Paul Di'Anno

Paul Di’Anno will do his final performance on August 30 2020, at the Beermageddon Festival in Bromsgrove, England before he retires from touring, though he has not clarified on whether he will continue to record music.

On 29 October 2017 Di’Anno joined The Iron Maidens on stage for their encore at the O2 Academy in Islington, London, performing Wrathchild and Iron Maiden. Di’Anno appeared in a wheelchair.

In May 2016, Di'Anno was hospitalized for undisclosed medical issues and was forced to cancel his previously announced June 2016 tour of Brazil. According to the tour's promoter, Blog n Roll Produções, Di'Anno is undergoing a series of tests to help ensure an accurate diagnosis and identify an appropriate course of treatment.

In August 2014, Di'Anno has scrapped his retirement plans and released a new album with his new band, Architects of Chaoz called The League of Shadows (Released on 29 July 2015 (also featuring members of Paul's longtime German touring backing group The Phantomz).

In the year 2015, Paul returned to Brazil on his tour "The Beast is Back", saying that this would be his last in the country. In this tour, the singer was accompanied by musicians from Rio de Janeiro, Vinnie Tex (Guitar), Thiago Velasquez (Bass) and drummer Braulio Drumond, they currently part of the North American Leather Leone´s band. Paul made eight presentations around the country. These members would be part of the new band of Paul, like he announced on facebook, however by health problems, the singer had to pause activities and the project in standby.

In 2014, Di'Anno sang on lead vocals on the bonus track "Fuck You All" on the album "Big Trouble" by hard rock band Hollywood Monsters. The album was released in 2014 on Mausoleum Records and features Steph Honde on vocals and guitars, Vinny Appice on drums, Tim Bogert on bass and Don Airey on keyboards.

In December 2013, Paul Di'Anno and Cliff Evans announced that the band would regroup and release a new album entitled The Lazarus Syndrome. Producer Phil Kinmanm who had worked on Tank's album War Nation was announced to be involved with the new project.

He maintained an extensive world tour schedule including two recent trips through America where traditional metal band, Icarus Witch served as both his opening and backing band. In June 2012, Paul Di'Anno was given the Freedom of The City of Bariloche in Argentina for charitable work carried out several years ago.

Di'Anno was, before being jailed in March 2011, recording a new solo album with Paulo Turin, the guitarist who worked on Feel My Pain and Nomad. The album was being produced by Dieter Roth in his studio in Germany. However, work on the album ceased due to record company problems.

In February 2011, Di'Anno was convicted on eight counts of benefit fraud for claiming more than £45,000 under false pretenses. On 11 March 2011, he was jailed for nine months at Salisbury Crown Court. He has since been released early from prison, having only served two of the nine months to which he was sentenced.

In mid-2008, a Battlezone compilation entitled The Fight Goes On was released as on the Phantom Sound & Vision label as a 3-CD box set featuring all three Battlezone studio albums.

Late 2008, Di'anno relocated to the southeast of Brazil and toured with a new band/project named RockFellas with three Brazilian musicians: Jean Dolabella (drummer) ex-Diesel/Udora/Sepultura, Marcão (guitarist) of Charlie Brown Jr. and Canisso of Raimundos/ex-Rodox, playing rock & roll and metal classics. There, he was nicknamed "Paulo Baiano" ("Paulo" = Paul in Portuguese, Baiano = Who was born in Bahia), being the "Paulo Baiano" nickname a pun/joke, for his name, Paul Di'Anno, is pronounced in a very similar way to the nickname above.

Early 2008, Di'Anno toured Norway and later Eastern Europe in 2009 with an all-Norwegian backing band consisting of musicians Henrik "Rick" Hagan (drums), Are Gogstad (bass), Anders Buaas (guitar) and Jon Vegard Naess (guitar). Anders Buaas was later replaced by guitarist Rikard Nilsen. The band went on to do several tours of Sweden, and made festival appearances at Hard Rock Hell (Wales, UK 2013), Voxbotn (Faroe Islands, Denmark 2013), Tons of Rock (Halden, Norway 2014), Sweden Rock Festival (Norje, Sweden 2014) and Rock Against Narcorics (Pune, India 2015), before doing a final tour of Sweden in the summer of 2015. The band has also toured with Blaze Bayley and Tim Ripper Owens.

By 2004, Killers had disbanded. Cliff Evans, the former Killers guitarist and last original member of the band apart from Di'Anno, subsequently formed his own record company called Soundhouse Records and re-released the entire Killers back catalogue with the addition of another live album entitled Killers Live at the Marquee in 2008. Murder One album was reissued with 2 acoustic bonus tracks – "Wrathchild" and "Dreamkeeper". Following this, Paul Di'Anno made both Killers studio albums available for download free of charge through his own website. Following legal action, Evans was forced to cease selling any Killers material on his label.

