Bringing The Darkness To The Light, July 27, 2026
Bringing The Darkness To The Light with Catherine Nadal
From Iron Maiden’s Early Fire to Airforce’s Heavy Metal Rebirth
Catherine Nadal talks with Doug Sampson about the early days of Iron Maiden, the rise of Airforce, lifelong musical influences, heavy metal storytelling, and the enduring power of fans across generations.
Guest Spotlight: Doug Sampson
Doug Sampson is a UK drummer best known for his early work with Iron Maiden and his long-running heavy metal band Airforce. In this conversation, he reflects on joining Iron Maiden in the late 1970s, the explosive rise of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, his musical upbringing, and the renewed success of Airforce decades later. His stories offer a firsthand look at the clubs, friendships, influences, and fan energy that shaped a powerful era in metal history.
Iron Maiden in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal
In this episode of Bringing the Darkness to the Light, host Catherine Nadal welcomes Doug Sampson, a UK drummer known for his work with Iron Maiden and Airforce. Catherine opens by sharing her own love for Iron Maiden and asks Doug what the band was like in 1978. Doug describes a very different scene from today, with punk still dominant and heavy metal beginning to surge. He recalls the band quickly growing from small pub crowds to packed rooms of young fans, helping define what would become the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
Early Clubs, Lemmy, and the EMI Breakthrough
Doug explains that there were many places to play in those days and that young audiences were hungry for the sound Iron Maiden was creating. He recalls how Lemmy offered Iron Maiden a gig supporting him at the Music Machine, a moment that helped expose the band to more listeners and opened the floodgates. Doug also remembers playing the famous Marquee Club on Wardour Street, a historic venue associated with artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. That performance helped lead to the band’s EMI record deal, though Doug says he had mixed feelings because he knew record deals did not always guarantee success.
Stepping Away and the Birth of Airforce
After leaving Iron Maiden, Doug stepped away from music for a while before reconnecting with musicians and recording again. He describes working with friends including Bruce Davey, Chop Pitman, and Tony Hatton, eventually forming the band that became Airforce around 1985 or 1986. After the band was put on ice in the 1990s, interest returned years later when older Airforce songs appeared on a project featuring ex-Iron Maiden members. Audience response encouraged the band to reunite around 2014, bring in singer Dylan Arnoldoff, rehearse seriously, and return to the stage with unexpected momentum.
A New Fanbase and the Power of the Internet
Catherine and Doug discuss how Airforce’s return has been helped by the internet and social media. Doug notes that in the 1980s, bands had to play clubs across England to build an audience, while now a song can be posted online and discovered by listeners around the world. He says Airforce has gained a newer fanbase, including people who were not even born when many of the original heavy metal bands were active. The conversation shows how classic metal can continue reaching younger generations through digital exposure, live performance, and word of mouth.
“Life Turns to Dust” and Doug’s Musical Roots
The first featured Airforce song, “Life Turns to Dust,” is described by Doug as one of the earlier songs from the band’s modern incarnation. He says it reflects the simple but powerful truth that life passes, people die, and everything eventually returns to dust. Catherine then asks about Doug’s earliest musical influences, and he points to Ringo Starr, The Beatles, Phil Taylor, The Who, and other older musicians who helped shape his love of drums. Doug also shares that music ran through his family: his mother sang, his father played violin, and his brother was active in bands including Sam Apple Pie and Atomic Rooster.
Walthamstow, Steve Harris, and the Roots of Iron Maiden
Doug looks back on growing up in Walthamstow, surrounded by venues and musicians, and explains how he first met Steve Harris through the blues-rock band Smiler. Steve later left Smiler to form Iron Maiden and originally asked Doug to join, though Doug declined at the time because he wanted to work and sort himself out. Several years later, Steve returned and asked again, and Doug joined the band around 1978. He also recalls the Cart and Horses in Leytonstone, known as Iron Maiden’s birthplace and now remembered as part of the band’s history.
Horror, War, and Heavy Metal Storytelling
The later part of the episode focuses on Airforce songs including “Cursed Moon” and “Heroes.” Doug describes “Cursed Moon” as a werewolf-style story about transformation, loss of control, and horror imagery, while Catherine connects the song to the long relationship between heavy metal and horror films. Doug explains that Airforce often draws inspiration from films, history, war themes, and dramatic subjects, including songs such as “Blood and Sand” and “The Fury.” He closes by describing “Heroes” as a song about young people sent into foreign conflicts, often without fully understanding what they are fighting for, and returning home in coffins or body bags. Catherine connects personally to the theme through her own Iraq service before the program plays the song.
