 Paul Di'Anno - The Beast Maiden Norway: You do 200 concerts a year (More than that, he points out), so you got a pretty busy schedule. What do you get to do when you’re around, - like today you’ve been in Bergen, what have you done?
Paul Di'Anno: Nothing. See, we got in at 1:30, had something to eat. Tried to sleep for maybe one hour, two hours. Been calling some friends up in Norway to check out some Hells Angels stuff, see what’s going on and so. That’s what I do. Watch fucking TV or listen to music, and that’s about it. Or look for pussy, hahaha!
Maiden Norway: Do you know any bands from Bergen?
Paul Di'Anno: Well the guys from Thunderbolt, but they’re from Oslo, I think. God, no I really don’t know many, obviously. Well you’ve TNT and all that shit from years ago.
Maiden Norway: And you’ve played with Arve Isdal of Enslaved, haven’t you?
Paul Di'Anno: That’s right, yeah yeah.. Yeah they were cool guys too.
Maiden Norway: And later this year you’re coming back to Norway, you’re doing the ”Rock the Boat” festival...
Paul Di'Anno: (shoots in) We’re doing that Saturday, ehm, Friday, yeah.
Maiden Norway: ....and you’re coming back this summer for the ”Kvinesdal Rock Festival”.
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, that’ll be fun. We’re not working much this year, and I’m kind of pissed off, because it’s slow. We finished the end of a four year world tour just before christmas, and since christmas break we haven’t really done much. I went back to Russia again, that’s the second time in four months, that’s pretty awesome. We hold the world record, nobody’s ever played so many shows there. We have that for Brazil, for Russia, and also no other western band has ever played Venezuela. And a place called ”Campico” in Mexico. No western artist have ever, ever been there, they never played there, they’re fucking nuts! They’re great! But we do this in the fucking Amazon as well though, so... haha! So yeah, we haven’t done a great deal you know, what have we done? Russia, Mexico, Canada, couple of other stupid shows here and there. And we got Germany and all this other stuff coming up as well. It’s pretty cool, I had a good time in Moscow, anyway.
Maiden Norway: At the ”Kvinesdal Rock Festival”, you headline along with Turbonegro, another band from Norway.
Paul Di'Anno: Oh do we? Oh yeah, the gay boys, hahaha. They better not fucking touch me or I’ll kick their asses, haha. No, people like that scare me.
"Dave put the fucking dress on and everything and we got married"- Paul Di'Anno
Maiden Norway: Speaking of gay people....
Paul Di'Anno: What...?
Maiden Norway: We know that one time, probably when you were still with Iron Maiden, you got married to Dave Murray.
Paul Di'Anno: [has a good laugh] We was drunk!
Maiden Norway: What can you tell us about that?
Paul Di'Anno: This was fucking nuts, we was pissed stupid. Therewas a [breaks and laughs again] There was a hotel in, I think it was Sheffield or something, Northeast/North England, Yorkshire, and there was this fucking stupid bridal thing that was there, you know. So me and Dave got drunk and I put the hat on, Dave put the fucking dress on and everything and we got married. I think we got kicked out of the hotel after that, haha. Shit happens. It was fucking nuts, you know.
Maiden Norway: Did you ever get an annulment, or?
Paul Di'Anno: Naah, he’s such a bitch. Hahaha! Fucking hope so! Oh wow, no we used to do everything together, me, Dave and Clive, always. And Dennis too, when he was in the band, before he turned fucking weird. Yeah we used to do everything together, us four, was hanging out, but most of these days were quiet. But we were always together, it was fucking nuts.
Maiden Norway: Yeah, about Clive, are you going to attend CliveAid this year, in Doncaster?
Paul Di'Anno: If I’m home I’d love to, but you know I’m trying to get out with, you know with Clive, soon you know, it’s gonna be quiet anyway in June so.... I think I’ve got the month off! I’m thinking of going back to Russia to see my old lady. Maybe not. Haha! Obviously I’m gonna check up with him anyway, I don’t see him very often anymore.
Maiden Norway: We’re heading down there to CliveAid this year
Paul Di'Anno: Oh really? That’ll be cool!
Maiden Norway: Yeah, do you want us to pass him a message for you?
