Nicko McBrain

Michael Henry "Nicko" McBrain (born 5 June 1952) is an English musician, best known as the drummer of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden since 1982.

Having played in small pub bands since 1966 from the age of 14, McBrain paid his bills after leaving school with session work before he joined a variety of artists, such as Streetwalkers in 1975, Pat Travers, and the French political band, Trust.

McBrain soon left to join "The Wells Street Blues Band", which renamed themselves "The Axe" in 1969, a group which played their own material.

This band split up after an argument between the singer and the guitarist, and McBrain began playing with Billy Day, a singer and keyboardist, and Michael "Mickey" Lesley, a guitarist, in 1971.

At that point, he was known as "Nicky", a nickname given to him by his parents after his teddy bear, Nicholas, until an intoxicated Billy Day introduced him to Dick Asher, head of CBS Records, as "Neeko", while they were recording at CBS Studios, Whitfield Street.

McBrain liked the name, changing it to Nicko "so that it sounded more English", and decided to keep it even after leaving the group.

In 1973, McBrain performed on a single by Cockerel Chorus, "Nice One Cyril", on the label Young Blood.

Also in 1973, McBrain played on a self-titled album by guitarist Gordon Giltrap.

In 1975, he began playing with Streetwalkers, before joining Pat Travers, singer Jenny Darren, McKitty and then the French band, Trust, with whom he met Iron Maiden for the first time, while touring together in 1981.

This is notable not only as McBrain's album debut, but also because Giltrap in 1978 released an album called Fear of the Dark and used a font for his logo that is quite similar to the one used by Iron Maiden.

He formed a close partnership with bassist Steve Harris, and completed what many critics consider the band's "definitive" line-up, releasing a series of gold and platinum selling albums throughout the 1980s.

In 1982, the band asked McBrain to replace Clive Burr, and as news of Burr's departure had not yet been announced, McBrain made his first appearance with Iron Maiden on German TV disguised as Eddie.

After McBrain joined the band in 1982, Harris also noted how much easier playing with McBrain was for a songwriter, with Adrian Smith claiming that, "Steve loves playing with him. [They] used to work for hours going over these bass and drum patterns."

He joined Iron Maiden (replacing Clive Burr), in time to debut on their fourth album Piece of Mind (1983), and has remained with them since, contributing to a total of fourteen studio releases, as well as being the third-longest serving member of the band.

McBrain was born in Hackney, London, and first wanted to learn the drums at a young age after watching Joe Morello performing with The Dave Brubeck Quartet on television.

At the age of ten, he started to play drums with pots, pans and other kitchen utensils, before, to his parents' dismay, he began drumming on the gas cooker with a pair of knives and chipped off the paintwork.

McBrain recalls that he was eleven or twelve before his father bought him his first drum kit, "which was basically one snare, one tom-tom, one cymbal, two drumsticks and a pair of brushes."

He soon started playing Rolling Stones and Beatles covers with school bands, before he began regularly playing "pubs and weddings" by the age of 14.

McBrain had his nose broken in a fight at school which left him with his trademark flat features.

He never underwent surgery to repair his nose.

McBrain's drumming has been an important element of Iron Maiden's sound from 1983's Piece of Mind onwards, with guitarist Adrian Smith remarking that, "he always had the chops and the technique, but in Maiden he really exploded, to the point where a lot of stuff we did after he joined was then founded on his playing, all those busy patterns he does, displaying tremendous technique."

He had previously received two songwriting credits for non-album tracks: 1984's "Mission From 'Arry", which was actually a recording of a backstage argument with Steve Harris, and 1992's "Nodding Donkey Blues", which were B-sides of the singles "2 Minutes to Midnight" and "Be Quick or Be Dead", respectively.

The book featured complete transcriptions of McBrain's drum work on twelve classic Iron Maiden songs, including six live versions as recorded on the band's 1985 album Live After Death.

After selling internationally for several years, the book was taken out of print.

Used copies are occasionally found for sale online.

In 1988, McBrain collaborated with Andrew Chapman on a book entitled Iron Maiden & Nicko McBrain's Rhythms of the Beast, which was published by Warner Bros. Music in 1990.

While the band's line-up went through several changes during the 1990s, McBrain remained in Iron Maiden, and since the return of Adrian Smith and Bruce Dickinson in 1999 the group has undergone a resurgence in popularity, and are now considered by some as "bigger than ever".

When he's not recording and touring with Iron Maiden, McBrain often plays with side projects including a band called McBrain Damage which played Iron Maiden covers.

Since switching to the DW pedal in 2000, McBrain plays barefoot, stating that it gives him "more freedom."

Steve Harris remarks that "...he can play all kinds of music. Drummers from other bands sit round the back of him to see what he's doing, but he's got his kit set so he doesn't even look at what he's hitting half the time".

He received only one songwriting credit on an album, for "New Frontier", from 2003's Dance of Death, which expresses his opposition to human cloning, arising from his religious beliefs.

As described in detail on the band's 2004 documentary, Piece of Mind opening track, "Where Eagles Dare", famously displays McBrain's ability to use the single drum pedal very quickly, plus his rapid tom fills.

He is often considered among the best and most influential heavy metal/hard rock drummers of all time.

In the 2008 Live After Death DVD, Steve Gadd, McBrain's then drum technician (not to be confused with the other one), comments that, on the World Slavery Tour, some drummers would refer to McBrain as an 'octopus' after witnessing the way in which his stamina gives him the ability to use all of his large signature drum kit in concert.

McBrain often employs the back end of his left hand drum stick to allow for more powerful "snare hits".

He is known for not using a double bass pedal, with Bruce Dickinson commenting that he refused to use one on "Where Eagles Dare", considering them 'undrummerish'.

He claims to have only ever used a double pedal once on "Face in the Sand", from Dance of Death, preferring to use a DW 5000 Accelerator single pedal.

In March 2017, he was a guest drummer with the 8G Band on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

McBrain writes all the drum parts for Iron Maiden's songs.

McBrain's first "proper" band was "The 18th Fairfield Walk", later known as "Peyton Bond", a small pub band, which he decided was "never gonna go anywhere" as they only performed Otis Redding, The Beatles and The Who covers.