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The meaning behind Iron Maiden’s stamps: ‘It feels like the establishment is finally accepting them’

British Lion: Iron Maiden's Steve Harris - John McMurtrie
British Lion: Iron Maiden's Steve Harris - John McMurtrie

On the afternoon of October 14 2022, the six members of Iron Maiden saw themselves on Royal Mail stamps for the first time. Mocked-up on A3-sized prints, the dozen images, a mixture of live shots from the past 40-years as well as artwork featuring their evergreen mascot Eddie the ‘Ead, were presented to the group in the Grand Ballroom of the Fairmont Château Laurier, in Ottawa, by their official photographer John McMurtrie.

“It was amazing,” McMurtrie tells me. “[Vocalist] Bruce [Dickinson] was quite emotional. [Drummer] Nicko [McBrain] was unbelievably stoked by it. You’ve got the silhouette of the Queen’s head on there. Obviously I can’t speak for Iron Maiden, but what I take from it is that it looked, finally, like a bit of acceptance. It seems like the establishment is finally accepting them.”

Imagine that. Issued on January 12, Iron Maiden’s Royal Mail collection sees the London band join The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Queen as the fifth rock act to have been honoured with an appearance on a British stamp. Only one of these groups reached the summit of the domestic charts with an album called The Number Of The Beast, mind.

Certainly, it’s not bad going for a band who were once taken about seriously as The Wombles. With a high-handed derision typical of the time, a profile in the New Musical Express from 1982 dismissed Maiden’s visceral appeal as “a loveless, pathetic attempt to introduce excitement into dull lives”. Rather than doing the decent thing and disappearing like teenage acne, however, by 2009 the group were ranked alongside Coldplay and The Police as Britain’s highest-grossing international concert draw. In noting this achievement, The Times described them as “a byword for uncool”.

Okay. But while other domestic acts of a similar age are equally deserving of a place at the top right hand corner of an envelope – The Cure, say, or Depeche Mode – I’m not sure that any of them would look quite so at home on a stamp. After all, this is not a group that suffers queasiness when it comes to matters of patriotism.

Iron Maiden showing off their stamp collection - John McMurtrie
Iron Maiden showing off their stamp collection - John McMurtrie

Thirty-nine years ago, each of the 189-concerts on the World Slavery Tour began with an intro-tape of a wartime speech from Winston Churchill. In 2005, Dickinson told audiences across America that the colours on the Union Flag “do not f------ run”. When it comes to being British, Iron Maiden are only ever on the front foot.

Even the Fairmont Château Laurier, in Ottawa, was an apt place at which to look at reproductions of their own series of British stamps. Over the years, the hotel in the Canadian capital has provided bed and lodging to Churchill, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. As it so happened, Iron Maiden were themselves in Canada on diplomatic business. The following day, on October 15, they appeared before 20,000 people at the city’s hockey arena as part of a Legacy Of The Beast Tour that was seen by three million people in 2022 alone.

When it came to getting their stamps into the public realm, John McMurtrie tells me that “the final approval actually came from the late Queen herself. The whole set,” he says, “had to be presented to the late Queen for her to approve. And as far as I know, this is the last set of stamps with the Queen’s [image] on the them. Which is pretty amazing.”

Iron Maiden on tour in 2017 - John McMurtrie
Iron Maiden on tour in 2017 - John McMurtrie

Isn’t it just. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like this story. Iron Maiden appearing on a series of stamps is so much better, and so much more fitting, than its members arriving at Buckingham Palace in awkward-looking formal wear to receive an MBE, an OBE, or a Knighthood. This is the people’s band, after all; what better way to mark their universality than by having them grace collectibles that can be bought and used by anyone who can rustle up a couple of quid.

Because detractors be hanged, Maiden trade in incorruptibility. Unlike Metallica, their ticket prices remain well below the market average. Unusually for ones so long on the scene, the belief in their newest material – for God’s sake, 2021’s Senjutsu was a triple album – has kept them out of the somnambulant clutches of cosy nostalgia. Such is the work ethic of founding member Steve Harris, to name just one, that this month he’s out on the road playing in pubs and clubs with his other group, British Lion. Forget that Iron Maiden were once capable of terrifying Christian groups the world over. Today, it’s hard to think of more wholesome role models.

Even so, when it came to the stamps, John McMurtrie admits to having his doubts. “I did view the idea with some disbelief,” he tells me. “I was, like, seriously? We’re going to put a picture of Steve Harris gunning down the camera lens with his bass guitar on a first class stamp? That’s never going to happen.” Even as time wore on, “I thought, and perhaps [Maiden’s] management thought, ‘Is this really going to get over the finish line?’”

Bruce Dickinson on stage - John McMurtrie
Bruce Dickinson on stage - John McMurtrie

I suppose I ought to say that McMurtrie has been my friend for at least two decades. In what I regard as by far his finest piece of work, 17-years ago he took a picture of me interrogating a Christian evangelist who was picketing a music festival in the evil summer heat of Atlanta. It was in the spring of last year that the 53-year old first learnt of the approach from Royal Mail (months before Iron Maiden themselves). In an industry that thrives on gossip, it’s a toss-up as to which is the bigger surprise: that the stamps exist, or that the man responsible for the photographs on five of them managed to keep the news to himself for nine months.

The band’s official photographer since 2006, McMurtrie estimates that he’s taken an average of 3,000 photographs at each of the 500 Iron Maiden concerts on which he’s trained his lenses. There are cameras in the lighting rig that are synced with the handheld device he uses in the photographers’ pit in front of the stage.  When Royal Mail requested a series of onstage pictures from the past 17-years (the three images that precede this period were taken by George Chin), McMurtrie had hundreds of thousands of images from which to choose.

“Iron Maiden have toured every [non-pandemic] year since 2006,” he tells me. “Except for 2015 when Bruce was recovering from cancer. And even in that year, during his recovery, me and him ended up in the Mexican Mayan rainforest to promote [The Book Of Souls] album. Which was just insane. He’s just survived cancer while I’m sweating like a bastard trying to keep up with him climbing these massive monuments.”

John McMurtrie photographing Iron Maiden in Santiago, Chile
John McMurtrie photographing Iron Maiden in Santiago, Chile

Certainly, it is true that while other loud bands – again, Metallica – are beginning to look their age, while others – Slayer, for one – have disbanded entirely, Iron Maiden continue to truck with very little sign of visible wear. For anyone who is minded to keep an eye on the clock, Steve Harris is said to have said that the group will last for as long as Nicko McBrain’s 70-year old limbs can manoeuvre themselves around a drum-kit. Then again, I’m damned if I can actually find such a quote, so maybe it’s just not true. Perhaps Maiden are impervious to time, just like they are to trends and critics. If so, is it any wonder they ended up on stamps?

“The weird thing about Iron Maiden is that each time you think, ‘Could this be the last tour? Could this be the last album?” says John McMurtrie. “But they just go on and on… Iron Maiden don’t want to stop. As a photographer, it’s quite easy shooting, say, an indie band because they just stand there looking at their feet. But Maiden just gallop all over the stage. Bruce is wearing fencing boots. All of them are so fit. I would say there’s no sign of them stopping just yet.”


John McMurtrie’s selection of Iron Maiden prints are available here. His book On Board Flight 666 is available now