with Blaze Bayley, Mike Portnoy, and Nita Strauss
SIDE 1
1. Aces High 4:31
(Harris)
2. 2 Minutes to Midnight 6:04
(Smith, Dickinson)
3. Losfer Words (Big ’Orra) 4:12
(Harris)
4. Flash of the Blade 4:05
(Dickinson)
5. The Duellists 6:07
(Dickinson)
SIDE 2
1. Back in the Village 5:03
(Smith, Dickinson)
2. Powerslave 7:10
(Dickinson)
3. Rime of the Ancient Mariner 13:45
(Harris)
Personnel: Bruce Dickinson—vocals; Dave Murray—lead and rhythm guitars; Adrian Smith—lead and rhythm guitars, backing vocals; Steve Harris—bass; Nicko McBrain—drums
Produced by Martin Birch
Recorded at Compass Point Studios, Nassau, Bahamas
Released September 3, 1984
I’ve lost count of which flush of success the happy metal-whackers in Maiden are riding at this point, but each one seems to bring a different process, a different way of looking at recordmaking. With Powerslave, despite returning to Jersey to write and then continuing to Compass Point to record (a locale that represents serious intentions and sunny distraction at the same time), the band captured the sort of lightning-in-a-bottle spontaneity last heard on The Number of the Beast while further developing the sound, arrangements, and member interaction that emerged on Piece of Mind.
Remember how back in the NWOBHM days, we threw around the term OTT? Well, soon after crinkling back the shrink-wrap and feeling the textured cover beneath (mine was Canadian), my first thought was that Powerslave was the “over the top” version of Piece of Mind, representing the first such comparison of two Maiden albums.
Recorded during an extended boozy sojourn from February through June 1984, Powerslave rocked fast and hard and sod the consequences. “Aces High” threatened to fly off the rails, as did “Flash of the Blade” and “Back in the Village,” although on the latter, everybody had to stay mindful of that killer Mensa-mad riff. Even “2 Minutes to Midnight,” with its harrowing lyric based on the idea of the doomsday clock, rumbled along jam-like, especially in comparison to songs like “Where Eagles Dare” and “Flight of Icarus” that had the permanence of oak—even as the former skittered, one felt sure everybody would get to the end at the same time.
Closing Powerslave is “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which one could call the follow-up both to “Hallowed Be Thy Name” and, more directly, “To Tame a Land,” Steve mining literature—in this case, a classic epic poem from 1834 providing the lyrical grist under which Maiden roil—Nicko slide-ruling up a rhythm somewhere between “Powerslave,” “Where Eagles Dare,” and a traditional Maiden gallop. “Rime” would remain Maiden’s longest song until 2015’s “Empire of the Clouds,” although many fans argue that “Rime” is generally more solid and swift of plot than a dozen other Maiden meanderers in the seven- to ten-minute range. Such is the power of a band at the height of its arsenal. Indeed, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the whole 13:45 gulp of it, became a setlist standard and the most popular song from this record, with “Aces High,” “2 Minutes to Midnight,” and “Powerslave” nipping like ragged dogs at its … keels.
Powerslave would set in motion the immense two-year Egyptian-themed World Slavery Tour, which would be instrumental in sending the record to platinum status in the United States, gold in the UK, and double platinum in Canada, meaning Powerslave shifted four times as many pancakes per capita in Canada as it did on the band’s own turf.
MARTIN POPOFF: How would you contrast Powerslave and Piece of Mind? For me, there’s a similarity to Metallica following Ride the Lightning with Master of Puppets—a continuity but also a band really hitting its stride.
MIKE PORTNOY: I can see that. Powerslave is the pinnacle of my love for Iron Maiden. I think for the original classic period of the band, they took everything as far as they could possibly go; to me, this is the most progressive album. A lot of people might think Seventh Son is more progressive—and it is more conceptual—but Powerslave spoke to me more personally. I love the progressive elements, not only in the music, but in the artwork, which they took as far as they could possibly go in terms of detail and grandeur. Powerslave opens with two of the best-known songs on the album, the two singles anyway, so there’s instant momentum that carries into the deeper tracks, which I absolutely love.
NITA STRAUSS: This was the one album that, when I was playing with The Iron Maidens, we could’ve done from start to finish. We used to do every single song on this album in our set, so I had a great appreciation for the lesser-known tracks. I love “The Duellists” and “Flash of the Blade.” Of course, “Aces High” and “2 Minutes” are the classics everybody likes to hear, but I like to go into the deeper cuts, the material people don’t expect to hear.
As a comparison with Piece of Mind, there’s a rawness and excitement to Powerslave. It’s not as polished and as structured, I find. It has more early Iron Maiden excitement to it. And then the evocative Egyptian album cover, with the pharaohs and sphinx and all that, definitely sums up the power and majesty of the album.
