiden guitarist Steve Harris told Sirius XM's Eddie Trunk (via Variety). No cause of death was released to the media; Birch was 71 years old.

In 1982, Ronald Burr, father of Iron Maiden drummer Clive Burr, died from a heart attack at the age of 57. The musician took a leave of absence from the band to attend the funeral and to family matters, and when he returned, he got fired. Burr told Classic Rock that the rest of Iron Maiden said it was "time for a break," but really, they'd just decided that the supposedly temporary fill-in musician, Michael "Nicko" McBrain, was a better fit.

McBrain's fast, propulsive drumming powered Iron Maiden from 1982 until January 2023, when he suffered a minor stroke. "It left me paralyzed on my right side from my shoulder on down, of course I was very worried that my career was over," McBrain explained. After nearly three months of grueling occupational therapy, McBrain said that he felt his health was about 70% of what it once was, adding, "I unfortunately haven't been able to give you lot a hundred percent of my performance."

McBrain was able to play with Iron Maiden on some 2023 tour dates. "Honestly, what he did on the last tour was nothing short of amazing," Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson told Brave Words in February 2024. "He started learning to drum again because he couldn't hold a stick. He couldn't hold a fork."