As the drummer on Iron Maiden's first three albums, Clive Burr helped define the band's New Wave of British Heavy Metal era with his punky, propulsive rhythms and knack for catchy drum riffs, like the intro to "Run to the Hills." He passed away earlier this year after a long battle with Multiple Sclerosis, but his legacy lives on in the legion of young heavy-metal drummers he influenced, one of which is Mastodon's Brann Dailor, who pays his respects here.
"Number of the Beast was the first Iron Maiden record I ever heard. I'd just stare at that album cover endlessly. It was just so completely badass and satanic and cool. Clive's playing was just so solid. I remember staring at his picture for hours and gazing longingly at him in his muscle shirt. I was just learning how to play the drums at the time, and I would put the headphones on and play along to Number of the Beast endlessly, even though his playing was well beyond my skill level. I still borrow a lot of his fills. You can hear his influence in the beginning of [Mastodon songs] 'Stargasm' and 'Octopus Has No Friends.'
"There's only a few songs that you can play on the drums where people recognize it just from the drums. There's a Steve Miller song and then there's 'Run to the Hills.' As soon as you play it, everyone goes, 'Oh, yeah.' It's obvious what it is. That's because he was an extremely musical player, and he just had this great groove that's missing from a lot of metal these days. Clive's drumming also has a punk edge to it, but with a kind of sophistication. It made it edgy.
"I hate that people kind of stopped talking about him after he left the band [in 1982]. Not a lot of people get to leave as big of a mark on music as he did, and I think he left a really big mark. Those songs are never going to go away. In 200 years from now, what's going to be left of metal? I think that band and those records that Clive played on in particular are going to be there for sure."
Below, get an inside view of Brann Dailor's very "intense" training regimen:
