Former Iron Maiden Member Wants To Redo Classic Song

Michael Angulia | 11-19-2019

Former Iron Maiden guitarist Dennis Stratton says that he wants to approach Steve Harris for his blessing to rerecord one of the band's classic songs in a different way with his current band Lionheart.

Stratton, who appeared on Iron Maiden's debut album, recently sat down with The Metal Voice and the topic of the recording of the Maiden classic "Phantom Of The Opera" came up and how Dennis famously worked on a different more layered version of the song with the engineer that was rejected by the group as sounding too much like Queen.

Dennis recalled, "The funny thing about 'Phantom' was that when we were recording, I would sit in the studio with the engineer on my own. I was left with the engineers so we started working on the harmony guitars. We start[ed] building the songs up. Then I would put down two or three parts of the vocals and the engineer loved it. It sounded really big.

"So we did it and we were listening to it back and then Rod Smallwood walks into the control room and he listened to it, he went absolutely mental. He went potty and he said 'Take all that off. It sounds like Queen.' So we said, 'It's your band. Can we leave one of the vocals for harmony and a harmony for guitar?' He said 'Yeah, but no more because it sounds like Queen.' So that's what we ended up with."

Stratton was then asked about the idea of rerecording the song to include the multi-layered treatment and he revealed that he is pursuing the idea and he plans to reach out to Iron Maiden founder Steve Harris to get his permission to do so.

Dennis said, "I shouldn't really say this but, after a quite well-known interview regarding Rod Smallwood asking me to take the guitar layers and the vocals harmonies off of 'Phantom' because it sounded like Queen, everywhere I've gone since 1983-84 when Maiden started becoming one of the big bands in the world, fans would come up to me and they would say, 'You know the interview you did where you say that 'Phantom of The Opera sounded like Queen? I said 'Yeah.' 'Why don't you record it now and see what it sounds like you originally had in mind.'

"So basically I told Steve Mann a couple of weeks ago, 'When we do the new Lionheart album, why don't we do 'Phantom of The Opera' as it was originally intended with vocals and guitar harmonies like a big production on it. And he said, 'We can have it as the bonus track for Japan.' So we both agreed.

"So I'll go speak to Steve Harris and I'll ask him if he's ok with that. So I'm going to ask his permission. If he says 'Yes', then we're going to record it for the new Lionheart album as a bonus track." Watch the full interview below: