IRON MAIDEN drummer Nicko McBrain performed the final of 4 July 2025 exhibits in Florida together with his TITANIUM TART venture on Saturday (July 26) at OCC Highway Home & Museum in Clearwater, Florida. Becoming a member of Nicko in TITANIUM TART are Rob Stokes on bass, Eldad Kira on keyboards, Mike Rivera and Mitch Tanne on guitar, and Paolo Velazquez on vocals.
Sooner or later throughout final evening’s live performance, Nicko addressed the viewers, saying (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “ All of you understand that I stepped again from touring with [IRON MAIDEN], and so they’ve bought a beautiful lad [Simon Dawson playing with them now]. He is a child. He is bought a bit tiny drum set…
“However this is the factor: it’s possible you’ll ask your self, how do I really feel a few new drummer taking my place after 42 years? Effectively, the easy reply is I am nonetheless the best-looking bloke in IRON MAIDEN,” Nicko quipped. “I do not know whether or not Simon would agree with me ‘trigger he most likely thinks he is the best-looking [member of IRON MAIDEN], which I can guarantee you isn’t the case. Bless his coronary heart. However he is doing an exquisite job and I am glad that you simply lot have welcomed him to the household. And no matter whether or not or not he is me, he isn’t — there is not any one that may change me. I am not saying to rub my ego or be [like], ‘I’m the very best drummer for MAIDEN.’ In no way.
“So, yeah, thanks for bringing him into the household,” Nicko added. “They’re doing a splendid job on the market, though Bruce‘s [Dickinson, MAIDEN singer] timing is a bit bit shaky right here and there. However there’s nothing new there.”
Nicko additionally touched upon the truth that MAIDEN‘s manufacturing for the continuing “Run For Your Lives” Fiftieth-anniversary tour consists of digital screens as a substitute of bodily backdrops and props which characterised the band’s earlier exhibits. He stated: “What do you guys take into consideration the screens that they have? Palms up who thinks they’re nice. Palms up, these folks that want the outdated method.”
After just a few folks within the viewers expressed their choice for the bodily backdrops and props, Nicko continued: “I do know, and I spoke to [MAIDEN‘s longtime manager] Rod [Smallwood] about this final 12 months. ‘Trigger I noticed the sketch with these screens, and I stated to him, ‘Hey, I do not suppose we must be [changing the way we do things].’ He stated, ‘We have gotta transfer into the twenty first century, Nick.’ He stated, ‘That is the Fiftieth-anniversary tour. We have gotta have one thing particular.’ I stated, ‘Effectively, then put extra drapes up. Extra drapes. As an alternative of The Trooper simply having Eddie on the horse together with his sword out, have him firing the gun off the… no matter. You place one other one midway by way of the music. However that is what they went with.”
Nicko added: “I am old skool. I’d’ve appreciated to see the drapes and the screens on the aspect.”
The now-73-year-old British musician, whose actual title is Michael Henry McBrain, introduced his retirement on December 7, 2024 in a press release on MAIDEN‘s website and social media. He additionally stated that evening’s live performance at Allianz Parque in São Paulo, Brazil would mark his remaining present with the legendary rock band.
Dawson is a former session drummer and MAIDEN bassist Steve Harris‘s longtime bandmate in BRITISH LION.
In January 2023, Nicko was at his house in Boca Raton when he suffered a stroke with partial paralysis.
When Nicko first went public together with his stroke in August 2023, the drummer stated in a press release that the episode left him “paralyzed” down one aspect of his physique and “fearful” that his profession with the band was over.
5 years in the past, McBrain was recognized with stage 1 laryngeal most cancers and opened up about it in a single interview in 2021 however in any other case stored it principally beneath wraps. The musician acquired his most cancers prognosis after present process an endoscopy on the Sylvester Complete Most cancers Heart, a part of the College Of Miami Well being System and the Miller Faculty of Medication. Inside per week, McBrain‘s most cancers was surgically eliminated and he now will get check-ups each few months to ensure the most cancers hasn’t returned.
McBrain was born in Hackney, East London, on June 5, 1952. His first expertise of music got here through his father’s love of conventional jazz. Younger Nicko‘s hero was Joe Morello, the late, nice drummer with the legendary THE DAVE BRUBECK QUARTET. Nicko would usually take to the kitchen, utilizing forks and knives to beat on something he may discover at house. Fed up with him bashing up the kitchen utensils, his mother and father lastly purchased him his first drum package when he was 12.
By the point he left faculty at 15, he was already a veteran of a number of part-time pub teams. Musically, nonetheless, his tastes had broadened to incorporate extra up to date sixties sounds from THE SHADOWS, THE ANIMALS, THE BEATLES and THE ROLLING STONES. On the advice of one other drummer he knew, he started to tackle session work, enjoying on numerous totally different recordings.
In 1975, Nicko joined STREETWALKERS, the band shaped by ex-FAMILY members, vocalist Roger Chapman and guitarist Charlie Whitney. From the late seventies till 1982 when he joined IRON MAIDEN, Nicko had spent his time in session work, most memorably with the PAT TRAVERS BAND on their 1976 “Makin’ Magic” album, and in addition appeared within the band MCKITTY within the early Nineteen Eighties. It was throughout a MCKITTY gig in Belgium that he first met Harris.
He formally joined IRON MAIDEN in December 1982 for the 1983 “Piece Of Thoughts” album and tour, changing Clive Burr, after McBrain‘s earlier band TRUST had supported IRON MAIDEN through the U.Ok. leg of the “Killers” tour in 1981. McBrain introduced a level of finesse and technicality that was largely lacking from IRON MAIDEN‘s early output. Whereas Burr was usually lauded for his heavy-handed, punk-oriented fashion, McBrain was largely the alternative, enjoying with a level of dexterity and aptitude that helped major songwriter Harris take MAIDEN down extra adventurous paths. He finally turned the third longest-tenured member of MAIDEN, behind Harris and guitarist Dave Murray.