Chapter I - Burning Ambition: the origins in the Seventies
"The boy will do, even if it has narrow shoulders." Francesco De Gregori, Lever football's '68 class.
Stephen Percy Harris
Machine Head by Deep Purple, Close to the Edge by Yes, Thick as a Brick Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath Volume 4 and Foxtrot Genesis. 1972 was a great year for hard rock and progressive. In the early seventies, the fantasy has - temporarily - seized power in the rooms of the music industry. The young Stephen
- some records provided by his accomplice Pete Dale - loves large groups, their bombast, those compositions that challenge the structure of the song and that initially seemed so "weird", strange.
The boy loves the music, but also football. After a good test
it comes to playing in the youth of West Ham, his favorite team. Soon, however, too rigid discipline imposed by the sport at high levels, he prefers the life of the musician, who can drink some more beer and go out at night.
Stephen started playing guitar at school to go straight to the bottom, he founded his first band, the Gipsy's kiss, and wrote his first song: Burning Ambition. The group includes Steve, his school friend Dave Smith on guitar, Paul Sears on drums, Bob on vocals and Tim Verschoyle Wotsit on guitar.
The public debut came in 1973 and not in a big arena, but even in a pub or in a rock club.
The bassist and his group of friends make their entry into scenes in a contest between youth groups in a room adjoining the church of Saint Nicholas in Poplar, East End
The neighborhood on the outskirts of London in which a growing founder of Iron Maiden, a son of the working class. The truck driver father and housewife mother.
Steve is ambitious and feels the need to grow as a bass player.
In 1974 and 1975 he played with the Smiler, a good boggie band-like Savoy Brown, with 25 years on parts and with some experience. These include Mick and Tony Clee on guitar and two elements with a role in the early Maiden drummer Doug Sampson, and vocalist Dennis Wilcock. This brief phase
allows Harris to mature as a musician, to accumulate experience in concert, but he also throws in some frustration.
Stephen takes it away to compose new songs and propose to the group, incorporating the fertile influence of hard rock and progressive, with numerous changes of tempo and mood. Pieces that the other members of the group - linked to a set standard - regular refuse. So
Harris Stephen Pearcy, having chosen the path of music instead of that of calcium, in December of 1975 decided to found a band of his own: the Iron Maiden. (...)
From the book (publisher pending) "Iron Maiden. Not a wasted year"
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