Paul Di'Anno: Nah, I’ll call him anyway. Tell him he’s an ugly motherfucker. I love him! No I’m gonna see him anyway, I haven’t seen him since we done the Maiden fucking DVD thing, you know.
Maiden Norway: The Early Days?
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, that was fun, hah [rolls his eyes]. No it was, it was good fun ’cause I hadn’t seen Clive for a good while, you know.
"And you don’t do stuff like that, that’s fucking nuts"- Paul Di'Anno
Maiden Norway: Speaking of Dennis Stratton
Paul Di'Anno: [swears in spanish] What? Yeah, what about him? Ahh he’s a dick, no I got nothing nice to say about him so I ain’t gonna say nothing.
Maiden Norway: Okay.
Paul Di'Anno: He’s a very bitter, jealous man.
Maiden Norway: Yeah, how did this happen? In the early nineties you did a ”Praying Mantis” album
 Paul Di'Anno: No, see they asked me to do - I was with my girlfriend at the time, so basically I got a paid holiday - Me and my girlfriend went to get ”Praying Mantis” back together with Dennis playing for them – No problem! And he said ”Oh why don’t you come?” And I was like ”Oh all right, I’ll go”. My old lady is japanese and she’s like the translator. Back then, we could be together for two weeks, then I’d go up and done four stupid songs every fucking night, so that’s cool. Getting about fucking $15,000 a night, I’m getting a paid holiday, so I’m like ”This is cool!”, you know? What do you want? Naah, Dennis is a dick, we did this thing that same year, some pop festival in Poland. We played for solidarity there, it was fucking great! You know, my manager Lea and I and all the guys that went into the british all-stars. I flew over with Chris and Tino and Troy and a guy from Girlschool, only to find that Dennis has smashed his fucking hand up [shakes right hand] because he’s been taking LSD. And, he had also given LSD to the rest of the band members without telling them. And you don’t do stuff like that, that’s fucking nuts. But all he does is just say bad things about me and Steve, and shit all the time. The thing that was actually put in the newspapers, which apparently came from me didn’t come from me, it came from my manager Lea.. who hates just as much as I do! So, there you go.
Maiden Norway: Do you have any contact with some of the Iron Maiden members today?
Paul Di'Anno: Well yeah but with, you know, Steve emails me occasionally and I email him. Well, I’ve seen Steve at the airport about three times in the last few years, in England, but as I said, I don’t live there very often, I live in Brazil so, we’re on two different continents. When they played Rio, Bruce was calling up everybody he knew to see where I was, and couldn’t get through.
Maiden Norway: Yeah, they wanted you to come and do a song?
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah I know, that was a bummer because I was in Germany at the time. Yeah it was the guys from Sepultura that called me and said what was going on.
"That fuck. He came up to do one song and he couldn’t remember the words!"- Paul Di'Anno
Maiden Norway: Yeah, if you got the chance again, would you go on stage with Iron Maiden?
Paul Di'Anno: Why not? Yeah! I can’t see why not, there’s, there’s no...
Maiden Norway: There’s no bad feelings or anything at all?
Paul Di'Anno: No, no, I’m not Blaze Bailey, man! [laughs] No! No, not at all.
Maiden Norway: Yeah you did a concert with Blaze Bailey once, didn’t you?
Paul Di'Anno: That fuck. He came up to do one song and he couldn’t remember the words! He’s a prick, he’s another prick, my god!
Maiden Norway: What song was it?
 Di'Anno and Bayley Running Free Maiden Norway: Just a quck question, really, there’s a DVD out called Legacy of the Beast, a bootleg DVD
Paul Di'Anno: Really? Oh shit.
Maiden Norway: In this DVD, some former schoolmate of yours refers to you as Paul Taylor.
Paul Di'Anno: Who’s that? That’s my stepfathers name, yeah.
Maiden Norway: The fanclub refers to you as Paul Andrews and says that that is what it says in your passport.
Paul Di'Anno: In my passport now it’s my stepfathers name, yeah, sure. But I’ve also got Di’Anno which is my dads name. You see, my dad died – my mom remarried.
Maiden Norway: And then the name...
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah. Very useful. Very, very useful. Especially when you’ve got warrants out for your arrest [laughs]. Ah no don’t really anymore, but you see the thing is I fucked up in America so I can’t get back on either passport. They’ve got fingerprints.
Maiden Norway: Haha, well we’re not talking about America.
Paul Di'Anno: Hehe, yeah I know, but as a passport I can’t...[mumbles]
Maiden Norway: But we have to ask you one question about the United States; your new album, ”The Living Dead”, it’s a rerelease of ”Nomad”?
Paul Di'Anno: Ah you, yeah, because basically the record company we was with, they didn’t really do very good, so we added three more tracks”
Maiden Norway: Yeah, ”Symphony Of Destruction”
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, we done, well, we did that for Dave, from Megadeath. They asked us to do it for their tribute. We said, go on and do it, and I said “I’ll do it on one condition; I’ll use it too”. And he said “Yeah, that’s cool”, you know, he’s happy with it. I just thought it’d be different, just do something different.
Maiden Norway: And you’re releasing it only in the United States and in Japan?
Paul Di'Anno: No, Europe too, it comes out in Europe on the 16th of May. The day before my birthday, cool. Haha!
Maiden Norway: So your birthday is May 17th?
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah.
Maiden Norway: That’s cool, that’s the Norwegian consitutional day, actually.
Paul Di'Anno: Oh is it? Hahaha, yeah, the constitution is…. Yeah
Maiden Norway: Trivial facts to know, huh?
"I’m not a terrorist, I’m a hooligan. There’s a difference!"- Paul Di'Anno
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah [laughs] that’s cool. No, the thing is, we’ve got the DVD as well that we’ve made, I don’t like doing these very often. I don’t mind a live one occasionally, but we actually shot a real DVD for the track we did.
Maiden Norway: Yeah, we’ve seen a 20 seconds from it on Myspace
Paul Di'Anno: I haven’t actually seen it yet, well I’ve seen those bits, it looks pretty good. Yeah, but the whole thing, we actually shot it in a day in like the docks of east London. It came out pretty good, and we’ve done some computer graphics stuff.
Maiden Norway: So now you’re gonna really take over the United States, is that your plan, to really come back there?
Paul Di'Anno: Ehm, well let’s put it this way; there’s something like about 4 million kids that’s out there in the minute, in the States, who are going absolutely nuts. Writing of to the White House and Congress and everything, which is fucking cool actually. I just had a, you know, American show on the phone the other day, and they were all going fucking crazy. So this guy who is the DJ gone on the web and done all this fucking, I mean, it’s been 12 years man. And because of 7-11, that’s what made it worse. You know, I couldn’t get back in because of this terrorist bullshit and that. I’m not a terrorist, I’m a hooligan. There’s a difference! [laughs]
Maiden Norway: What can we expect from you in the future? Are you doing some new material now?
Paul Di'Anno: Oh, no. It’s not gonna be rehearsed up. We’re gonna put about five or six new songs in. But the thing is, I want us to drop some of the other songs like the Iron Maiden stuff as well. But we can’t do that, because the fans would kill us. Done it once in America and it got killed. I never played one Iron Maiden song. We had a good concert but you know half the fucking heads were going nuts. So we can’t go out and do that, we’ll have to extend the set up to two hours. That’ll be fun! So after that, I’ll probably be dead a year after that, I mean, you never know. I just love playing and… Making records is great, but touring is what it’s all about. And when I’m doing this I’m also doing my other little bit of work I do for UNICEF as well, you know. That’s all good. Try to get money to the kids in South America, [sighs] we need it. Everyone cares about fucking Africa.
Maiden Norway: Are you a parent yourself?
Paul Di'Anno: I’ve got six kids, man. No more, can’t afford it! [laughs] No, see, I’ve got a new old lady now, and you know, “I think we should have a kid” and I go “Oh God, kill me now!” But, we’re gonna try, who knows?
Maiden Norway: Good luck then, fingers crossed and everything!
Paul Di'Anno: [laughs]
Maiden Norway: What can we expect tonight?