BLAZE BAYLEY: That cover and the way it came alive on stage … they played the Birmingham Odeon, and I don’t know how they fit that stage set in, but they did, and it was absolutely incredible. But there are so many Eddies, or at least Eddie-like figures, and just so much detail. This was the time of vinyl when you could see the details they were putting on album art. But I liked the idea they’d stolen a whole mythology and created their own with Eddie.
POPOFF: As Mike alluded to, the record cracks open with “Aces High” and a momentum is established. Good choice for an album opener?
BAYLEY: “Aces High” is absolutely fantastic. It’s poetry, really. For me it evokes the feeling, on the odd occasions I’ve sung it, of being there before the Battle of Britain. If you’ve seen the film Battle of Britain with Michael Caine, it really feels like “Aces High” could’ve been the soundtrack.
Churchill is alive and there is a portal to the past and he has reached out to these young men from Iron Maiden who made this song that has been transported back through time. And the fighter pilots are listening to it as they struggle to stay alive against the overwhelming German forces, the Luftwaffe, who are sure to annihilate what is left of our air force and our island. But somehow these brave young men, with incredible courage, hold back the Luftwaffe, stopping a certain invasion of our island!
So it’s an incredible song for me and all these emotions and images go through me when I hear it. And the chorus is amazing! I’ve never spoken to Bruce about singing it, but it sounds so casual and natural I don’t think he did anything but say, “Oh, I’ll sing this here,” and suddenly there’s the chorus of “Aces High,” as if some kind of spirit entered Bruce and he just came up with this. I don’t know the truth of it, but that’s what I choose to feel, that there was some spirit reaching out from the past that affected Bruce.
PORTNOY: I just saw the movie Dunkirk, and there’s a big scene where you hear Winston Churchill’s famous speech. Of course, that immediately brings to mind this album and “Aces High.” There’s a whole Churchill speech that still, to this day, they use when they play “Aces High.”
STRAUSS: “Aces High” might not be a conventional single, but it really grabs the listener’s attention. It’s a snapshot of what Iron Maiden was doing at that time, what they were all about. I think it’s appropriate that way, both as a first track and as a single.
POPOFF: Hot on its heels comes “2 Minutes to Midnight,” my favorite Maiden song of all time, incidentally. And it’s a little rock ’n’ rollsy for Maiden, right?
BAYLEY: I don’t like this word “rock ’n’ rollsy.”
POPOFF: Okay, but is there something distinct from Steve in the way that Adrian writes?
BAYLEY: I think Adrian comes very much from a melodic background. I always think of Phil Lynott when I think of Adrian. My favorite song from Adrian is “Wasted Years.” That’s just something that really pulls at the heartstrings. But I always think of him coming from this melodic background. And when you put it in the context of an album, with some of the harsh things and the darkness, then it makes sense. And he’s such a good lead player. His solos are really memorable—he’s got great tone, and his rhythm playing is so precise. It’s just unbelievable.
POPOFF: What about “2 Minutes to Midnight” lyrically?
BAYLEY: Oh, it’s horrible. It’s a horrible, horrible song. But in the best possible way. The lyrics are horrible, the things they talk about. But it’s great in that it’s very simple at the start. It’s quite a simple riff [sings it]. And then it goes to this horrible place, exploring real terror and hideous things that happen. It never shirks, it never pulls back from that, and it does feel apocalyptic to me. Whenever I sang “2 Minutes to Midnight,” it was something that felt, “Oh, this is a bit dangerous to sing.” But also, as a heavy metal fan, we take ourselves to the edge, and we like horror and things like this. So it’s also something you relish singing. “Kill for gain,” you know, just a fantastic song.
PORTNOY: With “2 Minutes to Midnight,” I remember thinking it was almost an exact rip-off of two other songs I had heard. One was an Accept song, “Flash Rockin’ Man,” and one was Mercyful Fate’s “Curse of the Pharaohs.” But it was a strong single. It was a bit commercial for my tastes. Adrian was starting to put his stamp on the band’s singles with that good commercial sense he had. One of my favorite Maiden songs is the one Adrian sings, “Reach Out.” It was the B-Side of “Wasted Years,” and it’s just a great forgotten track and a great example of Adrian’s singing ability.
STRAUSS: I agree that “2 Minutes to Midnight” has a dancier, poppier sound versus a sort of aggressive NWOBHM sound, and it’s a fun, upbeat song to play. I don’t want to say it’s joyful, because it’s still a pretty aggressive song, and, as Blaze says, it’s got quite the apocalyptic lyric.
POPOFF: Tell me about “Back in the Village” and its relationship to The Prisoner.
STRAUSS: “Back in the Village” is the first song that comes to mind when I think of challenging guitar parts on Powerslave. It’s got a pretty complex lead going on in the chorus.
