Eddie the Head

Eddie, whose full name is Eddie the Head or Edward the Head (see below), is the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden's mascot. He is a perennial fixture in the often violent album cover art, as well as ever present in their live shows. Eddie also featured in a first-person shooter video game, Ed Hunter.

Background

The original Eddie was just a theatrical mask. It can be seen in the band photos on the first album and on the "Running Free" single picture sleeve. It was a face right next to the band's logo. It was connected to a pump that would eject various kinds of liquids, from food dye to paint, and would drool over Doug Sampson, Clive Burr or whoever was at the drums at the time. Fans would also try to throw stuff into it at gigs.

Related Topics:
Theatrical - Mask - The first album - Sleeve - Logo - Liquids - Paint - Doug Sampson - Clive Burr - Drums

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Eddie's full name is Eddie The Head (Edward T.H. on the Live After Death cover) and it comes from the following old joke:

Related Topics:
Live After Death - Joke

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Eddie was born with no body and no arms and no legs. Just a head. But despite this slight birth defect his parents loved him very much. So on his sixteenth birthday they run into a doctor that says "Hey, I can give Eddie a body"... so the parents are going totally nuts because finally their kid can have a body and be like other normal people. They go home and are really excited and say "Have we got a surprise for you. It's the best present ever!" and Eddie says "Oh, no, not another fucking hat!"

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Iron Maiden gave the name "Eddie" to that mask. The character Eddie was created by Derek Riggs. In the artwork to the single Running Free, a silhouette of a large, skinny zombie-like creature can be seen. When the band was looking through potential artwork for their first album, they came across the artwork by Derek Riggs that would eventually become the artwork for the self-titled album. The band liked it, and felt that it was what the silhouette actually looked like.

Related Topics:
Derek Riggs - Running Free - Zombie - Self-titled album

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The artwork for the second album, Killers, was also an original Riggs painting before he started creating bespoke album covers from The Number of the Beast onwards. Derek Riggs claimed, in the Maiden documentary 12 Wasted Years, that the design for Eddie the cartoon was based on a graphic he saw on the news, painted on the side of a Vietnamese tank.

Related Topics:
Killers - The Number of the Beast - 12 Wasted Years - Vietnam - Tank

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Roman Turek, a former NHL goalie with the Calgary Flames, who now plays in the Czech Republic, used Eddie as the main theme in all his masks from the different NHL teams he played with (Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues and Calgary Flames) which created some very individual/interesting masks.

Related Topics:
Roman Turek - NHL - Calgary Flames - Czech Republic - Dallas Stars - St. Louis Blues

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