Paul Di'Anno: Oh, a lot of shit, Spice Girls, stuff like that [laughs], no we ain’t doing a great deal, you see, the bands, we’re using different bands and we ain’t got time to rehearse them up, yeah, for this new stuff. But we will when we catch this break in June, the memo will go out, you know, gotta learn at least five songs from Nomad. We actually run a concensus. I say that these are the ones I wanna put in, because we’ve played them before, you know, with this Brazillian band, But, these are the songs that are gonna come in. And then, every radiostation I’ve been doing have turned around and they’ve said exactly the same songs, so I say ”Ah, cool!” So, this is why it’s going to be good, and then people will have heard this one bit, it’s awesome. Because I would never do this, you know, just to play what they want, you know, I wanna play what I want, you know, because otherwise it’s boring for me. And I’ve got it right, I think, for the first time ever! [laughs] That’s cool! That doesn’t happen often. [smiles]
And I thought ”Oh shit, this’ll be awesome!”, so we try to get them all rehearsed up, but we got some weird stuff coming up. I’m going to Peru, for one show. One show. Before that, we’re doing Costa Rica, Chile and Nicaragua, 3 shows in 3 days, in South America. I mean, South America is my… South America is home, yeah? It’s fucking awesome, I mean, they’ve…. 25 million records, you know. In South America alone. I mean it’s fucking awesome. I’ve taken over for Che Guevara. [laughs]. It’s cool, I mean its’s good, you know, we’ve been working fucking… you know, the thing for the revolution in Venezuela the other year. Fantastic, we’re going back to do it again this year. I’ve been speaking with Fidel Castro. Ha! Uncle Fidel! Uncle Fidel! You know, come on play the Cubafest!
I do a lot of work for the UNICEF and the South American kids, you know, and stuff like that. Getting quite this reputation for being not communist, but socialist. Which I am, I guess, you know. You can have money and still care about people, you know what I mean? I wanna try and make a little difference, you know? I haven’t got enough money to give to the kids. I need to be richer than Bill Gates to be able to do what I wanna do, but you know, I can help generate money which is what I do. I do put money in myself but I’m trying to get more in, because as I said everyone is going “oh, Africa!”. Yeah, fucking hell, you give billions to Africa! You give billions to fucking Pakistan and Asia and all these places but nobody cares about South America. You know, we’re fucked. What, we don’t count? Fuck it. They think we’re all fucking gansters and shit like that. Haha! Poor footballers, but there you go, hahaha!
Naah, so we’re gonna try and change this a little bit, this is all going on pretty well so I wanna do a bit more work with that. As I said, I’m going to Peru for one show, which is for people to see me, so. We don’t think there’ll be any money, it’s just to go play! And we’ve got India again, that’ll be interesting! Indian kids are fucking great, you wouldn’t think that there would be like a rock scene out there or anything, but it’s fucking nuts!
Maiden Norway: It’s not often they see rock bands.
Paul Di'Anno: No they never see, no! I think Deep Purple went a long time ago, and played to something like 20 000 people. When we played there last time, we played this like, open air Colosseum thing? It was amazing! That must’ve been like 50 000 fucking kids there! It was great! They couldn’t sing for shit, but never mind that [laughs].
I will make a new record again, I think. Maybe…. See I don’t do many, I make one album, then two or three to four years later… because I’m always working! But we’ve got some ideas. Paulo, the guitarist who wrote everything with me for “Living Dead”, has moved back over to England from Brazil. So I’ll meet up with him on Sunday for the first time, and he’s got some new material. We got some shit we wrote a couple of years back but I gotta find it. I had all lyrics done and everything, it was pretty awesome stuff! So, I’ve got all that going on. I think I’m gonna do some work with System of a Down. So, that’s it. More punk shows coming up as well with the punk band, as well. That’ll be good!
Maiden Norway: Are you going to play any Iron Maiden material tonight?
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, of course. We have to.
Maiden Norway: Will “Remember Tomorrow” come up?
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah. Of course it will, yeah.
Maiden Norway: What can you tell us about the song? We’ve read somewhere on the web that “Remember tomorrow” is an expression you got from your grandfather?
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, my old grandfather used to say that, “Oh don’t worry about today, son. Remember tomorrow, it’ll be better”, so that was it, I just used the idea, sort of elaborated on it a little bit. Yeah he’s a mad old fucker I liked him. But he’s a good bloke. Naah, it’s nothing, it’s just them words, you know. I did write it for him, but nothing really relates to him in some ways. I mean they’re words, that’s all. I don’t know what the fuck I was writing then. If I had an idea, you know, anything that came in to your head you just write it down, you know.
"Some of the songs were absolutely shit, and we hated it"-Paul Di'Anno
Maiden Norway: What can you tell us about Gogmagog?