Bringing The Darkness To The Light
"Bringing The Darkness To The Light" Radio Show
Hosted by Catherine Nadal, certified psychic medium with the Forever Family Foundation speaks about life events, music, spiritual and paranormal experiences and grief. Many of the shows will feature her friends in the music, entertainment and psychic business. These interviews will focus on their life careers and personal spiritual experiences. Tune in to learn, laugh and experience.
Speaker Identification
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal, host of Bringing the Darkness to the Light.
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson, guest; UK drummer known for work with Iron Maiden and Airforce.
Speaker 3 - Music/Song Segment.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
This is Bringing the Darkness to the Light with Catherine Nadal, professional psychic medium. Today's guest is Doug Sampson, a UK drummer known for his work in Iron Maiden and the band Airforce. It is a pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
Hello there. Hi. How are you? Good to meet you again.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
Wow. It is really a pleasure. This connection was made through Michael Brandwald, so I give him a lot of gratitude for that. You have had a busy career. I was reading about you, and Iron Maiden is one of my all-time favorite bands. Every time they come through New York, my cousins and I get tickets. Of course, we already have tickets for their September show. So you will have to tell me what Iron Maiden was like in 1978.
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
Well, it was a bit different than it is today. It was a different scene. Punk was all the rage, and the heavy metal scene was coming up. When we first started gigging, people were flocking to our gigs. We would start off with maybe forty people, and the next week there would be a hundred. It just got more and more popular. We got a following very quickly and went through the ranks very fast. Within six months, we were doing quite a lot of gigs.
It was such a new thing. The audiences were all young. The governors of the pubs used to go around turfing out the youngsters because they should not even have been in the pub. They were sneaking in to watch us. We did not charge anything in the early days, so everybody was really hungry for what we were doing. A lot of bands were doing similar stuff, like Hawkwind and Black Sabbath, but they were older than us. This was what was called, in the end, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. So, yes, it was a hectic time, I must admit.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
When you say you guys were young, were you about seventeen or eighteen years old?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
I think we were about twenty. Steve was about twenty. We were all in our early twenties when we got started. Iron Maiden was going before then. It had been going from 1975, and I joined around 1978, so it had been going about three years. There had been so many different changes of personnel. Then it was just Dave and Steve, and Steve asked me to join. So there were just the three of us. That was before Paul even joined.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
I am so excited. When you think about being young like that, what was the family support like? What was the expectation? Was your family saying, "Oh, this is great," or were they saying, "You should be getting a job"?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
My mother was more like, "Why don't you get a proper job?" My brother had already gone through the band thing, so by the time I went into it, she was a bit fed up with it. I cannot say she was over the moon about me going into the music business.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
Yes, I can understand that. Being from the UK, what was the club scene like? Since Iron Maiden was still new at the time, your venues were probably smaller clubs or bars. What was the biggest venue you were playing when you were with them?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
There were plenty of places to play in those days. The kids were very hungry for this music, so there were a lot of places to play. We got a gig with Motörhead. Lemmy offered us a job to back him at a place called the Music Machine. They were not called Motörhead for that one because it was a warm-up gig. I cannot remember what name they called themselves, but he asked us to back him. That really opened the floodgates because a lot more people got to see us at that one gig. It started to snowball.
Another time, we played the Marquee, which was a big famous club on Wardour Street. Jimi Hendrix had played there years before, and The Who, Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. We headlined down there, and that is where we finally got our EMI record deal.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
So exciting. I never got a chance to meet Lemmy, but a lot of people I know knew him. What was that experience like? You were headlining for him, and he was following you guys. Were there things you picked up from watching him play or from being billed alongside him?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
Yes. He asked us if we would back him, and we were really over the moon. I was about fifteen when Lemmy was with Hawkwind, so he was a little bit older than us. He was on a pedestal, really. When he offered us a job to go on before him, we were really taken aback. He was always the same Lemmy, right up to the day he died. He was just the same sort of bloke, a great character.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
Wow. With the EMI record deal, did you feel relieved, like maybe you really could make a career or a lifetime in music for yourself? Or was it a fleeting moment where you did not think too deeply about it?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
I do not know, really. At the time, we were not that experienced. I had known a lot of bands that had record deals that amounted to nothing, so I had mixed feelings. I knew it was a good deal and a good record company, but I was not madly excited because I knew how these things could go. But, yes, it was a good thing.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
After stepping away from the band, what were your next steps? What were you thinking after doing that year with Iron Maiden?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
Afterward, I stepped away from music for a little while. I went into a different business for a short time to have a rest from it. Then I met up with an old friend of mine, Bruce Davey. Steve had actually introduced us to a guitarist. A few years went by, and then a friend of mine, Chop Pitman, asked me to do some recording with him. He had a band called EL34. We did a bit of recording, and it was going quite well. We were working well together.
