I think everyone's trying to come up together and bring up other bands along the way, and we've always been really blessed to have bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden take us under their wing and say nice things about us.

Religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the hand maiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors, and used as the framework to control their minds.

For one year, I was Keith Mitchell Coogan on my headshots. The next year, I was just Keith Coogan. And I have gone by that ever since, maybe 1984 or 1985. That is my mother's maiden name, and it was out of reverence for my grandfather.

I think everyone knows that I'm always the one that's the busiest in Maiden. When we're not touring or recording, I'm still doing loads of Maiden stuff - video editing and god knows what else - so I get a lot less downtime than the others.

It may be that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,' but I should be loath to see a rose on a maiden's breast substituted by a flower, however beautiful and fragrant it might be, that is went by the name of the skunk lily.

King of England, and you, duke of Bedford, who call yourself regent of the kingdom of France... settle your debt to the king of Heaven; return to the Maiden, who is envoy of the king of Heaven, the keys to all the good towns you took and violated in France.

My first influences for playing were Johnny Ramone and Jimmy Page, the same as everybody else. Joe Perry. The guys in Alice Cooper's band, whatever their names were. Mick Ronson from David Bowie. You know who really influenced me to write songs? Iron Maiden.

The first Maiden record I ever got was 'Piece of Mind,' and I only got it because I thought the artwork was cool, and everyone talked about Iron Maiden. But they weren't necessarily the most popular metal band in America for a 12-year-old kid when I discovered them.

I think the most important thing to putting on a good show is to always mix things up. Sometimes we wear makeup; other times we don't. The point is, you'll never get the same Avenged show twice. I think it's really important to be theatrical. I mean, look at Iron Maiden!

When I was a very young kid, the first music that really turned me on was a new wave of British heavy metal - big, dumb rock music. There was a band called Diamond Head - they were basically the band that inspired Metallica. But I also liked bands like Saxon and Iron Maiden.

We toured with Iron Maiden and we opened and they'd come in later and I didn't have a lot of time to get to hang out with those guys. Whenever you did, whether it was sitting down at catering or something, you tried to take advantage and just hang out and talk and trade stories.

I went from being a kid-kid, listen to everything from The Beatles through Kiss, Peter Frampton, Jethro Tull classic rock, classic stuff into immediately, it seemed like, Iron Maiden and stuff like that. The first Iron Maiden record and then, obviously, the first Metallica record.

During our first year, we were playing Priest and Maiden cover tunes all the time while we figured out what we wanted to do as a band. At the time I was getting out of metal and into punk. That's how Slayer's sound came together - it's the speed of punk combined with the big riffs of metal.

My real last name is Flores, and Milian is actually my mom's maiden name. So it's not made up, which is cool; it runs in the family. And it actually worked out better for my career to have the last name Milian, because Flores kept me in a little box, and no one really associated me with the last name Flores.

Whether it has been supporting Corby's new free school, or fighting for the truth on the Cube overspend and land development deals, or striving to protect the East Northamptonshire countryside, in my work as the local MP I have always been struck, as I said in my maiden speech, by the pride people have in our area.

If I get too old to write, or short-term memory loss - that was the one Philip Roth was worried about - if I got to that point, that would be terrible, because everything about my life has been streaming toward writing and having something to say. That would make me feel as though I were in an iron maiden of some kind.

'A Fair Maiden' existed in notes and sketches for perhaps a year. When I traveled, I would take along with me my folder of notes - 'ideas for stories.' Eventually, I began to write it and wrote it fairly swiftly - in perhaps two months of fairly intense writing and rewriting. Most of my time writing is really re-writing.

I have always loved a hard-faced girl. I get that Alison Goldfrapp isn't easy, and I like her belligerence. She's deeply sexy and controlled, like a Strict Machine, and it seems to wind the b'jesus out of the women I know. On the outside, I watch and smile and will her on like a twisted silent maiden aunt in the dark corner.

Iron Maiden and Metallica are bigger now than they ever were. They're playing stadiums across the entire planet. Even though it seems like their heyday was back when MTV and the radio played their songs all the time, the truth is that they've gotten bigger now because they play all the time, and people know they're going to get a great show.

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