Iron Maiden Announce Simon Dawson as New Touring Drummer

A day after drummer Nicko McBrain announced that he would be retiring from touring with Iron Maiden, the iconic metal band has revealed that Simon Dawson will be taking over behind the kit in 2025.

McBrain played his final concert with Maiden last night (December 7th) in São Paulo, Brazil, the last show of the band’s “Future Past Tour.” Hours earlier, he disclosed that he would no longer tour with the band after 42 years because he wanted to “step back from the grind of the extensive touring lifestyle.”

Dawson already has strong ties to Iron Maiden, having played in bassist Steve Harris’ other band British Lion for 12 years. Maiden’s full announcement reads as follows:

“As The Future Past Tour concludes after 81 shows to over 1.4 million fans, from Ljubljana to the Coachella Valley and from Western Australia to Sao Paulo, Iron Maiden are delighted to announce that stepping in behind the kit for 2025 is a name familiar to many of our fans – Simon Dawson, a former session drummer and Steve’s rhythm section partner of the past 12 years with British Lion. A native of Suffolk, England, Simon first teamed up with Steve Harris back in 2012. He debuted on three tracks on the first British Lion album and all of the second critically acclaimed ‘The Burning’, plus the many subsequent tours in the US, UK, Europe, Australia, Japan, New Zealand &, most recently, both Mexico and South America.

Iron Maiden celebrate their 50th Anniversary next year with The Run For Your Lives Tour starting in Budapest on May 27th.”

As mentioned in the statement, Maiden will kick off their “Run for Your Lives” tour with a European/UK tour in late May. The outing will find the metal veterans performing songs from their first nine albums, with tickets available here.

In McBrain’s statement on Saturday, the drummer noted that he would remain in the Maiden family in some capacity.

During last night’s show in São Paulo, singer Bruce Dickinson gave an onstage speech about McBrain’s retirement from touring, saying, “He’s not leaving the band but he’s just not playing live with us anymore.” The frontman called for the rest of the show to be a “celebration” of Nicko as the crowd chanted the drummer’s name.

See Iron Maiden’s announcement of Simon Dawson as their new drummer, as well as footage of Nicko McBrain’s final show with the band from last night.