Nicko McBrain's memoir | Hello Boys and Girls!

Nicko McBrain played drums for Iron Maiden for 42 years. Now he has written it all down.

His autobiography, Hello Boys and Girls!, is out in the UK today. The interviews around it are already making headlines, and not all of them are about drums.

So what is in the book, and what is next for the man behind the kit? Let’s find out.

What is the book?

Hello Boys and Girls! is published by Harper NonFiction, an imprint of HarperCollins. It comes out in the UK on 22 October 2026 in hardback, ebook and audio, and in the US on 10 November.

He is credited as the sole author. Kerrang reports the book has been around 15 years in the making.

It covers far more than Maiden. There are his session years in Soho, and his time with the Streetwalkers, the Pat Travers Band and the French band Trust before he joined Maiden in 1982.

According to the early coverage, there are also run-ins with Keith Moon, John Bonham, Ian Paice, Buddy Rich and Carmine Appice. That is quite a guest list for any drummer’s memoir.

What has he been saying?

He has been very candid.

He told Kerrang about past drug use, and about losing his friend Phil Lynott to heroin. The book also deals with his faith, a cancer diagnosis in 2020 and the stroke he had in January 2023.

He has also talked politics. McBrain has lived in Boca Raton, Florida, for almost 40 years. In an interview with the Telegraph, reported by Consequence, he said he turned down a friend’s invitation to play golf with the president. He added that Trump “and his bunch of cronies” should be put in jail.

That is the line that has travelled. The book itself is about a life behind the kit.

The stroke and the last Maiden show

The stroke left his right side paralysed from the shoulder down. For a drummer, that is about as frightening as it gets.

He worked his way back through rehab and returned to the Maiden stage. But on 7 December 2024 he announced that the São Paulo show that night would be his last tour date with the band. He remains a member for studio work.

Simon Dawson, the drummer in Steve Harris’s British Lion, took over for the Run For Your Lives tour.

McBrain has not stopped playing, though. Since 2025 he has been gigging around Florida with Titanium Tart, an Iron Maiden tribute band. Yes, really.

What about his kit?

Long-time Sonor and Premier fans may have missed this one. In 2019 McBrain became an international ambassador for British Drum Co., playing their Legend Series.

A drummer who joined Maiden in the early 80s ended up on a British-built kit. There is something rather fitting about that.

Can I see him live?

You can, though not behind a kit. An Evening With Nicko McBrain is a spoken-word tour with 17 dates, listed by Loudwire.

It starts in Frankfurt on 26 October and moves through Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Malta and Dublin. The UK leg runs from Birmingham on 23 November to Glasgow on 3 December, taking in London, Cardiff, Bath and Manchester along the way.

Tickets are available through his official site.

Final thoughts

Whatever you make of his politics, McBrain has always said what he thinks. That is the voice that made him one of rock’s great interviewees.

The book looks like the same man on the page: funny, blunt and with stories to spare. For anyone who grew up air-drumming to Piece of Mind, it is an easy pick for Christmas.

For another drummer looking back on a long career, read about Chris Slade’s retirement.