To Tame A Land

"Frank Herbert doesn't like rock bands, particularly heavy rock bands, and especially bands like Iron Maiden"

It's an awkward moment when you homage some great work that you like,  only to learn that the creator not only hates the type of work you do, but your work itself. It even happens to people like Iron Maiden.

The time was 1983. English metal band Iron Maiden was finishing up their album, Piece of Mind. A few of the songs were homages to things they loved. One was based on Frank Herbert's Dune. They approached his legal folks to get permission to call the song "Dune". The quote above was the response they received.

It's also awkward when you're a fan of two different creators and you see something like this. You like them both and its somehow strange that they would have a dispute. Even in the lens of 30 years later and one of the parties dead, there's a realm of imaginary fiction where you want them to make up so you can shove them together and say, "Now kiss!"

Ultimately, Iron Maiden renamed the song "To Tame a Land" and released it on Piece of Mind anyway. In concerts, they had some very interesting words to say about Frank Herbert. Below you can listen to the album track. Thanks to my brother, I discovered a video of Iron Maiden having some words about Frank Herbert at one of their concerts. That video is after the album track.