In celebration for Iron Maiden's current tour, The Man on the Street Kenny Kessel for The Metal Voice caught up with Artist and Eddie Creator Derek Riggs in an exclusive One on One interview.
In the interview Riggs walks through all of his Maiden and non Maiden artwork and explains the age old questions about the alternate Maiden Japan cover with original singer Paul Diann's head cut off.
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Derek Riggs said," They wanted to call it Maiden Japan cuz it's a take from Deep Purple (Live Album) 'Made in Japan' so it was a pun. So they wanted a cover. The manager (Rod Smallwood) was off with the band somewhere in America and so he phones up and says, 'I'll let you get on with it.' So I thought well the obvious thing was to put Eddie chopping off Paul Di'anno's head. And so I did that. It's not a bad portrait for two days work actually, considering all the other things I had to do. So I got it (artwork) down to the record company and then they got a call from the manager and the manager said destroy all of those cuz they printed 250,000 single covers he says. I don't want to ever see one again. So they destroyed them and I painted a new cover.
And later on when the manager came back he said you know that cover that I had destroyed and I had you repaint the second. He (explained why) said that Paul Di'anno's voice was giving him problems and he was doing one day in three one day in four you know sometimes one day a week singing. And Maiden just couldn't deal with that and they couldn't function under those conditions. So they had to find a new singer. They found Bruce Dickinson in the end but the manager said they've been auditioning new singers at this point and he was (Paul Dianno) getting wind of something going on he knew something was happening. And he if he'd (Paul Dianno) have seen that cover at that point we would have freaked out. They'd have been left without a singer for the rest of the tour, potentially. So they had all those destroyed I had to do a different cover and and that's the story behind that.
As posted on Social media by his friend and manager on the passing of Former maiden Singer Paul Di'anno
On behalf of his family, I am very sad to confirm the death of Paul Andrews, professionally known as Paul Di'Anno.
Paul passed away at his home in Salisbury at the age of 66.
Born in Chingford, East London on 17th May 1958, Paul first came to prominence as lead singer of English Heavy Metal band, Iron Maiden between 1978 and 1981. He sang on their groundbreaking debut album Iron Maiden, and the influential follow up release, Killers.
Since leaving Iron Maiden, Paul Di'Anno had a long and eventful recording career with Battlezone and Killers as well as numerous solo releases and guest appearances.
Despite being troubled by severe health issues in recent years that restricted him to performing in a wheelchair, Paul continued to entertain his fans around the world, racking up well over 100 shows since 2023.
In 2024 he published his new album with the band Warhorse, and only few month later his retrospective album.
His first career retrospective album, The Book of the Beast was released in September 2024 and featured highlights of his recordings since leaving Iron Maiden.
I was so proud to call him my friend and I ask his legion of fans to raise a glass in his memory.
Ex Iron Maiden Singer PAUL DIANNO Dead at 66 R.I.P. -Tribute-Leave A comment-Favorite song?
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