In fact, “Flash of the Blade,” “The Duellists,” and “Back in the Village”—a lot of the songs on this record have these real interesting hammer-on/pull-off parts that I hadn’t heard a lot in music before this. I was born three years after this came out [laughs], but looking back at it from an outside perspective, it’s cool to see them doing all the complex hammer-on/pull-off harmonizing that was really a hallmark of a later generation of guitar players.
POPOFF: Speaking of “Flash of the Blade,” this is related to Bruce’s being an amateur fencer at the time, correct?
BAYLEY: Yeah, and he was in the Sun newspaper as well—“Bruce Dickinson, Iron Maiden singer, Olympic hopeful.” And of course they made it up completely. He was doing an interview with someone and it came out that he liked fencing. It’s good to have some kind of activity. And they said, “Well, what standard are you up to?” And he said, “Well, not Olympic standard.” And that got turned around and it came out, “Olympic-standard fencer Bruce Dickinson.” So he had to live that down for ages.
PORTNOY: Back then we had no internet, so news of what the bands did on their free time was less than what it is these days. But I remember hearing about Bruce’s interest in fencing and, maybe, dueling. I guess it was inevitable he would write about it. To me, it brings to mind Stanley Kubrick’s movie Barry Lyndon. Maybe Bruce had an interest not only in the sport of fencing, but some of the old films that dealt with duelists.
But, to me, “Powerslave” and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” are the highlights. In 1984, I was really into Rush and more progressive music, so Iron Maiden, with those tracks in particular, was getting pretty much as progressive as they were ever going to be, and it spoke to me.
The fact that “Rime” was a thirteen-minute song from a heavy metal band … I don’t think that existed yet. And that was kind of the blueprint I wanted Dream Theater to be. We formed in 1985, and Powerslave came out in 1984. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was the perfect example of how you could have heavy riffs and be a metal band but have these very progressive elements and arrangements. It was like putting the writing of Yes and Rush into a heavy metal band. Judas Priest wasn’t doing long songs like this, nor was Motörhead, AC/DC, or Twisted Sister. Maiden, around this period, and then Metallica, were the two bands including those progressive elements in the context of heavy metal.
POPOFF: Any thoughts on why Steve and Bruce like going to classic literature and film and books for lyrics? Here we’ve got Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who, of course, Rush had already tapped for inspiration.
BAYLEY: Well, it’s a nice way to avoid love. And it’s something I do all the time, since my Wolfsbane days, and particularly since being in Maiden. It’s a nice way to get out of it. It’s so common that people write about love and all the emotions and feelings that, well, for some of us at some point in our lives, are just boring.
It’s interesting to think about the Battle of Britain. It’s interesting to think about being back in the village and the questions arising from The Prisoner TV show. To think about “Powerslave” and slavery and being trapped. And “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a fantastic poem. To take that and put it to music and really express that idea, to me, that’s great. So much of what Maiden has done could be a film soundtrack.
STRAUSS: “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is the most epic of epic songs. We would do “Rime” at probably seventy-five percent of our shows because fans wanted to hear it. There’s not a lot of thirteen-, fourteen-minute songs that fans actually want to see live, and yet “Rime” is definitely a crowd favorite. It’s surprising to see what Maiden fans embrace that the general population of music fans wouldn’t be into.
But Maiden is a great storyteller. You’re not going to see a lot of Iron Maiden songs about breaking up or relationships or partying or your general song concepts. Maiden revisits fables and tells stories—and they’ll tell the whole story. They’ll talk about history or war or military conflicts, everything from “Afraid to Shoot Strangers” to “Aces High.” You really hear a lot of intellect in their songwriting, and, I don’t want to say less emotion, because it definitely is emotional, but it’s not as personal for the most part. It’s about wider and more worldly events.
POPOFF: Any thoughts on the great debate Maiden fans have between the relative benefits or value of the long songs like “Rime” versus the sharp rockers, which are bundled up here on Side 1?
BAYLEY: No. If the song is good, that’s all that matters. The main thing is the idea, being truthful and faithful to the idea of the song. If the song takes thirteen minutes to reveal itself, then that’s what it takes. If the song takes four minutes to reveal itself, then that’s it. If there is a journey this song has to take you on, and that takes two minutes or thirteen minutes, then that’s it.
I think that’s the test of a great songwriter, but it also puts you in a different league. When you’re in Iron Maiden and bands like Maiden, you’re not looking at how long the song is because you’re not really trying to achieve a daytime radio hit. That’s another side of the music business. The people who can say everything they need to say in three minutes, that’s a different skill compared to having a massive idea that takes you on a great journey away from your life and twelve minutes later you’re back in reality.
