A Trip To Australia With Paul Di’Anno is the new book by Chris Dale which charts the former Iron Maiden singer over the five shows in the five days he performed down under in January 2024. Warts and all, this book lays down both the good times and trials and tribulations that Di’Anno and his team had to deal with. It is not a pretty story.
I have never met Paul Di’Anno. I read the news about the three major surgeries required on his knees and saw the photos before and after. If this was for somebody totally focussed on their recovery, it would be a massive piece of work, given the physiotherapy and intensive recovery exercises required. But this was not who Paul was. His legs looked a mess and his mental state was fragile.
When the Cart & Horses show was announced in 2023, I remember thinking how on earth will they get him in the basement. A replacement wheelchair had to be sourced, as it happens. I also heard an anecdote of the difficulties in getting Paul safely into a hotel after the KK’s Steel Mill show.
But, after reading A Trip To Australia With Paul Di’Anno, it is obvious that I had considered very little. This book is a sympathetic, fair but most importantly, honest recount of a brief moment in time which is tragic on many levels.
This is a tough book to read. This is nothing to do with Chris Dale’s writing, but with the subject matter. There is a literal shit storm. I have read the book several times, and each time I could not put it down, compelled to read to the end.
“What I saw in Paul was a total mix of opposites,” Chris Dale says. “He undoubtedly had some mental health issues, which he often referred to himself on social media.
“He was self-destructive, obnoxious and abusive but he was also generous, caring to some and a very good laugh at the bar. Sometimes we hugged like brothers and laughed like fools, at other times I wanted to scream in frustration and sometimes I actually did.
“He literally caused chaos and trouble everywhere he went, sometimes accidentally but often in a quite deliberate manner. One thing was that he never was rude to me. We’d known each other way too long for that kind of shit.”
With Stjepan Juras managing Paul, there had been tours in the UK and abroad, with time made for physiotherapy, although Paul did not always take advantage of this part.
Paul needed to earn money. So, with massive mobility issues, several other medical issues, including depression as well as “the largest hernia I have ever seen,” Paul Di’Anno set off to Australia with Chris Dale.
With Chris Dale and Steve Kenton taking Paul to the airport in January 2023 for the Di’Anno Brazilian tour, the experience of the need to piss in a bottle in a taxi had been had. When Paul had “pooped” himself at the airport before they could get him into a cubicle and did not have any spare clothes, that was one for the knowledge bank. Both were skills needed in Australia.
We get to Australia and meet Rob Wog, the unfortunate tour promoter. Noturnall would join from Brazil with one guitarist. Talented Australian guitarist Darren Cherry would join, but miscommuncation meant both guitarists had learnt the Dave Murray parts.
Paul Di’Anno was not in the mood for filming pre-show videos, or even media interviews. Or soundchecks. The first gig did not go well, and the Wall Of Sound review set the tone for what was to follow. As Chris says, quoting Ozzy, “Let the madness begin.”
And you have to read A Trip To Australia With Paul Di’Anno. This is no light hearted Spinal Tap tale of a band on tour. This is brutal. The Brisbane show is a high point, Di’Anno really cut it that night.
But this is the story of an iconic singer, who could, for most of a show, live for the moment, and, certainly after show, when the liquids and other things were flying round, would be the life and soul of the party.
The sad part is that, for the rest of the day, the man was a seriously ill shadow of his former self, who would rather sit in a hotel room watching TV awaiting the next smoke break, than getting out enjoying Australia.
The lonlieness of confinement, caused by ill health, nurturing poorer and poorer mental health over the years, must have been quite awful. Chris Dale notes that Di’Anno was probably in constant pain.
“Paul knew he wasn’t long for this world and wanted to go out with a blaze,” Chris says. “Paul was not a man of compromise. I believe that as sad as it is, he left us at the right time.”
A Trip To Australia With Paul Di’Anno, by Chris Dale, is out now available in electronic or printed format from Amazon.