Paul Di'Anno: Not a lot.
Maiden Norway: Why didn’t it go well? You had an all-star line-up with you, Clive and Janick and?
Paul Di'Anno: No, no, you see, that’s it, we all replaced other people! Oh these guys’re fucking idiots. In the sixties, this guy Jonathan King, he was a famous entrepreneur writing TV and radio, he also wrote a couple of hit singles himself, it was all whacky. Anyway, he’s a very strange guy. And, the original, it was David Coverdale on vocals, Cozy Powell on drums, John Entwhistle from “The Who” on bass, and fuck I can’t remember who the guitarist were. Anyway, one by one, they all sort of didn’t get… they all got kicked out of the band so I replaced David Coverdale, Neil Murray replaced John Entwhistle, Clive came in on drums, and Janick and Pete came in from, oh you know, Def Leppard and that. And the thing is it’s written by, all the songs are written by another guy, uhm, Russ Ballard and another guy Rod Argin from the band Argin, and Jonathan King, so they wouldn’t let us write any songs. Some of the songs were absolutely shit, and we hated it. So, I was the first one to say “Fuck that, I’m outta here”. And they was asking me ridiculous amounts of money! They wanted something like $45 million to sign the band! To sign us up! Like we were the worlds biggest supergroup! Anyway, they went down to something like about $30 million, and the record company was like “Yeah, we’ll give you the money”. And aaaahhhh, fuck it, this is money-making thing, and I don’t play music for money, you know. I’ve made money out of it, obviously, but you know, it’s nice to get paid for you work. I have quite enough money, and I had quite enough money back then, as well. So, I’ve never really played for money. I’ve just got lucky, I’ve played because I love to play. You know, as I said I’m going all the way to fucking Peru, I’ll probably just bag enough for a packed of cigarettes and a beer [laughs]. But, it’s for the kids, all the money I make nowadays I just give to my kids anyway, you know. I’ve got a few million bucks, that’s good enough for me, you know, I’m happy, we keep our business together. As long as I’ve got enough to go to football, feed my kids… get a new Harley when we need one [smiles], you know I’m happy, man! I can’t do it for money so, I quit and everyone just fucking left straight after. And then the guy gets arrested about ten years later for being a pedophile. He went to jail. Thank you, God! Ah I hate that dick, he was a prick.
Maiden Norway: We asked you previously about if you are in contact with other band members of Iron Maiden. Do you have any contact with Rod Smallwood?
Paul Di'Anno: Oh, I don’t know. Last time I seen him was about thirteen years ago. No we were okay, we’re cool. Yeah, we went out that night. I’ve spoke to him a few of times, you know, on the phone. I’ve actually tried to get a hold of Rod recently for my Russian promoter, they want Iron Maiden to go back there, just for one show, in Moscow. Because they haven’t played there for thirteen years. It would’ve been an awesome sight, somethings come up so I don’t know if it’s going on or not, but I’ve just sent Steve an email, which he’ll be quick to reply back to because it’s about Westham. So, haha, there you go! So I expect that one back, because we’re playing in the cup final now, so that’s cool. I’m really happy. I wanna see if he’s going, if he’s going I’m going too. We’ll see what happens.
 Paul Di'Annos fav Eddie! Maiden Norway: Another Maiden-related question (obviously!); which one is your favorite Eddie?
Paul Di'Anno: The first one.
Maiden Norway: The first one? The Punk one?
Paul Di'Anno: Oh yeah. Definitely. Without any question! [laughs]
Maiden Norway: What’s your favorite band, apart from the Ramones? We know you’ve got the new tattoo on your leg and all.
Paul Di'Anno: Oh that’s fucking awesome man! Got that in Brazil, fantastic! Well, ehm, do you mean rock band?
Maiden Norway: Well you know, what’s you favorite band to listen to, relax to or whatever apart from the Ramones?
Paul Di'Anno: UK Subs
Maiden Norway: Any new bands you listen to? New and upcoming bands?
