{"id":459899,"date":"2026-04-29T16:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T16:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/459899\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T16:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T16:21:14","slug":"iron-maiden-look-back-on-50-years-burning-ambition-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/459899\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Maiden Look Back on 50 Years, ‘Burning Ambition’ Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn the early Eighties, the world witnessed Iron Maiden<\/a> on a Promethean quest for fire, driven on a soul level to deliver \u201cRun to the Hills\u201d and \u201cThe Trooper\u201d to humanity. But within a few years, they were exhausted from constant touring with occasional bickering. A new documentary depicts how bad it got, with singer Bruce Dickinson<\/a> pleading with manager Rod Smallwood for fewer tour dates, saying, \u201cYou can\u2019t restring a voice.\u201d Ultimately, Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith both quit for these reasons during the band\u2019s golden years. (Both musicians returned in 1999 with refreshed appreciation, and they\u2019ve remained since then.)<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the film, Burning Ambition, which opens theatrically on May 7, Dickinson likens the tour grind to \u201cfive years in the golden cage.\u201d In one scene, around his 1993 departure, he muses, \u201cIs it all worth it, this madness?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHis answer today is not rhetorical: \u201cThe madness is worth it,\u201d Dickinson, 67, tells Rolling Stone with a chuckle over Zoom from his London home. \u201cWhen you leave, you come down in the cold light of day, and you go, \u2018You know what? This is kind of cool. The world does need Iron Maiden.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn another Burning Ambition scene, Smith, 69, who left in 1990, recalls in voiceover how, aside from the concerts, \u201ceverything else was horrible\u201d in the late Eighties. He quit, citing writers\u2019 block, and, after starting a family and playing in short-lived projects like ASAP with Zak Starkey, he saw things differently. \u201cI could see what Iron Maiden was all about,\u201d he says on a Zoom from a hotel in Turks and Caicos, where he\u2019s touring with another side project, Smith\/Kotzen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIron Maiden\u2019s members have been reflecting on the band\u2019s history a lot lately, as they continue last year\u2019s 50th anniversary celebrations into this year. Formed in 1975 by road sweeper turned bassist Steve Harris, the group rode out into the headbanging mainstream on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with 1980\u2019s Iron Maiden, an album whose songs provided a blueprint for riffs that gallop like the William Tell Overture, anthemic choruses, and an improbably hopeful, die-with-your-boots-on mentality that separated the group from metal forerunners like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.\u00a0After several lineup changes, Maiden have stayed the course, thanks to de facto leader Harris\u2019 steadfast vision. \u201cSteve wanted to do it his way and we fell in behind him and helped him do it,\u201d Smith says of the group\u2019s earliest days. They\u2019ve since become one of metal\u2019s biggest and most influential bands, transcending the genre with their macabre mascot Eddie, whose visage has adorned celebrities from Miley Cyrus<\/a> to Justin Bieber<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSteve Harris<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRoss Halfin\/Courtesy of Trafalgar Releasing<\/p>\n

\n\tRetrospection is a rarity for the group, which has been known in past decades to scoff at fans who want the hits and play a new album in its entirety, as they did with 2006\u2019s A Matter of Life and Death. Even now, Dickinson shrugs off people who complain that recent Maiden albums like The Book of Souls and Senjutsu lean too progressive. \u201cGo listen to other bands,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cIt\u2019s a free world, just about.\u201d But this year, they\u2019re acknowledging their legacy, and it has nothing to do with their recently announced induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which they\u2019ll be skipping<\/a> since the ceremony conflicts with Australian tour dates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tInstead, they\u2019re embarking on a tour they\u2019ve dubbed Run for Your Lives<\/a>, playing set lists that focus heavily on repertoire they recorded before Dickinson\u2019s departure. They\u2019ve also booked their own two-day Eddfest<\/a> in Knebworth, England, which will include sets by ousted former members, including singer Blaze Bayley (Dickinson\u2019s Nineties replacement), and a Maiden supergroup, Maiden United, which features onetime guitarist Dennis Stratton, who played only on Iron Maiden.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd of course, there\u2019s Burning Ambition, named for an obscure Maiden B side<\/a>, a film which Dickinson says is \u201cas close to independently proving\u201d that the world needs Iron Maiden \u201cas you can get.