Tony Hatton was the bass player, and we took it to Steve. He had a listen and said, "Yes, it is worth pursuing." So we decided to get a new singer into the band. I think it was my brother who came up with the name Airforce, and that is how it stayed from about 1985 or 1986 onward.
We put the band on ice in the 1990s. A couple of members wanted to go off and do family things and different work projects, so we put it on ice for a while. Then around 2013 or 2014, we had a Dutch chap named Erwin Lucas who wanted to bring out an album with all ex-Iron Maiden members and the projects they had done. We put a couple of our older songs on the album, and it went really well. People were asking, "Who is this band, Airforce?" So we said, "Let's just get the band together and do a few gigs and see how it goes."
We got the band together, brought in another singer, Dylan Arnoldoff, and it just took off. We did the first gig, and I was looking around at the audience, and they were going wild. I thought, "This is good." So we started doing a few gigs, and it just seemed to grow and grow. It was not really our intention. We did not think it would mean so much. We are probably more successful this time than we were originally when we got Airforce together. It is a bit strange, really.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
When you mentioned 1985 and starting out as Airforce, you stayed heavy metal. You did not go hard rock. Then you took a break. When did you decide to get back again? Was it the early 2000s?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
We had been jamming together and messing about, but we did not really put our heads together to get the band back together until around 2014. We went into the studio and worked all the songs out. We must have been in there for about six months of rehearsing before we came out. So, yes, it was quite a long break. Chop had different incarnations of Airforce with a couple of different people in it, but the original lineup did not really come back until about 2014.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
That was technically like a twenty-year break. It looks like your fans waited for you because you had a great response.
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
We have made a newer fanbase now. It is different ages, even people who were not even born when those bands were around. It is really strange how it has all come together again.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
That is called the power of the internet and the power of social media. People's nephews and children are now rocking out to the music we were rocking out to thirty or forty years ago.
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
That is completely true. In the 1980s, when we got the band together, there was no internet and no social media, so it was very hard to get your message out. You actually had to play every club in England to get it out. Now life is much easier because you can do a song and put it on the internet, and people will pick up on it. If it is good and people like it, they will pick up on it. That is basically what happened to us. It certainly helped a lot.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
I want to discuss some of the songs we selected for this interview. The first song is called "Life Turns to Dust." Tell me about that one.
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
That is one of the earlier ones from this incarnation of Airforce. It is basically about how life works out. Life turns to dust. You live your life, you die, and you turn to dirt. It is quite simple, but it is a good song and a crowd-pleaser. People really enjoy it. It comes straight after the opening song, "Fight," and we always drop the tempo down with this one. That really gets people listening, so they know we are not just a fast-moving band. We can slow things right down. It is one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
Very good. We are going to play "Life Turns to Dust" by Airforce.
Speaker 3 - Music/Song Segment:
[Music segment: "Life Turns to Dust" by Airforce is played. The source transcript contains partial and repeated lyrics, but several lines are unclear. The song is presented as a performance segment.]
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
It is interesting, when we were talking about that song, how much time passes. Sometimes you look back and say, "Wow, that feels like yesterday when I was in Iron Maiden." Of all the people you have met in your life, who would you say was a musical influence to you, even before Iron Maiden? As a drummer, was it another drummer or a particular band?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
I have been interested in music since I was a small child. When The Beatles first came out and started having hits, I was always focused on Ringo Starr because I just loved drums. My parents bought me a little toy kit. I was blown away when I saw him play.