"I can’t listen to Metallica, they make me laugh"- Paul Di'Anno
Paul Di'Anno: It’s just that I don’t like very much. Ehmm…. Not really. Kaizer Cheifs, they’re pretty cool, I like them. They’re pretty awesome. They’re not really sort of metal, are they as such? I did like Linkin Park, thought that was pretty awesome when it first came out, you know, slightly different. Naah it’s mostly old shit man, punk, Sepultura… stuff like that. I can’t listen to Metallica, they make me laugh. Fucking has to have fucking psychoanalysts just to go play a concert, what the fuck’s wrong with you? Get your heads out of your asses! You see that’s from getting too much money, you know? Look at this, we’ve been playing fucking massive stadiums, then we play here [gestures towards the evenings venue, Madam Felle]. See, I never think Metallica would come to a place like this, you know. We don’t give a fuck you know, we play here, then we play a big one and then, you know… we do it even on World Tours, that we’ll play, in Sao Paolo we’ll play for 15-20 000 people every night. We do three nights there, then we move out of Sao Paolo city itself, you know, not quite out of Sao Paolo, just inside the Sao Paolo district. And then the next time we’ll play for 500 people, and then we go out and do another stadium again. It’s all about playing, it doesn’t matter how big/how small, it’s just about having fun. And this place should be great [gestures again at Madam Felle], this is punk. I’ll be right in your face tonight.
Maiden Norway: It’s going to be good!
Paul Di'Anno: Oh, I hope so anyway. We haven’t rehearsed.
Maiden Norway: You haven’t?
Paul Di'Anno: No, no, so this’ll be quite a warmup, actually. Because we played the other year together, us guys, last year. So hopefully it’ll be all right. I don’t rehearse, I don’t sound check, because it’s a bad luck thing for me, every time I do that, we have a shit show anyway. Tonight will be fun because we haven’t played together for a while, they’re rehearsed up too you know.
Maiden Norway: Is it all right if we take some pictures of you while you’re sitting here?
Paul Di'Anno: [looks dismayed] Eww [laughs and points to his shirt] Get killed by Bandidos over here, hahaha. Hells Angels. Sorry! Hahaha! Gotta do it, man. I’m doing more work for the Hells Angels this year, it’s fucking awesome.
Maiden Norway: What kinda work do you do?
Paul Di'Anno: Well I’m kind of an ambassador for HA and always have been, yeah? When I was still with the club – sorta still am, you know, in some ways, but like – when I was still with my chapter in Essex, me and my cousin Marco, he’s nomad still but not in there. My other cousin Roberto is the President of the Milan Hells Angels. So you know, I just do this, I say good things, you know… a bit of organized crime doesn’t hurt anybody [laughs] That’s why they try to kill us all! It’s fucking nuts, ‘cause right when we went to Moscow, I got on the plane with round about 300 or so around Hells Angels from England, because Moscow now has a chapter, it’s now Hells Angels Moscow which is fucking awesome. St Petersburg is on too. I get out, meet my old lady, she came two days on the train, she was coming to meet me in Moscow because she lives out on the Black Sea. She was terrified, she wouldn’t come out of the fucking hotel. So I went to the opening party on the Thursday night, I want to see how the place is. So she stays at the hotel, I go to the party, get drunk and then come back, and then on the Saturday round about six hundred Hells Angels come to the concert. Which was very expensive for me because I had to buy drinks for everyone, but nevermind [laughs]. But she wouldn’t come to this so I was like “Oh this’ll keep her away for a while”, which is cool.
[Cell phone rings]
That’s my old lady again, you can wait [laughs] She’s fucking nuts. But no, it’s all good, you see tomorrow I’ve got a meeting with a friend of mine from Stavanger, and he was a member of Bandidos, our deadly enemies.They tried to kill me twice, them fuckers. But he’s out of the club now, so it’s all good and we’re really good friends.
Maiden Norway: We understand that you’ve lived a pretty wild life
Paul Di'Anno: I just told you I’m in the Hells Angels, what more do you want? [laughs]
Maiden Norway: What’s your craziest moment?
Paul Di'Anno: Aaaah, no no no, nobody wants to hear something like that. It’s not relevant, it’s not valid, in them days I used to do 5 grams of cocaine every day and a bottle of tequila.
Maiden Norway: So you don’t do drugs anymore?
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah!
Maiden Norway: Clean?
