Iron Maiden Pub Quiz: Michael Legge and Dan Mersh Turn Maiden Fandom into a Conversation
It was a blistering hot Monday afternoon in early July 2026, and I had to get out of the "Luxury" apartment I was renting — the one that just happened to be on the top floor and devoid of "Fridgeration." I'd planned to hold off on my pilgrimage to the Cart & Horses until later in the week, to get some rest and work on some articles, but the apartment was insufferable. Then I saw it on the calendar: "Beer Yoga" at the Cart & Horses. Hey, that sounds like the healthy thing to do, right?
On my trip into London from Stevenage, I'd planned a stop at the abandoned Ruskin Arms, just because. My connection got canceled, though, which meant heading straight to the Cart & Horses with plenty of time before Beer Yoga started at 6:00 pm. After catching up with the pub's owner, Kastro, and the Irish bartender I'd met back in April, I ordered a drink and did the usual browsing of the memorabilia on the walls. It was only a few days before Eddfest, and it was a good chance to soak up some early Maiden history — the kind of history that was right up the alley of the two men I was about to meet in the basement of the Cart & Horses…
There are Iron Maiden podcasts devoted to news, album rankings, setlists and exhaustive musical analysis. Iron Maiden Pub Quiz does all of those things—at least occasionally—but its real subject is something broader: what it means to remain an Iron Maiden fan across decades of changing tastes, changing lives and increasingly questionable memories.
The premise is simple enough to fit on a beer coaster. Each main episode, the show works through Iron Maiden's catalogue album by album, mixing personal history — how Legge and Mersh each found the band, what a given record meant to them at the time — with the kind of granular discography trivia only a lifer would bother tracking. Then comes the quiz: a genuine, scored pub-quiz segment testing what the hosts (and, via listener mail, the audience) actually know versus what they've spent forty years assuming.
Hosted by comedian Michael Legge and actor, writer and comedian Dan Mersh, the podcast combines record-by-record discussion, listener stories, personal confessions, improvised comedy and a closing round of Iron Maiden trivia. Its creators describe it simply as “an Iron Maiden podcast about Iron Maiden fans,” a phrase that captures why the show feels different from a conventional band-history program. Maiden provides the common language, but the people gathered around it are the real story.
The show's own pitch captures the appeal: "Feel like Steve Harris by having an instant pub in your house by listening to IRON MAIDEN PUB QUIZ. BYOB." It's an apt line for a podcast that treats a working knowledge of Maiden's back catalogue the way a proper local treats darts — a shared ritual dressed up as competition. Listeners write in constantly (ironmaidenpubquiz@gmail.com is read out on nearly every episode), and their stories — first gigs, worst tattoos, unlikely Maiden conversions — get folded directly into the show alongside Legge and Mersh's own.
From Album Discussions to an Ongoing Maiden Community
Iron Maiden Pub Quiz began releasing episodes in late 2024. By June 2025, Legge wrote that the show had been running for roughly six months, placing its beginnings around the end of the previous year. Its original organizing idea was straightforward: Michael and Dan would work through Iron Maiden’s albums one by one, compare their experiences with each record and finish with a pub quiz.
The podcast's actual first outing, "IMPQ Pilot," went up on November 25, 2024, with Legge and Mersh talking through how they each discovered the band before running their first pub quiz. It found an audience fast. By August 2026, the show had passed 170 episodes and was releasing roughly twice a week: numbered main episodes running an hour to nearly two, supplemented by shorter "Mini Episodes" (numbered with a .5, e.g. Episode 74.5) and occasional archival "Gold" repeats pulled from the vault on weeks the hosts can't record fresh. It's hosted on Acast and syndicated everywhere podcasts live — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and Audible, Castbox — and carries a 4.9-star average on Apple Podcasts from a small but devoted body of reviewers, several of whom single out the same thing: the chemistry between its two hosts.
The show outgrew its living-room format within its first year. On June 10, 2025, Legge and Mersh took Iron Maiden Pub Quiz on stage for the first time at Aces & Eights in Tufnell Park, London, billed as "the nation's favourite podcast — finally live on stage," combining a live recording with a full pub quiz played out in front of an audience of Maiden fans instead of just imagined ones.