I am sort of old school. All my heroes are from the old times. I love the new bands, but those older musicians are the ones who really set me on the track to do what I am doing now. Another favorite drummer would be Phil Taylor. I thought he was brilliant. It was quite a cross-section. As a youngster, it would have been bands like The Who that really got me thinking about music seriously.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
Was your family musical at all? Did they play music themselves?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
My mother, when she was younger, was a singer. My father played violin. My brother was in bands. He was in a band called Sam Apple Pie, and he joined a band called Atomic Rooster. He has always been in the music business. I was brought up with it. We always had a house full of hairy blokes coming along. It was just the way I was brought up. It was in me for all my life. My brother is a lot older than me, so when I was a kid, I would see all these geezers coming and going. I was brought up in a musical environment.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
That is so cool. What area were you growing up in? In England, there must have been certain neighborhoods where music people would hang out. Here in New York City, certain neighborhoods had different music scenes. What was it like in England for you?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
I come from a place called Walthamstow. There were a lot of places around that area to play. Steve Harris lived about four or five miles up the road in a place called Leytonstone. That was not far from the Cart and Horses, which is where Iron Maiden basically started. It is still known as the birthplace of Iron Maiden. It is a museum to Iron Maiden now. That is where we used to meet up. That is where people used to meet up and join different bands.
I met Steve through my first band, called Smiler. Steve was the bass player for Smiler. That is how we first met. That was early 1975. Later on, he left to form Iron Maiden. When I joined Smiler, it was around April. We did a lot of gigs with Smiler, but it was a blues-rock band. It was not Iron Maiden. Steve had this idea that he wanted to do what he wanted to do. Even though the band was good, he left and formed Iron Maiden. I did not go in with him. He asked me to go, but at the time I said no. I had left Smiler and did not want to be in a band at that particular time. I wanted to work and sort myself out. He went off and formed Iron Maiden. About three years later, he came back and said, "Are you ready to join now?" I said, "Yes, sure."
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
That is a great story. I love hearing that because when you think back in time, it probably feels like yesterday. You realize how fast life goes. I want to talk about the next song. When my cousins and I get tickets for Iron Maiden, one of the highlights is when we start seeing all the creatures come out on stage: Eddie and all of that. It has really grown over time. It is almost like watching a Broadway play at some point. There is a character and a story to it. When we talk about the next song, "Cursed Moon," tell me about that.
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
It is more or less like a werewolf story. It is about how he is fighting with himself, and then the moon comes out, he transforms, and he has no control over it. It is basically that kind of idea, a traditional werewolf story. We have a video that goes with it, an animated video, which goes really well with it. It is slightly different from the sort of songs we do. I really like that one because it has a different angle to it.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
In Airforce, who does most of the writing?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
Chop comes up with some ideas, or Tony might come up with an idea, and then we all work together to make it happen for Airforce. It is not standard, but it is the way we work. Airforce does not sound like anybody else, though obviously our influences come out. You hear people like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Saxon, but we do not go out to copy them. It is just the way it works.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
Absolutely. It is a familiar sound in that whole grouping. We are going to play "Cursed Moon" right now.
Speaker 3 - Music/Song Segment:
[Music segment: "Cursed Moon" by Airforce is played. The source transcript contains partial lyrics and repeated lines, but several lyrics are unclear. The song is presented as a performance segment.]
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
Talking about "Cursed Moon" and the lyrics, are the members of Airforce fans of the horror genre? Do you follow horror movies, or does that have nothing to do with it?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
Horror movies are part of it, yes.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
That is so interesting because I have a friend named Mike Schiff who made a movie called The History of Metal and Horror. He interviewed about fifty-nine or sixty people, including people from Anthrax, Alice Cooper, and Rob Zombie. There is a correlation between heavy metal music and horror, and the same thing for the people who make horror movies. They have a correlation with heavy metal music, so it goes hand in hand. How is it for the members of Airforce?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
We pick up on a subject and think about it. We are actually working on one that is about gladiators called "Blood and Sand." We pick out different things. We have a song on this album called "The Fury," which is basically a war theme based on a film. So, yes, films and historic events are things we definitely pick up on.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
That is so great. The next song is named "Heroes." What is that song about?
Speaker 2 - Doug Sampson:
That song is about young people going off to war, especially foreign conflicts, and not really knowing what they are fighting for. They come home in boxes. It is a realization of what war is. Sometimes you are in a war, and it is not really down to you. Youngsters are sent off to war, and they probably do not even know what they are fighting for, and they end up coming home in body bags. That is basically what it is about. We do not want it to be political. It is just the fact of what happens to people and what war is really about.
Speaker 1 - Catherine Nadal:
Yes, I totally understand that. I went to Iraq for a year, and we lost five guys in my division. So that is a very true statement, what you are saying. A lot of them are very, very young when they go over. Thank you for doing that song. We are going to play "Heroes" right now.
Speaker 3 - Music/Song Segment:
[Music segment: "Heroes" by Airforce is played. The source transcript contains partial lyrics and repeated music markers. The song is presented as a performance segment.]
