Background and Recording
In the midst of punk rock's peak in the UK, Iron Maiden struggled to secure gigs out of the East End of London and decided that a demo would be an ideal way to try to remedy this. The band decided to record at Spaceward Studios, Cambridge after hearing a demo tape recorded there by former vocalist Dennis Wilcock's band, V1. Although this would be more expensive than recording in London, bassist Steve Harris comments, "We decided that doing it on the cheap was a false economy. We knew we'd only probably get one go at it, and we wanted it to sound the best we could."
To save money, the band booked a session on New Year's Eve 1978, which cost them £200, and recorded four songs, "Prowler", "Invasion", "Strange World" and "Iron Maiden". Harris states, "We didn't know what to expect, going into the studio for the first time. We just hoped the engineer was gonna be good enough to record us, and that was it, really. We just went in there with a naïve attitude and, as it happens, it was pretty good. The songs were very together already. We didn't have to arrange much. They were very tight, 'cause we were doing them live all the time. We knew exactly what we needed to do. It was just a question of whether we could record it all in time. But we went in and the tracks went down really quick. I think we did most of them in the first take."
Following this single session on New Year's Eve, the band were due to return a few weeks later to remix and rerecord some parts, however, according to guitarist Dave Murray, "they wanted an extra £50 off us for the master tape and we just didn't have it on us at the time. And when we went back, two weeks later, they'd already wiped the master and put something else over it! We couldn't believe it. So, in the end, we just had to put it out as it was, which was all from that one mad session down in Cambridge on New Years Eve." In defence of Spaceward's actions, Mike Kemp, the engineer, has since stated that "we were as poor as they were and couldn't afford to keep £60 multi-track tapes for every band either... We did our best - I think for £5 a week we would hold them until either they were paid for or the band decided not to keep them any longer, e.g. after a remix. Presumably they did not take that option."
Read more about this topic: The Soundhouse Tapes
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