Review of The Beast: Singing With Iron Maiden—The Drugs, the Groupies . . . the Whole Story

Di'Anno is - as everyone knows - the frontman of training with which the now huge Iron Maiden debuted on the music market: with it the voice, the band released the first two albums, the ones who laid the foundation for the legend. Then, in 1981, their paths separated (the bells are obviously very different, depending on who tells the story: for Maiden was driven out because of the excesses and declining performance, but he claims to have gone to artistic differences) ... Despite this for many fans, Di'Anno remains THE voice of Iron Maiden. With him, in fact, the band had a sound more rough, more punk - with respect to the direction taken with the advent of Bruce Dickinson.

This autobiographical volume would be the story of the life of Di'Anno told by Di'Anno. Here lurk at the same time, the strength of the book and its greatest weakness. The strength of "The Beast" is the exuberance, the bravado taken to the level of excellence, the constant repetition of a mythology of rock'n'roll made mountains of coca hectoliters of Jack Daniel's and overdose sex. Always, in every situation, in compliance with a categorical imperative for where too much is never too much. And actually the funny anecdotes abound.
But right here we fall - since we're on the topic of "beasts" - the proverbial donkey. Because basically Di'Anno runs his story in a rather crude, following a scheme that more or less can be summed up thus: on each page must be at least a couple of fights, a couple of sexual adventures and the mention of the fact that he married many times sending everything to hell; a couple of hangovers from primacy, at least a mention of weapons like guns, knives or even broken bottles used for Menara shots; then, at least, a couple of underlining the fact that Di'Anno has always had a lot of money (and a spendthrift) and - finally - the repetition of the notion that his music is exceptional and his band Iron post Maiden have all been on the verge of becoming "the most important heavy metal band in the world".

In short, the picture is clear. We all have the classic friend contapalle, very nice and expensive, shooting crap bigger and bigger, continually raises the bar meter bales to be the center of attention. And Paul is one of the greatest living exponents of this category, in the light of his book. After the first twenty pages of the boundaries between "tavanata galactic" (to quote a Ezio Crude vintage) and reality - or simple memory - it becomes labilissimo. And about half the book everything becomes very repetitive.
Lacks, then, a real musical depth look - as if the rock was just a trinket, something more, something taken for granted in the life of Di'Anno, professional drinker, fucker, sniffer coca, thug and divorziatore. And this is perhaps the most serious lack of this story. Paul interest us exploits from animal to a certain point ... actually we would like to read more of Iron and his band back: arguments suffocated in a whirlwind of dust, groupie complacent, drinks giant and senseless fights. All fun, but dragged for almost 250 pages arrives early to annoy