Iron Maiden's debut self-titled album in 1980 is a phenomenal debut album for any band of any caliber, and set the bar pretty high for Iron Maiden's career (which they constantly met). Ex-guitarist Dennis Stratton was recently discussing the album with Rock Candy Magazine, and says the song "Phantom Of The Opera" originally had tons more layers and sounded like a Queen song.
To be more specific, Stratton liked the original but manager Rod Smallwood made him change the song because "it sounds like fucking Queen." Stratton adds he'd still like to revisit the song at some point and bring back the original production, which would be a really cool treat for fans!
"I took 'Phantom of the Opera,' which was always a great song at its core, and added a load of harmony guitars and falsetto vocals to our basic recording. The engineer helped me layer the sounds, adding track after track, and when we played it back it sounded like Queen. I thought it was fantastic.
"But when we were listening back to the track [manager] Rod Smallwood came up behind me in the control room. I didn't know he was there and at the end of the song he said, 'You can get rid of all that. It sounds like fucking Queen.' So it never made the cut.
"I'd still love to do a big, massive production of that song one day. I know it would be great."
Fortunately the change to the song didn't really matter, considering Iron Maiden went on to become one of the most successful bands in rock and metal of all time anyway.