\u201d For this project, they uncharacteristically allowed an outsider, filmmaker Malcolm Venville, who has made documentaries about Lincoln, FDR, and Churchill, access to their archives \u2014 and themselves \u2014 to paint a portrait of Iron Maiden and its fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tUsing animations of Eddie and talking-head interviews with famous fans including Javier Bardem, Metallica\u2019s Lars Ulrich, Chuck D, and the Cure\u2019s Simon Gallup, among others, the doc traces the group\u2019s East London origins, galvanizing a loyal fanbase that now sees them in arenas and stadiums. The band\u2019s participation was limited to offscreen interviews. Venville, 63, says via email that his aim was to show \u201cnot just their history but the scale of what they\u2019ve built.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou don\u2019t want a hagiography of Iron Maiden,\u201d Dickinson says. \u201cYou want warts and all the bones, because Maiden\u2019s is a story of burning ambition, but it\u2019s also a story of triumph through adversity and tragedy, and all the things that are in big family relationship. You can\u2019t really do that from within because everybody\u2019s got their own version of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[The film\u2019s] quite emotional,\u201d Smith says. \u201cThere\u2019s a few touchy things in there, stuff that\u2019s a bit near the bone.\u201d\u00a0The moments that hit Smith hardest were related to band members who left and, unlike Dickinson and himself, didn\u2019t return: singer Paul Di\u2019Anno, whose leather-tough gravelly voice defined Maiden\u2019s harder-edged first two albums, and drummer Clive Burr, whose textured syncopations transformed Maiden\u2019s gallops into standalone drum riffs until he left after recording the group\u2019s touchstone, 1982\u2019s The Number of the Beast. Di\u2019Anno died in 2024<\/a>, Burr in 2013<\/a>. Smith was also affected by footage of Nicko McBrain, Maiden\u2019s longest-tenured drummer, who chose to retire from touring<\/a> in 2024, a year after experiencing a stroke.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPaul Di\u2019Anno fronting Iron Maiden on the Killer World Tour in 1981<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPaul Natkin\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film also contains archival footage of mudslinging and backbiting comments from several of the musicians about various members\u2019 comings and goings. \u201cIt\u2019s like the baggage that you carry as you go through life,\u201d Smith says. \u201cWe are a family, really. We\u2019ve had our disagreements because the stakes are high, but I think the band has integrity. We\u2019ve tried to do things the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor his part, Harris, 70, has expressed burning ambivalence about the film. \u201cI think they really should have put up that it\u2019s a documentary about Iron Maiden, not by Iron Maiden, because it\u2019s not us,\u201d he recently said<\/a>. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have that control that we normally have if we\u2019re doing it ourselves. \u2026 I think we\u2019d have done it in a slightly different way, and I\u2019ll say no more.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe intention was never to explain Maiden to the fans,\u201d Venville says. \u201cThey don\u2019t need that. It was to reflect something back that feels true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWHEN SMITH FIRST watched Burning Ambition, the archival footage floored him. \u201cThere\u2019s stuff of me from when I was very, very young,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like another life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe guitarist joined Maiden in November 1980, half a year after they had released their self-titled debut. He\u2019d grown up with Maiden guitarist Dave Murray, and his group Urchin had gigged with Maiden. Even though they weren\u2019t punk (\u201cWe actually didn\u2019t like punks at all,\u201d Harris once told Rolling Stone<\/a>), they operated like a DIY punk ensemble, building a fan base with a self-produced and self-distributed EP, The Soundhouse Tapes, and heavy gigging. \u201cThe band has always operated slightly outside of the establishment. It\u2019s almost like a big cult band,\u201d Smith says. \u201cI think our fans identified with the struggle, the fact that we did it the hard way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIron Maiden\u2019s singer when Smith joined, Di\u2019Anno, had short hair and a uniquely gruff voice but couldn\u2019t cut it on the road. \u201cPaul, I think, felt the pressure a lot,\u201d the guitarist says. \u201cHe used to lose his voice quite a bit. My impression of him when I joined was that he was a happy-go-lucky guy. He didn\u2019t strike me as a hard, ambitious guy. He just liked having fun. So I think he was almost relieved when he left the band.\u201d He pauses and adds, \u201cI hope Paul had some happiness in his life after Maiden.\u201d (Di\u2019Anno\u2019s life is the subject of an independently produced documentary<\/a> due out this year.)<\/p>\n

