Paul Di’Anno, the musician born 65 years ago, who sang on the first two Iron Maiden albums and who could have definitively established himself in the group, has lived through complex years in recent years. During his last visit to Chile, he was seen in a wheelchair due to an operation paid for by fans and the help of his former bandmates. But that was not the only thing: he suffered from other health problems and even had to go to prison.
Glory and shame face to face . It was in May 2022, when Iron Maiden returned to the stage since 2019, that the public reunion between Steve Harris and Paul Di’Anno took place. On one side, the millionaire musician who fills the stadiums with the “iron maiden”; on the other, the ex-singer of the group, confined to a wheelchair. A rock and roll contrast made flesh.
It was a backstage encounter, of which only a 15-second clip was released in which Di’Anno can be heard commenting, “I can’t wait to see everyone.” The singer who recorded the first two albums (Iron Maiden from 1980 and killers 1981) was in Croatia because he he was receiving lymphatic drainage treatment before a knee operation partly paid for by the same group . One more chapter in a story of long medical treatments that the musician has had to undergo in recent years.
Di’Anno himself confirmed in an interview with Mexican media outlet MB Live that Iron Maiden helped him. “The last part was done, because I had no more money . It was very expensive. Because the first time I got sick, I had to be evacuated from Argentina, which cost me a lot. I had to [ser transportado] in a private medical plane and all that in return. When I arrived in England I only had 45 minutes to live, sepsis and all.”
He began a long period in clinics. “They filled me with antibiotics Di’Anno said. I spent eight months in the hospital. So the last part of the treatment, the band was really great – they paid for the treatments for the last two months, which was good. I will be eternally grateful to you.”
During the last years, Di’Anno had to resort to aid to fund expensive medical bills . The same fans of the band did a crowdfunding drive that raised £13,100 (about 13 million Chilean pesos) to pay for the complex surgery. The singer has spent almost a decade confined to a wheelchair and had to perform seated performances, as happened during his recent visit to Chile last March, with performances in Santiago and some regions. On occasion, the set focused on these two seminal “Iron Maiden” records.
Jorge Ahues of Maiden Chile, the official Fan Club recognized by the group in the country, was the organizer of this visit. “[Di’Anno estaba] very happy and grateful with Iron Maiden -he says Worship – He really liked meeting Steve Harris after 40 years and that the band paid for his recovery. He was delighted with the reception in Santiago, Coquimbo and Puerto Montt, also in all the cities where we organized a meeting and the fans recognized his founding stage in Maiden”.
These days, Ahues says, he’s curating The Future Past, a one-day exhibition all about the band in the Metronome Room (Ernesto Pinto Lagarrigue #179), which will be attended by Raphael Mendes, official Bruce Dickinson look-alike.
Despite the balmy applause and reunion with Harris, Di’Anno didn’t just have to overcome the situation on his knees. In September 2022, he had to come out to deny rumors that he had cancer; strictly speaking, it was an abscess. “I collapsed at home after returning from Argentina and a CT scan found a huge black shadow on my lungs,” he told Classic Rock. I thought it was coming out, but it turned out not to be smart. It was a fully infected abscess the size of a rugby ball. . Turns out I’ve been living with this thing inside me for a few years. Doctors said it was something airborne that caused the infection and he could have had it anywhere.”
In recent years, he has not only had to face the ills of old age and a life of excess. In 2011, he faced a fraud charge, for which he was sentenced to 9 months in prison. The singer had applied for financial assistance from the state, alleging that he could not work for health reasons. But investigators from the UK Department for Work and Pensions discovered videos of his presentations on YouTube. In all, he had pocketed £45,000. Discovered, Di’Anno pleaded guilty and thanks to his good behavior, managed to reduce his prison sentence to two months. His attorney, Steve Ritter, said Di’Anno “was obsessed with acting to support his family and had been naive when it came to finances.” Worse still, the musician “fell into a chasm of chaos and lost practically everything”.
the beast is free
Originally from Salisbury, Paul Di’Anno joined Iron Maiden in 1978. At that time, he was a punk rock fan who moved away from heavy metal with a progressive touch, like that offered by the band. In fact, when he first saw Maiden, at the Cart & Horses club, he didn’t like them. But luck opened up when singer Dennis Wilcock quit the job. There it is the same Steve Harris who offered him to join the Irons.
Di’Anno had doubts. He had sung in punk rock bands, but his tough street style suited Iron Maiden. Eventually he agreed and with them he did the hardest stretch for a band, the one in which you go from the pub to the studio and from there to slightly better stages. They managed to record their famous debut album in 1980, with producer Will Malone. A work that has left traces like free runco-written with Harris, the band’s songwriter and frontman.
“We knew what we had was unique compared to any other group. , and we had spent the previous two years playing all the shitty places in the UK, some decent places too,” Di’Anno told Classic Rock. “The only person who could have had any doubts was me. Even though he was an arrogant leader, he was all mouth and no pants.”
Having become a rock star, Di’Anno entered a spiral of debauchery. He arrived late to gigs (resulting in the band spilling over to instrumental versions of their songs), drank and abused drugs, while joining West Ham United’s legion of hooligans. He was kind of a hooligan fulfilling the rock and roll fantasy.
But with killers (where he co-wrote the title track with Harris) things started to get messy. The material began to make Di’Anno uncomfortable, who left the band after the promotional tour. ” At time killers the group was getting a bit more technical and losing a bit of that edge for me,” he later admitted.I didn’t think the songs had the same kind of attack, and then I started losing interest. I felt like I was letting people down by voicing my doubts, so I didn’t say anything, but it all built up to the point where I was teasing Steve the wrong way.”
Excesses, drunkenness and difficulties took their toll. This clashed with the more armored persona of Harris, who ruled the gang with an iron fist. Just like that, he fired him. “I don’t blame them for getting rid of me,” he told Classic Rock. The band was Steve’s baby, but I wish I could have contributed more. After a while it got me down . In the end, I couldn’t give Maiden 100% anymore, and that wasn’t fair to the band, the fans or me.”
Since then, Di’Anno wanders between several projects that do not float, even sharing with another former Maiden, such as drummer Clive Burr and with Janick Gers who will be part of the group years later. Meanwhile, Iron Maiden have become a beast of stadiums with the brilliant Bruce Dickinson as vocalist after signing to The Number of the Beast (1982). A glory that Paul could only watch from the box.
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Source: Latercera
I am David Jack and I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years. As an experienced journalist, I specialize in covering sports news with a focus on golf. My articles have been published by some of the most respected publications in the world including The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.