Fittingly for a show built on Maiden pilgrimage, the Cart and Horses in Stratford — the East London pub where Steve Harris's band played its earliest gigs in 1976, back before Dave Murray or Paul Di'Anno had joined, and the venue that got them banned in 1977 for drawing too rowdy a crowd — comes up on the show often enough to function as a recurring bit and a genuine reference point. It's the one place in London where the podcast's premise and Maiden's actual origin story sit in the same room.
The growing catalogue reflects a show that has moved beyond its initial album-by-album assignment. The hosts still discuss Maiden’s recordings, musicians, tours and history, but the podcast has developed into a continuing conversation among fans. Listener opinions, memories and trivia answers are not treated as supplementary material; they are part of the program’s identity.
Two Knowledgeable Friends and an Obscure B-Side
The title is both literal and slightly misleading.
There really is a quiz at the end of the main episodes, usually built around Iron Maiden history, recordings, performances or associated personalities. Listeners can compete against the hosts, although the show’s official description jokingly assumes the audience probably knows more than either of them.
Yet the imaginary pub surrounding the quiz may be more important than the questions.
A pub quiz is social rather than academic. Participants are allowed to be knowledgeable, loud, distracted, competitive, wrong and temporarily convinced that they are right. Iron Maiden Pub Quiz reproduces that atmosphere in audio form. Legge and Mersh are serious fans, but they resist presenting themselves as remote authorities delivering the approved interpretation of the band.
They forget things. They disagree. They wander away from the subject. They challenge each other’s memories and occasionally undermine the format they have just established. Their professional comedy experience gives those detours rhythm, while their long relationship with Maiden gives the discussion emotional weight.
The result is less like listening to a lecture and more like joining two knowledgeable friends after a concert—just before one of them insists that everyone answer a question about an obscure B-side.
A Little Yoga Goes a Along Way
So there I was, down in the basement stage room of The Cart & Horses, about to do yoga with a Trooper IPA in my hand. There were about seven or eight other people packed into the small room. Two enthusiastic guys carrying yoga mats were passing out cards that read, “Iron Maiden Pub Quiz.” I handed them a Fermented Metal card in return.
There was a moment during the cool-down when our yoga guide had us lie down and relax. However, with “Hallowed Be Thy Name” playing, Michael started slapping the floor to the beat. I was suddenly transported back to junior high gym class, when my friends and I would talk about Maiden songs and inevitably end up doing the same thing.
The result was somewhat similar here, except instead of a gym teacher shouting, “Pay attention!” Michael was getting a bit of a scolding from Carolina.
Afterward, I approached them thinking I had the ultimate Maiden trivia stumper.
“What are two things every Iron Maiden song has in common?”
In my mind, the answer was simple: Steve Harris—and no Iron Maiden song fades out.
I instantly had fresh egg on my face.
They immediately revealed that my Iron Maiden knowledge had more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Standing there in their presence, I was practically cooking up an omelette of shame.
“There are three Iron Maiden songs that fade out: ‘Stranger in a Strange Land,’ ‘The Prophecy,’ and ‘Hell on Earth.’”
Geez. Who were these guys?
Michael Legge: Finding His Gang in Iron Maiden
Michael Legge is a Northern Irish comedian, writer and broadcaster whose career has included stand-up, radio, television warm-up work and several comedy podcasts. He's been a working stand-up since 1991, when he began performing improvised comedy in the London run of Theatresports alongside Stella Duffy and John Gordillo, later becoming the show's Artistic Director. His writing credits run through the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, MTV and VH1, including a BAFTA-nominated stint writing for MTV's website coverage of The Osbournes. He's taken solo shows to the Edinburgh Festival since 2011 (starting with Curse Sir Walter Raleigh), performed improvised sets alongside Robin Ince, and warmed up studio audiences for shows including 8 Out of 10 Cats and Would I Lie to You?
That background helps explain the particular tone he brings to Iron Maiden Pub Quiz. Legge’s comedy has often been built around exaggerated irritation, moral outrage, cultural enthusiasm and a willingness to treat a minor annoyance as though civilization itself were collapsing. On the Maiden podcast, that energy is redirected toward album sequencing, fan behavior, pubs, songs, personal memories and Dan’s latest opinion.