\n\tDickinson, who\u2019d been singing with New Wave of British Heavy Metallers Samson, joined in September 1981, six months after Killers\u2019 release, and his operatic-yet-masculine \u201cair raid siren\u201d wail immediately set them apart from every other metal group. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re watching Broadway,\u201d Anthrax\u2019s Scott Ian comments in Burning Ambition. But what made the extraverted Dickinson a fit for Iron Maiden was his unstoppable drive. One of the reasons Venville wanted to make a Maiden documentary is that Dickinson was an unconventional frontman, pursuing alternate careers as an airline pilot, fencer, novelist, broadcaster, and entrepreneur at the same time he was singing \u201cHallowed Be Thy Name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe idea that he could front one of the biggest bands in the world on relentless world tours, qualify as an airline captain, and then suggest improvements to British Airways\u2019 pilot-training manual tells you something about his mentality,\u201d the director says. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t do things by halves. Then there\u2019s Steve Harris, almost the opposite: private perfectionist, and quietly obsessive. That tension between them felt like the engine to me. One expansive, one exacting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Dickinson believes he and Harris aren\u2019t so different. The grit that pulses through Maiden\u2019s lyrics, which often draw from literature<\/a>, is a shared DNA between the pair. \u201cThat determination reflects Steve definitely, and me, as well,\u201d he says. As an example, Dickinson recalls how when doctors diagnosed him with throat cancer in 2014, his first question was, \u201cWhen can I get back to singing?\u201d The answer was \u201cabout 10 months.\u201d \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019ll beat that,’\u201d Dickinson beams. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the way we are, and we\u2019re still like that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDickinson\u2019s health is now restored, but with \u201call kinds of bits\u201d of his body renovated. \u201cI got two metal hips, I got a busted Achilles I had stitched back together five years ago, various contusions and lumps and bumps,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019m still running around like a lunatic, and the voice is doing great.\u201d And he adds, \u201cI just finished a solo record: We did 16 tracks in 21 days, all 100 percent live. It\u2019s like the anti-AI generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDickinson believes Iron Maiden\u2019s purpose of presenting live spectacles is \u201cunashamedly escapist.\u201d \u201cWhen you go to a movie, it\u2019s an escape, depending on the kind of movie you like,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd you get to choose which movie you go to. I do not want to watch a documentary about Bono rescuing African children, as wonderful as that may be. I want to see Jason Statham take down the bad guys, because that\u2019s what I\u2019m in the mood for. And people pick Iron Maiden because they\u2019re in the mood for that particular thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBurning Ambition illustrates how Iron Maiden have made it their quest to provide that escape for fans all over the world, drawing heavily on footage from their Iron Maiden Behind the Iron Curtain VHS, which documented a 1984 tour of Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. \u201cWe\u2019ve always looked to go into new places, and no one had really done that,\u201d Smith says. \u201c[Those audiences] had never really seen anything like us before. They knew of some of our music, but I almost felt a bit sorry for them. They had such a life of austere hardship. I remember going to the best hotel in Warsaw, and they had one thing on the menu.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat we do is give people an opportunity to escape from the shitty world in which we live and to get together with other human beings on a level playing field, whether they are doctors, bankers, plumbers, bricklayers, whatever religion, whatever nationality, whatever color,\u201d Dickinson says. \u201cWe don\u2019t exclude anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tIron Maiden in 1983<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRoss Halfin\/Courtesy of Trafalgar Releasing<\/p>\n

