Steve Harris gave birth to Iron Maiden on Christmas Day 1975. Harris says he got the idea for the name from Alexandre Dumas’ novel – The Man in the Iron Mask. Five years of ever changing line ups and with only pub gigs to survive on ended in 1980 with the release of their first album ‘Iron Maiden’ – which debuted at number 4 in the charts. Now they were no longer playing pubs but supporting headline acts like Kiss and Judas Priest. Iron Maiden are considered one of the most influential and successful heavy metal bands in history, with The Sunday Times reporting in 2017 that the band have sold over 100 million copies of their albums worldwide.