arts cover story: Beat #1163 22 April 2009

iron maiden:
flight 666

Sam Dunn—director of Headbanger’s Journey, Global Metal and now Iron Maiden: Flight 666—opens can of cultural worms; finds old people, skullets and Neil Diamond within!

Sam, something you said at Flight 666’s opening is chiseled into my consciousness: “We’re at a point now where legendary metal bands deserve to have films like this made about them.” I found your use of the word “deserve” compelling. To me, that suggests metal is still spat on culturally.

Well, I think it is! But I think we’re getting to a point in modern music history where people are maybe slowly starting to acknowledge that metal is not mainstream, but it’s certainly not going away—like a lot of people hoped it would. And I think that these bands, like Iron Maiden, have had a massive influence on our culture. And they have their own story.

That said, to be metal is to exist on the knife’s edge of society. We feed off being underappreciated as zombies feed off corpses.

Yeah! And I think part of the excitement of being a metal head is feeling like you’re part of a community. I don’t know if you feel the same strong sense of community in other genres of music—probably in hip hop. But I think it’s pretty powerful when you get in a football stadium in Chile with 60,000 Iron Maiden fans, all singing along to “Fear of the Dark”. Like [pauses] people should pay attention to that!

Flight 666 shows that Maiden burn with the same raging intensity of their youth. This makes an epic comment about ageism. Society dictates middle-aged artists choke on their own vomit and die, because a) seeing them physically decay is revolting and b) hearing them play music they wrote at twenty-five is inherently pathetic. But that’s ageist.

At the core of it, they’re artists, right? And I don’t know why in some art forms it’s “okay” to grow old. But for some reason, as a society, we don’t have a context for rock and roll—and especially metal. When people watch Flight 666, they hold certain expectations. Especially non-Maiden fans. First of all, they don’t even know that Maiden are still TOGETHER. They assume this is going to be Spinal Tap or something. And I think they’re surprised when they discover these are highly functional individuals, staying relevant and flying THEIR OWN PLANE around the world. But you’re speaking of a much larger cultural issue, of course. We’ve long lived in a society where the cult of youth and beauty is very strong. And metal is not unique that way. Metal has always been a genre of youth and power and virility. And yes, Iron Maiden is shattering that myth. But you’re opening a big can of worms here, Mia.

But does metal worship the cult of beauty? I think no, Sam. I mean, rejection of “beauty”, so-called, at least in the bullshit Ashton Kutcher sense of the word, forms the bedrock of my attraction to the genre. Plus, you know, I’ve always found Devin Townsend really appealing physically.

You’re a fan of the skullet!

I am!

You’re the first. But your point has made me think of something. There is something in metal that is [pauses] different, in the way that it honours its old. It’s a genre very based on respecting your elders. And I think that’s what DOES set metal apart from a lot of other styles of music. Certainly modern music. Especially now. Plus, in order to be a real metal head, you can’t just know who Atreyu and Trivium are.

Your films illustrate that metal is never a burp on one’s musical landscape—it engulfs one’s total human condition.

In Flight 666, one fan in Brazil says, “Maiden is my religion.” There’s also a scene in San Paolo with the priest who does his sermons based on the morality of Maiden’s lyrics. In most cases, I think that the Maiden experience is very TOTAL. It’s visual. It’s lyrical. It’s philosophical. It has a sense of community. And I think it represents some of the things that people look for through “faith” or spirituality. So I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say it fulfills those same needs for people. And certainly when we were on this Maiden tour, we experienced it at a level that we NEVER expected. When we went to Costa Rica with Maiden, that was the biggest show in Central America’s history.

Do you think this is something peculiar to metal? Because I find it hard to believe that an Iron Maiden fan’s relationship with Iron Maiden is comparable with a Neil Diamond fan’s relationship with Neil Diamond.

[cackles] Well, we DID have Heavy Metal Parking Lot AND Neil Diamond Parking Lot.

Ha! I know!

So they’re not THAT far apart.

But are people experiencing the same depth and intensity of emotions with Neil Diamond? I can’t gauge that.

It’s hard to know. I mean, it could sound elitist or righteous to say so. But I think there’s a certain power to metal that you don’t see in other forms of music. There’s something real about it. Something authentic. But we’ve only made three movies about it. We don’t really know that much yet.

I’m recalling the scene from Headbanger’s Journey with the guy carving “Slayer” into his arm. I find it hard to believe someone is ever going to carve “Neil Diamond” into their arm.

Ha! You’re right! Probably not. For a start, it’s a lot longer of a word.

This article is mirrored at Beat magazine.