Tom Morello Wants Iron Maiden In The Rock Hall Of Fame

Tom Morello is persistently asking the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to include one of the great absentees that according to the American musician deserve to be included: the Iron Maiden.

The Rage Against the Machine guitarist has long championed hard rock and metal – subgenres routinely overlooked by the Rock Hall – and previously inducted Randy Rhoads in 2021 (the American guitarist is ranked number 36 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time) and Kiss in 2014. (His own band was “sponsored” by Ice-T in 2023.)

Now, Morello is setting his sights on the British metal band, who have been eligible since 2005 and were nominated in 2021 and 2023. “Fucking Maiden, man! They’ve been at the top of my list for a while,” Morello told the Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz podcast. “I feel very, very lucky that they let me in — I don’t know how lucky they feel — but I feel very lucky that they let me in that room to make my case for Randy Rhoads and Kiss, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rush, Judas Priest and MC5. Maiden are next.”

Morello is far from alone in his crusade to get Iron Maiden into the Rock Hall. As of this week, the band tops the public vote, “Voice Your Choice,” beating out Blink-182, Styx, “Weird Al” Yankovic and Motley Crue.

One person who isn’t thrilled about the prospect of Iron Maiden being inducted into the Rock Hall is the band’s singer, Bruce Dickinson. The frontman has previously called the Rock Hall “an absolute and complete load of bullshit” that is “run by a bunch of bloody bigoted Americans who wouldn’t recognize rock ‘n’ roll if it hit them in the face.” He said he was “very glad we’re not in there and I never want to be in there. If we ever get inducted, I’ll refuse – my dead body won’t be in there.” “Rock ‘n’ roll music doesn’t belong in a mausoleum in Cleveland,” Dickinson continued. “It’s a living, breathing thing, and if you put it in a museum, it’s dead. It’s worse than horrible, it’s vulgar.”