By 2003, Di'Anno and Cliff Evans went on tour as the only original members of Killers remaining. Di'Anno hired new musicians whom he remembered from touring in Germany and Austria. Marcus Thurston joined the band as second guitarist, Darayus Kaye took over bass duties and Pete Newdeck on drums. Steve Hopgood had to retire as he developed tinnitus in his ears. The guitarist Graham Bath damaged his hands from playing so much over the years and developed arthritis. According to Di'Anno, he wanted Clive Burr (ex-Iron Maiden) on drums, but he could not get to rehearsals in time. Later on, Burr was to become severely ill from multiple sclerosis and died in 2013.

By 1998, Di'Anno had resurrected the name Battlezone. Joining him were Wiggins and fellow ex-Tokyo Blade members bassist Colin Riggs and drummer Marc Angel. Second guitars were supplied by the Brazilian Paulo Turin. This line-up cut the album Feel My Pain, released by the fledgling "Zoom Club" label. Working titles for the album included "Spoon Face" and "Smack", both containing references to heroin use. The album had a heavier edge compared to the first two Battlezone albums. The band undertook a sold-out Brazilian tour in January 1998, with erstwhile Killers colleagues bassist Gavin Cooper and guitarist Nick Burr joining on this South American tour.

Following the demise of the new Battlezone unit put together in 1998, Di'Anno teamed up with expat Brazilian guitarist Paulo Turin and lived in São Paulo during 2000. A new band was created initially under the banner of "Nomad" and featured an all Brazilian line up. It was economically and logistically preferable for Di'Anno to live in Brazil during this period, in order to tour South America and release a self-produced album pleasing to that particular market. The album was distributed by Perris Records. However, complete worldwide distribution was not achieved.

Shortly afterward, a live album called Assault on South America was recorded, featuring a number of Iron Maiden and Battlezone tracks and covers of "We Will Rock You" and "Smoke on the Water". This was funded by Rock in Rio promoter Carlos Genesio and to be released primarily for the South American market. "Recorded in Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela in Summer of 1993" is splashed on the back cover. However, according to John Gallagher, the South American tour fell thorough so the entire album was recorded on a mobile recording truck in New York. Later, a Canada-based record company called Magnetic Air Productions issued a pirate (bootleg) release worldwide, under a different cover, with no royalties being paid to the band.

Killers was formed back in the summer of 1991. Cliff Evans was living in New York with Arnie Goodman, the manager of Fastway. Steve Hopgood, who played in Battlezone with Di'Anno previously, called Evans and outlined his plans for a new band. Di'Anno and Hopgood flew over to New York from the U.K. where they formed a band.

Following the breakup of Battlezone, Di'Anno and Hopgood formed the power metal band Killers releasing four albums. Hurley would later form glam rock band L.O. Girls and release the "Twelve Bore Honeymoon" single in 1990 and "Just Can't Say I Love You" in 1993. During 1990, Di'Anno fronted Praying Mantis for a tour of Japan, which was recorded for the subsequent Live at Last album release with ex-Iron Maiden guitarist Dennis Stratton. Wiggins joined a reformed Tokyo Blade in 1995.

Di'Anno's religious affiliation is made uncertain by his own words; he has given interviews that contradict each other on this subject, perhaps as a practical joke. He has a tattoo on the back of his head that says "666" and "GOD = SUCKER". According to his autobiography, he converted to Islam in the 1990s after reading the Qur'an. However he has subsequently reversed that position: I think religion kills everybody. I don’t believe in it. ... No, my father was a Muslim, I must admit. But I don’t give a fuck. In later interviews Di'Anno clarifies that he never was a true Muslim, that he never stopped drinking, but tried to become a better person by applying some of the Muslim philosophies to his life. His autobiography furthers the confusion, in various passages he claims to be Muslim, Catholic, Jewish, and Aborigine.

Subsequently, American guitarist Randy Scott, along with Dave Harman on guitar and Eddie Davidson on bass, signed up with Battlezone. However, the band were without proper management and disbanded shortly after. Battlezone played their last concert on 10 December 1989, at Dynamo Open Air in Eindhoven, Netherlands .

After being dropped by BMG, Praying Mantis disbanded. Then, in a Spinal Tap-ish twist of fate, Paul Di'Anno called Dennis Stratton in 1989, about the Japanese wanting to have a ten-year anniversary of the new wave of British heavy metal. The band found themselves enjoying a renaissance in Tokyo, Japan, prompting a reformation and tour in April 1990, which yielded the Live at Last LP.