\n\tHALFWAY INTO the documentary, there\u2019s an archival scene in which Bruce Dickinson gets frustrated with an interviewer who misinterprets the lyrics to \u201cRun to the Hills.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s an anti-Indian\u2013killing song,\u201d the singer insists. \u201cThe whole thing about it is, \u2018This is what happened, and it\u2019s not like the cowboy movies.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThen the screen cuts to Javier Bardem, who recontextualizes the song by reciting the lyrics slowly as poetry, giving gravitas to the first-person account of a Cree character begging for freedom from enslavement by white people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a wow moment,\u201d Dickinson says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe way he read the words sounded very profound,\u201d Smith says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve never heard them read in a poem by a great actor,\u201d Dickinson says. \u201cI got a sense of melancholy and sadness from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVenville says this is the point of the film. \u201cThere\u2019s a depth to their work that\u2019s easy to miss,\u201d he says. \u201cHistory, literature, and philosophy are embedded in the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough Burning Ambition tells Iron Maiden\u2019s story, moments like Bardem\u2019s recital demonstrate why the band has its diehard fanbase. \u201cThe real revelation was the audience,\u201d Venville says. \u201cThe fanbase isn\u2019t just battle-jacketed headbangers; it\u2019s global, organized, and deeply connected. It behaves almost like its own ecosystem.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked how he hopes Burning Ambition makes Maiden fans feel, Venville answers simply, \u201cRecognized.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the film starts, the first voice you hear <\/strong>is Dickinson\u2019s telling an audience, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter whether you\u2019re male, female, Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Jewish, it doesn\u2019t matter: If you\u2019re a Maiden fan, you\u2019re an Iron Maiden fan.\u201d It\u2019s a sentiment so nice, Venville used it twice in the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tDickinson was surprised to hear it multiple times, but stands by the sentiment. \u201cSometimes you have to say shit like that,\u201d Dickinson says, citing many ways people have misinterpreted what the group stood for, from a lack of women at the early concerts to accusations of Satanism because of \u201cThe Number of the Beast\u201d to the way he waves a Union Jack proudly during \u201cThe Trooper.\u201d But the band\u2019s critics have them wrong.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMaiden\u2019s like a giant umbrella that people can get under,\u201d Dickinson says. \u201cAnd once they\u2019re under the umbrella, it doesn\u2019t matter where they came from, who they are. Under the umbrella, they\u2019re all Iron Maiden fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tIron Maiden in 2025<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJOHN McMURTRIE<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think people would be surprised by who Maiden fans are,\u201d Smith says. \u201cThe new leader of Japan<\/a> is a Maiden fan; she plays drums. Maybe we\u2019re being acknowledged a little bit more by the mainstream now. We\u2019ve had a couple of songs on famous TV shows. We never chased that, but people are seeing us in a bit of a different light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIron Maiden have always shrugged off other people\u2019s attempts to enshrine their legacy. They were nominated for the Rock Hall twice before getting in this year, and in 2018, Dickinson wielded sharp words<\/a> against the institution. \u201cI actually think the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is an utter and complete load of bollocks,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s run by a bunch of sanctimonious bloody Americans who wouldn\u2019t know rock & roll if it hit them in the face.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo does he worry that a legacy-focused documentary might come off like a capstone to Iron Maiden\u2019s career? \u201cWhen you say capstone, you don\u2019t mean a headstone, do you?\u201d he asks, laughing. Then he parries the perceived slight with a parody of a Maiden song<\/a>: \u201cIn a grave new world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter he regains his composure, he looks at the big picture. \u201cFifty is always going to be a big, symbolic number,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are not showing any signs of coming to an end, but we will. Inevitably, it will happen. How it happens, when it happens, we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThen he gets a new handle on the picture, figuratively and literally. \u201cRather than a capstone, I\u2019d say this documentary is a frame,\u201d Dickinson says. \u201cThis is a frame through which to view the rest of our career.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the early Eighties, the world witnessed Iron Maiden on a Promethean quest for fire, driven on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[7389,18,117,19,17,7388,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-459899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bruce-dickinson","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-iron-maiden","14":"tag-music"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116488915937732937","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}