Writing and Recording
The Number of the Beast is Iron Maiden's only album to include songwriting credits from Clive Burr, and was the band's first album to feature writing by guitarist Adrian Smith. In addition, the release saw Steve Harris adopt a different approach to writing, which would cater more for new vocalist Bruce Dickinson. The album's producer, Martin Birch, remarked, "I simply didn't think was capable of handling lead vocals on some of the quite complicated directions I knew Steve wanted to explore... when Bruce joined, it opened up the possibilities for the new album tremendously."
According to several interviews, Dickinson was heavily involved in writing several of the album's songs, and in particular the tracks "Children of the Damned", "The Prisoner" and "Run to the Hills". Due to his previous band Samson's ongoing contractual issues, Dickinson could not legally take part in any songwriting for the record, and had to make what he called a "moral contribution", which meant he was able to influence particular tracks, but not provide enough creative input so as to earn a writing credit. The recording and mixing of the album had to be completed in only five weeks, after the band had spent too long constructing the new songs. This was because the group were for the first time creating a new album from scratch, with very little material written prior to the record's pre-production stage.
Music press reports told stories of unexplained phenomena occurring during the sessions at Battery Studios, such as lights turning on and off of their own accord and the recording gear mysteriously breaking down. This all climaxed when the producer Martin Birch was involved in a car accident with a mini-bus transporting a group of nuns, after which he was presented with a repair bill for £666.
Read more about this topic: The Number Of The Beast (album)
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