He wrote songs that shaped the sound of heavy metal in the early 80s, among them Phantom Of The Opera, Wrathchild, Run To The Hills, The Number Of The Beast and The Trooper. But when Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris thinks back to the very first song he wrote – in the early 70s, when he was aged just 16 – he can only laugh at the absurdity of it all.
“My first band was called Influence,” he says. “Then we changed the name to Gypsy’s Kiss, which is Cockney rhyming slang for you know what. And I wrote this song that had an awful title: Endless Pit. Which isn’t Cockney rhyming slang, but it should be.”