Paul Di'Anno: No? Fuck off! [laughs] But, I’m not gonna jump on my Harley going fucking riding around drunk or anything like that, I’ve got my kids I care about, I love my kids. And even my son, you know, he’s 22 years old, he’s in a hardcore band. He was calling me up the other day and said “Dad, can you give me some cocaine?” Fuck off! I’ll kick your ass! I know you do it – you know I do it! But I don’t wanna see you do it, hear? And I don’t wanna buy it for you. Go fuck yourself, you know? And he got pretty pissed off. N,o I still take shots occasionally, I ain’t no fucking saint. But I don’t do much else. You know, when I go home, I wanna go home with me Julie, you know, over there in Russia with her, or back to Brazil and my kids. All I do is talk football with Stevie. A couple of rides every now and again, and that’s about it. Oh and I’m building a new Harley.
Maiden Norway: Really? Cool!
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah it’s a new chopper, hope to do good. It costs a lot of money, but never mind [laughs]. We’re making everything, all we’re keeping is the engine, the Harley engine. Everything else is all being made from nothing, so I’ve actually designed the bugger, so we’ll see how that comes about. $55-60 000… you can buy two Harleys for that! [laughs] I’ve got four anyways, but now I’ve got another one pretty soon so, that’ll be cool. This one I might show. You know, as a show-bike. Put it on the website. I’m thinking that maybe in about next year or so I may actually put one of my Harleys up for a competition.
Maiden Norway: Cool!
 A Shovelhead Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, if I can do it. It’s like putting one of your kids up [laughs] But I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure yet, so it’s gonna be a hell of a question. Or like a couple of rounds of questions to go through, you know. It’ll my oldest one as well.
Maiden Norway: It’s going to be hard to get rid of then.
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, because they don’t make them anymore either. It’s a ’87 Shovelhead. Hmmm. I don’t know.
"I’ve got 666 on the fucking back of my head, what the fuck do you want, man?" - Paul Di'Anno
Maiden Norway: All of this, your lifestyle with drugs, sex and rock’n roll
Paul Di'Anno: What about it?
Maiden Norway: How does that affect your religion?
Paul Di'Anno: What religion? I don’t have religion?
Maiden Norway: Muslim?
Paul Di'Anno: I’m not a fucking muslim, who the fuck? Hey I was fucking drinking alcohol
MN [interrupts]: A couple of days ago, or maybe a week ago, there was an interview with you done by Egypt Today
 666 and GOD = SUCKER. How's that for a religious message! Maiden Norway: It didn’t really make sense, did it?
Paul Di'Anno: No, it’s what I say, yeah? All I said is: If you are going to be religious, you should be a commited person – you know? Five times a day praying, oh fuck that, man I’m... not for me. I think religion kills everybody. I don’t believe in it. I admire the people who do this kind of thing, I don’t have that love of a god, I mean, I don’t believe in God. No, my father was a muslim, I must admit. But I don’t give a fuck. What it is, is what I said it’s a commitment thing, you know. I should’ve said I would be like the jews. You know. So I could’ve been jewish as well. [laughs] Suppose next time if I say I came from Mars, they’ll believe that as well! In that interview, that guy is a fucking dick! Because I was talking about my best friend, Attila, and they said he’s dead? He’s not! I said it was his dad. His dad died. So, the proceeds from the book, it goes to cancer charity, right?
Maiden Norway: Yeah, he’s the keyboardist from Battlezone, right?
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, that’s right, yeah. He’s my best friend, and he’s not dead. His dads been and Lea, my manager told me, and I went to see my friend and we went out on Tuesday. And I went “You’re looking really well for a dead person”, he goes “Thank you, hahaha”. [laughs] And we’re both riders you know, we both got Harleys and so we would go out together and stuff. Naah that fucking pissed me off that did. I want him to retract that.
Maiden Norway: After this interview, a Norwegian radioshow referred to you as a sell-out. What would you like to tell them?
Paul Di'Anno: A sell-out? For what?
Maiden Norway: We don’t really know, they obviously read the interview, and then, concluded that “Okay, Paul Di’Anno sold out”. But why, they didn’t say.
Paul Di'Anno: What the hell did I sell out to?
Maiden Norway: Haven’t the faintest idea. What would you like to tell them?