POPOFF: As someone who has written with the band and sung old classics written by Steve and Bruce, is there a distinction between the way Steve writes for a vocalist versus Bruce? I’ve heard it said that, somewhat unsurprisingly, Steve’s words can be more of a mouthful, given he’s not coming from a singer’s point of view.
BAYLEY: I don’t think there’s better or worse, there’s just different. It just comes from a different place. As a vocalist, you’re naturally putting the breath into the line. When Steve is writing, he’s usually writing a musical phrase then putting in the lyric to go with the melody. It just comes from a different place. There is no way you can have some of these incredible songs that Steve has written over the years without doing it that way. If they were all written by the singer, we wouldn’t have “The Duellists” or “Rime” or “Sign of the Cross” or “The Clansman.”
POPOFF: “Rime” is the repository of some great twin leads.
STRAUSS: Well, speaking as a guitar player’s guitar player, you can never have enough guitars. Of course, Maiden was one of the pioneers of the twin-axe attack, of really utilizing two strong lead players instead of a rhythm guitar player and a lead guitar player—really letting both voices be heard. The skills of both Dave and Adrian really come out and shine, and they don’t copy each other—both their personalities show. That’s really cool.
POPOFF: How would you demarcate those two guys?
STRAUSS: Dave’s playing is more bluesy, classic licks, while Adrian is more the technique stuff, more whammy bar and different phrasing you wouldn’t normally expect, although both have pretty unique phrasing as far as the general world of guitar players goes. For me, it was interesting being part of The Iron Maidens because I was never that bluesy player. I would never gravitate to those licks. Getting to immerse myself in a more bluesy, classic style of playing was an interesting experience.
One of the most interesting experiences I had playing in an Iron Maiden tribute band was the ability to go all over the world and have these rabid fans singing the songs, singing every single lyric as well as a lot of the riffs and the solos. They all knew more lyrics than I did, and it was amazing. These people, who might have little to no grasp of English, know all the words to these Iron Maiden songs … I think Blaze is absolutely right: it’s all about the melody and the structure, the way the guitar and the vocals and the bass all play off each other, and it becomes a universal language—the language of Iron Maiden.
BAYLEY: What people don’t realize is how in time and in tune and precise Dave and Adrian are. And live, people may have looked at them back in the day and said, “Well, those guys don’t run around much.” But when you’ve been in a rehearsal room with Dave and you hear what he does, it’s incredible. I think that’s what people don’t realize.
They make it look easy. But the precision of what they do, and bringing out the feeling of every song every single night, there’s no relaxed attitude in Iron Maiden. Every night is, “Right, this is the World Cup final and we have to win.” That’s the attitude we went on stage with every night, and that’s what they still do. For younger guitarists, or maybe people who might not be so keen on Maiden or what they’re doing now, I think they don’t realize that’s the real thing up there. It’s the precision and the commitment to excellence that everybody in the band has that’s remarkable.
POPOFF: Any thoughts on the instrumental “Losfer Words”?
PORTNOY: It was good to get another Maiden instrumental because the first album had one, and Killers had two. The Iron Maiden instrumental was something I really appreciated, and we didn’t get one on The Number of the Beast or Piece of Mind.
“Losfer Words” is a very forgotten instrumental in their catalog as well. In fact, most of the tracks in the middle of this album I absolutely love. When you think of Powerslave, you think of the first two, “Aces High” and “2 Minutes to Midnight,” and you think of the last two, “Powerslave” and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” But there are some good songs in the middle. Those are forgotten gems, and it’s kind of like the tracks in the middle of Piece of Mind with these strong sleeper tracks.
POPOFF: So Powerslave comes out and the band is firmly established, especially after that massive tour. What was your memory of where Maiden sat in the metal hierarchy of the day?
PORTNOY: Powerslave was their pinnacle. You couldn’t get any bigger or grander. It established them as the biggest heavy metal band in the world. Not in record sales for some reason, although they did well, but in buzz, and probably even concert success. Metallica was coming out, but they were up-and-comers, and it would be many years before Metallica would take over the reins as the biggest heavy metal band in the world. But in 1984, I’d argue that Maiden was the biggest heavy metal band, or at least the most talked about, the one generating the most excitement.
You think of that shift from the ’70s—Zeppelin was broken up, Purple was just reuniting in ’84 with Perfect Strangers, but they were still not on the level of Maiden. This was post-Dio for Sabbath, so they were on a downslide. Within the NWOBHM, Maiden had easily bypassed Motörhead and Saxon. And for a brief instance at this time, they’d even outperformed AC/DC. Sure, there was Priest, Ozzy, and Scorpions, but metal fans, especially at a street level, were more excited about Maiden. I truly believe they went straight to the top, and, for a magic moment there, you could say Iron Maiden was the king of the castle. many pancakes per capita in Canada as it did on the band’s own turf.