Iron Maiden - Natas Dog

Before I delve into our early 80's move to Los Angeles in pursuit of Metal, let me say a little about Iron Maiden.

We always loved Iron Maiden around the Simmonz camp... Even before it was the Simmonz camp. 

We named the band Natas Dog for a while around the time Number of the Beast came out. 

I can't remember if we changed it before or after our introduction to Iron Maiden because I had always been intrigued by the light and the dark. 

I was never into Satan worship or any of that shit, but the imagery and mystery of the dark side were very Metal.

Natas Dog is Satan God backward. You should have seen my mom's face when I told her that.

"Michael Andrew Simmons, you need to change that name!" she said, eyes wide. I was waiting for her to pull out a cross or something.

Natas Dog rose from the ashes of Speedlimit and Aura. We had moved into playing shit from Maiden, Priest, Black Sabbath with Dio, Ozzy, and other heavier stuff.

We got this singer named Dale, who was able to pull that stuff off to a certain extent, it wasn't perfect, but we rolled with it.

We caught a lot of shit for the name, and finally, I relented. 

We should have kept it, goddamnit. I totally pussed out.

I freaking loved playing Hallowed Be Thy Name and 22 Acacia Avenue in that band. I think that record really inspired us to get a little more adventurous with our own original songs.

I was not aware of Maiden from the first album, which is okay, because although I've grown to love it now, back then I wasn't much into Paul Di'Anno's vocals. 

Bruce Dickenson, on the other hand, is fucking amazing! 

He is most definitely up there with all of the great vocalists in Metal.

Number of The Beast is one of those rare albums that I can play from top to bottom without skipping one song. 

That shit rocked so hard and true for a Metal Head like me, it was right down the middle. Fucking killer.

It's no coincidence that Martin Birch produced them. Most of the albums in my top 10 are produced by Martin.

Back in 1983, John "Skully" Downey joined up with Paulie and me, John is a badass bass player from Ireland. Skully is legendary in the Nashville metal scene for his bass playing and his awesome personality; more on him later. 

The three of us mapped out a plan to move to Los Angeles and find a singer like Ronnie James Dio or Bruce Dickenson. 

Then we could conquer the metal world. 

 Paulie and I got some small inheritance at the time, and that helped bankroll the operation.

Moving out to LA with Paulie and Skully was a goddamn rock n roll adventure! 

We actually moved to LA, from Nashville and back, twice, between '83 and '86. We managed to sandwich Simmonz version 1.0 between trips. 

We loved California, man. The first time out, we lived in Laguna Beach for a while, moved to Huntington Beach, and eventually ended up in Camarillo. 

Finding the next Dio or Dickenson proved to be very challenging. Searching for singers is hard work. We were always on the tennis courts, at the beach, or out drinking trying to find them, but they eluded us. We did not let it get us down. We made our Friday and Saturday night trips to The Sunset Strip and kept drinking, I mean working, on our plan.

We would hit the Troubadour a bunch. The WASP and Malice shows we saw there before they were signed were killer! We met Ronnie James Dio for the first time there one night after a WASP show. 

Ronnie and Blackie were weed buddies. 

We had a great 10-minute conversation with Dio about his first solo album that was in progress. The topic even came up about him getting rid of his band and using us. I think Skully brought that up. One of my favorite Dio quotes is, "Okay, gents, it was nice to meet you, but I'm going to have to end this conversation now." This was immediately after Skully's suggestion. 

The best hang back then was the Rainbow Bar and Grill, of course. As you made your rounds nursing your beer, you would run into the who's who of Metal in the '80s. Bands would take over booths and party until the wee hours and then spill out onto the sidewalk and disperse to various parties around Hollywood. 

I'll never forget talking to Chris Holmes about Eddie Van Halen's amp and watching Skully lean against a beam right next to the booth where Loudness was sitting. 

He was enchanted by them for some reason. 

My Irish friend was a sight to see on this excellent evening. Donned in his leather jacket and tight jeans, his hair was teased high on one side, but the other side had fallen after a hard night of drinking, (I mean, looking for singers.) He had a Heineken in one hand and a Benson & Hedges in the other. 

Every now and then I would walk by and once I said,
"Dude, what the fuck are you doing?" 

"I'm just lookin' at 'em, man... Look, Mike... Look at 'em mannnn... They're baaad mannnn!"
Loudness was a Japanese metal band that was popular for a minute back then. Skully loved their music, but for some reason, on this night, he was amazed by how they looked up close. They did not speak any English, so they smiled a lot. 

I guess everything was okay. 

They kept looking at him and smiling, and he would look at them with this shit-eating grin. 

He would tell them how awesome they were, and God knows what else, and they would just go, "Yes, Yes....ahhhh yessss."
I talked to Paul Shortino for a bit. Paulie and I made a few other connections and...fuck. All of the good singers were already in bands. Oh well, tomorrow is another day

 

   The "Skull" with the Benson and Hedges.

That night as we were walking out, we ran into Bruce Dickenson and Adrian Smith from Iron Maiden. Piece of Mind had just come out, and they were in LA doing shit. They were great guys, man! I told them we were a Metal band from Nashville. Bruce said in his killer cockney accent, "Really? Well, that's a bit strange, innit? Metal lads from Nashville. Probably why you are in LA, huh?" We shot the shit for a few more minutes and were on our way. Alas, as the months wore on, the funds ran low. We did jam a bunch while we were out there. We did some gigs with Paulie on vocals. 

We eventually headed back home. 

Municipal Auditorium was a great place to see shows in Nashville back in the day, well, it was the ONLY place to see a show. 

It was great knowing all the dudes that worked security. Getting in backstage and hanging like a rockstar was awesome. We had been known to drink all of Bon Jovi's beer (when he was "Bon Whovey?") and steal Ratt's backstage passes. 

On one great night, we cheesed backstage when Maiden was in town as the headliner. It was the first time we had seen them since we fought to the rail for the Number show at Municipal.

We ran into Bruce and Adrian again, and it was like, "Wow! Fancy seeing you guys again! You boys really are from Nashville!" 

"Well yeah, with these accents, did you think we were lying to you or something?"

It was great to see them again and chat for a second. The best thing, however, was seeing Skully talking to Steve Harris, the bass player. 

"Ya know Steve," Skully said, in his inimitable accent, "I've got all yer licks down mannnnn...not too difficult either. My right hand is a BEAST mannnn." 

Steve was looking around, like, "What the fuck?" 

I still laugh my ass off at that one. 

A year or so later, after the demise of Simmonz 1.0, Mikey, Paulie, and the Skull had made another trek out to LALA land to give her another go. This time we even got jobs so we could fund the beer and surfing...I mean to hunt for a singer. 

On one beautiful Saturday afternoon, we got an early start and showed up on Sunset around 4pm. We were going to walk down and have an early dinner and meet some friends. As we are walking past a little open-air cafe, we heard someone shout from above, "Lads!"

There they were, again! It was Bruce, Dave, and Adrian having a few beers, enjoying the Hollywood afternoon. 

We stood there for a few minutes catching up. 

While we're laughing telling them about Skully breaking Steve Harris' balls backstage in Nashville, Bruce says: 

"Goddamn, you chaps get around, don't you?"