Battlezone performed a club tour of America in 1987 to promote the début Fighting Back, but musical differences, arguments and physical fights within the band led to the departure of John Hurley and Bob Falck after the first tour. According to Di'Anno's book The Beast, Hurley had become an "egomaniac" and the drummer Falck a "liability", so they were thrown out the band. Their places were taken by ex-Persian Risk members Graham Bath and Steve Hopgood respectively, following the tour's completion.

The band's initial line-up comprised Di'Anno, guitarists John Wiggins & John Hurley, bassist Laurence Kessler and Adam Parsons on drums. The latter had gone under the stage name A.D. Dynamite whilst in Aunt May. However, Parsons left shortly after to replace Vince Hoare in the London-based glam band Belladonna (formed by former Hell's Belles vocalist Paul Quigley, with Paul Lewis, Jeff Fox and Neil Criss) and Falck reappeared on the scene in time to record the band's first album written by Di'Anno & DeeRal Fighting Back. 1986 also saw the enrollment of former Lonewolf and Tokyo Blade guitarist John Wiggins.

In 1985, Di'Anno joined a project that was intended to be a supergroup. The group, called "Gogmagog" (see the Biblical book Ezekiel 38:1–2), was put together by DJ and record producer Jonathan King, best known for discovering the group Genesis in the late 1960s. King assembled a star-studded lineup featuring Di'Anno, drummer Clive Burr, guitarists Janick Gers and Pete Willis and bassist Neil Murray, but the members became increasingly frustrated by a policy that forbade them from writing any original material. Gogmagog released a three-song E.P. on the independent Food For Thought label in 1985 entitled I Will Be There, with Russ Ballard writing the title song and producer King writing the other two songs. Although reviews were generally positive, the EP did not chart and the group disbanded after King began to lose interest in the project. Di'Anno has been completely dismissive of the short-lived project, referring to it as "nothing" and claiming he only got involved for the money.

After the breakup of his self-titled band, Di'Anno formed Strike with DeeRal (guitar) who recruited drummer Bob Falck (who had used the name Sid Falck while playing drums in Overkill) and the Hurley brothers John (2nd guitar) and Chaz (bass). The project was eventually named Battlezone, after a name straight from a comic book, upon the vocalist's return to Britain in 1985. Paul had previously known guitarists John Wiggins and John Hurley from bands such as Deep Machine and Iron Cross.

Di'Anno was born and grew up in Chingford with a Brazilian father and holds dual British and Brazilian citizenship. He spent his teenage years singing in various rock bands and working as a butcher and chef. He became the band's singer after the departure of the very unpredictable Dennis Wilcock, who had pressured Iron Maiden founder and bassist Steve Harris into firing every member of the band (including Dave Murray), before becoming fired up himself. According to Iron Maiden's The History of Iron Maiden – Part 1: The Early Days DVD, he was introduced to the band by drummer Doug Sampson, an old friend of Harris' from his days in the band Smiler. It was around this time that he first adopted the stage name Di'Anno, which he would later use to claim Italian descent. Their first audition with Rod Smallwood reputedly failed when Di'Anno was arrested for showing off his pocket-knife in public. 1980's self-titled release quickly became acknowledged as a classic of its genre, as the band merged punk's energy with metal's riffs and progressive rock complexity, serving as the blueprint for such future genres as thrash metal and speed metal. 1981 saw the release of their second album, Killers, as well as a stopgap live EP, Maiden Japan. After having cancelled gigs due to Di'Anno's inability and, at times, lack of desire to perform, which had resulted from cocaine/amphetamine abuse and heavy drinking, Iron Maiden decided that to progress they would have to find a singer capable of withstanding the rigours of being on tour. They found a replacement in former Samson frontman Bruce Dickinson. Di'Anno's last show with the band was on 10 September 1981 at the Odd Fellow's Mansion in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In 1981, Di'Anno left Iron Maiden after a meeting with the band and their manager Rod Smallwood. In Di'Anno's words: "It's like having Mussolini and Adolf Hitler run your band. Because it is Rod Smallwood and Steve Harris and that's it. There can't be anyone else and my character is too strong for that so me an' Steve was always fighting". Di'Anno was paid out by Smallwood at the time of his departure and does not receive royalties on Iron Maiden songs.

Paul Andrews (born 17 May 1958), better known by his stage name Paul Di'Anno, is a British singer who was the first vocalist to record with heavy metal band Iron Maiden, from 1977 to 1981.