Krusher Joule on Designing Iron Maiden’s ‘Somewhere in Time’ Tour Program, “Sadly, I pissed Nicko McBrain off”

Then there was that time when I got my double gold disc for artists services rendered for Iron Maiden’s ‘Live After Death’, which apart from the brilliant gatefold cover that Derek Riggs painted, I was responsible for designing the rest of the package.

Yesterday I told you the tale of how I got one for ‘Powerslave’, but that was for designing the tour programme, and if I could have kept my fuckin’ mouth shut I would have got one for every fuckin’ tour programme I went on to design for them, which I believe was six or seven in total, but sadly I pissed Nicko off whilst discussing the finer fuckin’ points of the ‘Somewhere In Time’ tour programme and that put the mockers on any future fuckin’ gold discs. What actually happened was that the band had invited me to go and watch them in Manchester and were putting me up in some swanky hotel that they were also staying at and after the show there was a bit of a knees up in the hotel bar, where as I say Nicko Mcbrain and myself were looking at and discussing the tour programme I’d designed and Nicko took umbrage at something in it and I said “Do I tell you how to drum, no I fuckin’ don’t, so don’t tell me how to fuckin’ design!” Suddenly I was flying through the air, not because Nicko had punched me, which given the chance I’m sure he would have, but Steve Harris’s bass tech Michael had grabbed me by the collar and quickly removed from the bar, took me to his room, told me to smoke some dope and calm the fuck down which I did. I was told sometime later that the band voted on who got gold discs and if one voted against the nominated name then they didn’t get one, and guess what happened every time my name was on that list, that’s right, Nicko said no. D’oh!!

There was also a fuckin’ great release party for the album and video, which I still have my invite for, sadly they spelt Krusher incorrectly!

Of course because it was an Iron Maiden party no expense was fuckin’ spared and alcohol flowed freely. I actually remember fuck all about it, well apart from the blackout, but looking at the invite now it would seem that once the festivities at Maiden HQ were over it was then down for a knees up at the notorious gay club Heaven, and then an ambulance home!

As a special treat I’ve included some hand lettering I put forward for the cover, which was sadly rejected, along with a picture of myself holding my ‘Live After Death’ gold discs celebrating 200,000 sales in the UK, but sadly I didn’t receive a platinum one in celebration of 1,000,000 in the US, but I’m sure it’s in the post, I’m also sure that some of you eagle eyed fuckers will notice I’m wearing an original ‘Powerslave’ t-shirt, and the reason I’m wearing it is because I never got a fuckin’ ‘Live After Death’ t-shirt. In fact I only received one fuckin’ copy of the album, no cassette and definitely no CD, but then again I’m not even sure if CDs existed back then, but I occasionally take the printer’s proofs out of my portfolio just so I can sniff them and smell the fuckin’ metal…sigh 🤘❤️🤘🤩 -Krusher