Paul Di'Anno: Get your fucking facts together you motherfuckers. You got a problem, come and see me. Unless you’re too scared. [laughs]. Be afraid. I mean, as I said, all I said was if you’re going to be committed to a god, then fucking do it right. Don’t just go to a church on every Sunday because it makes you feel good. Which is bullshit, because: it makes you feel good. And you’re not really worshipping God. You know, something like the jewish people, they’d do five times a day, they’d be willing to do five times a day, that’s commitment. That’s all I said. Apart from that, I think it’s a damn shame religion kills more fucking people than, you know, hunger and disasters. Yeah, it’s terrible. Millions of people are dying in the name of God that’s why I don’t believe in it. I find it very hard. But if I did, you know, I’d be committed likethat, you know. I don’t do things one way or the other. It’s either got to be full or not.
Maiden Norway: Nothing less than 100%
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, I don’t have that commitment. I’ve got commitment to my kids, got my commitment to UNICEF, got my commitment to music and the motorcycly club, and yeah, that’s it.
Maiden Norway: Well that should be a full plate for anybody, really.
Paul Di'Anno: Yeah, that is quite enough, and then these little dickheads are sitting there behind their little fucking, you know, sitting there playing their fucking stupid music and like, you know, don’t really know shit. You know, should shut your mouths or if they wanna do an interview, come and speak me face to face or unless they’re too scared. Which I think they will be. [laughs]. We could do any Hells Angels club where they wanna do it. [laughs even more].
Maiden Norway: Just a couple more questions, do you have any tips or advice for new bands?
Paul Di'Anno: Don’t do it. Haha! Just work hard, man. Just work hard and believe in yourself. There’s room in the world for all sorts of music, you know, and the more you play, the more experience you get. And you’re gonna get dickheads like the ones on this radiothing that’s sitting there and they’re trying to put you down, when they probably never been up on stage themselves in their life. So like, you know, shut up untill you’ve fucking done it sort of thing. Just work hard man, that’s it. I’ve got to say that to my fucking son, I say “work!”, all the time. He thinks he’s going to be a superstar, you know, because of his dad. Haha!
Maiden Norway: What’s his band called?
Paul Di'Anno: They’re called Niota.
Maiden Norway: Are they signed up or anything?
Paul Di'Anno: I think they’re about to sign up with Roadrunner soon. They’re awesome, they’re a fucking great band. They’re very hardcore and they’ve got some melody in there as well. He’s got a good voice my son, I’ll give him that much. But he thinks he’s going to be really famous right away because of, like, me. That’s mad, that ain’t going to happen. You gotta work for it and I’ve never helped him, he’s gotta do it all on his own. That’s cool.
Maiden Norway: As a last question; if you could go back to like 1980 or 1978, something like that, and talk to yourself – what one piece of advice would you present?
Paul Di'Anno: Nothing. I don’t regret anything, really, no, it’s cool. I would’ve just carried on doing what I’m doing. Because I don’t have regrets over anything. Life’s too short for that shit. The only regrets I’ve got is I’ve done some pretty stupid things when I was taking drugs and that. And we’re not gonna talk about that. I’ve been less than nice to my wife and such, I’ve never actually beaten her up or anything, but you know, I could’ve fucking killed her because I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I regret things like that, that wasn’t nice. And I regret I put my mom through some shit too, you know, stuff like that. But then again, my mother’s a lunatic, you know, she’s just as mad as I am, so I don’t think she’d expect it to be any other way, but I know it sort of hurt. I think what’s hurt her the most is like, that all of her sons have all been to jail. That’s not a nice thing, really, is it? But then again, all my sisters became pregnant. So that’s about it really, he-he-hey!
And that wraps up the interview. Di'Anno went on to deliver an excellent performance later that evening in a very intimate venue holding about 100 people. MaidenNorway.com would like to thank Mr Torgrim Øyre of the "Hole In The Sky" metal festival in Bergen for hooking us up with Di'Anno, Mr Ola Tau Hatlestad of Madam Felle, and all the fans that contributed to making this evening memorable to us all!
MaidenNorway will be eternally grateful to Mr Paul Di'Anno for caring so much about his fans that he does an interview as extensive as this even when dead-tired. We hope he enjoyed his evening in Bergen even a tenth as much as we did, as we know that means he had a great time.
 Frode and Paul  Paul and Pål Interview created and conducted by Frode Kilvik and Pål Johansen of MaidenNorway.com. All rights reserved.
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