As The Number of the Beast turns 40 – and is set to crash back into the charts – we appraise the best of the band who brought epic, bloody storytelling to heavy metal
Famously no fan of punk – music he described as “against my religion” – bassist and founding member Steve Harris has always denied its influence on early Iron Maiden. But how else to account for this intriguing, compact curio on the B-side of Running Free, a perfect gene-splice between metal, Thin Lizzy and, well, punk?