Beneath the performance, however, Legge’s connection to Iron Maiden is sincere and formative.
Writing about the band’s debut album, he recalled seeing Iron Maiden perform “Running Free” on Top of the Pops in 1980. Other members of his family had already found artists and musical identities that belonged to them. Maiden, with their noise, independence and apparent refusal to fit politely into mainstream pop culture, became his group.
“I’d found my gang” is the essential idea running through Legge’s account. The attraction was not merely technical musicianship or fantasy artwork. It was recognition. Iron Maiden looked like outsiders who had built a world for other outsiders, and Legge has remained attached to that world for more than four decades.
That history gives his contributions to the podcast an unusual balance. He can ridicule the band’s excesses, challenge a beloved song or make fun of a particular era without sounding detached from the subject. The jokes work because the affection underneath them is obvious.
Dan Mersh: The Actor, Writer and Straight-Man—Sometimes
Dan Mersh is an actor, writer and comedian with an extensive career across television, film, radio and theatre. His screen credits include The Death of Stalin, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, Slow Horses, Sex Education, Veep, The Thick of It and the cult Sean Lock comedy 15 Storeys High ( see his showreel here) . His stage background includes sketch comedy, Edinburgh Fringe productions and work with groups such as The Trap and Bad Play.
Mersh therefore arrives at the microphone with considerable experience in ensemble comedy. He understands when to resist a premise, when to let a joke escalate and when the funniest response is simple disbelief at something Michael has just said.
It would nevertheless be inaccurate to describe him only as Legge’s straight-man. Dan creates his own tangents, stories and declarations, while his sometimes calmer delivery makes the absurdity more effective. The contrast between the hosts is elastic: one may appear to be the sensible participant for several minutes before immediately becoming the source of the next problem.
Their relationship predates the podcast by many years. Legge’s writing places Mersh within his comedy and social circles as far back as the 2000s, and Mersh contributed to Legge’s live comedy project The Real Daniel O’Donnell Show. That established familiarity is audible in Iron Maiden Pub Quiz. Their disagreements do not sound like manufactured podcast conflict; they sound like the continuation of an argument that may have started years earlier and could easily resume after the recording ends.
Side Note
I've spent the last few weeks doing what I suppose technically qualifies as "research": digging through YouTube, streaming services, old clips, and whatever other corners of the internet contain Michael and Dan's work. And I've genuinely enjoyed all of it. What's strange is that I've done this same thing with musicians for years and never thought twice about it.
Watch twelve interviews with Bruce Dickinson about Trooper beer? Research.
Write about a young band that I watched from behind a pillar in small room ? Journalism.
But suddenly I'm watching old comedy performances and appearances by Michael and Dan and thinking, "Okay… when does research become stalking?" Maybe it's simply because this is the first time I've written about actors and comedians. Or maybe musicians have spent decades conditioning us to believe that obsessively cataloguing everything they've ever done is perfectly normal behavior. What can I say? Do I love comedy as much as music and beer?
Absolutely.
Interviewers Who Leave the Polish Off
Michael and Dan are also interviewers, although their approach is rarely formal. I admit to sneaking up behind them at the Cart and Horses to listen to them interview Carolina of MetalYoga to see what I could learn. Mostly, in this instance, I learned its great to have partner there as a back up.
However, in my research, I found that rather than treating guests as sources from whom a sequence of predetermined facts must be extracted, they tend to draw them into the existing atmosphere of the event. The interviews are conversational, comic and openly fan-driven. Guests are encouraged to discuss how they encountered Iron Maiden, what particular albums or eras mean to them and how fandom intersects with the rest of their lives. That approach can appear loose, but it often produces revealing answers. A polished promotional interview may establish what someone is selling or doing next. Iron Maiden Pub Quiz is more interested in why a record still matters to that person, which concert changed them, which opinion they know will annoy other fans and whether they can survive the quiz.
Legge and Mersh also understand that Maiden fandom contains disagreement. The community is united by its devotion to the band but divided endlessly over singers, guitarists, production styles, setlists and supposedly underrated albums. The hosts do not attempt to resolve those divisions. They use them as fuel.
Their best interviews therefore feel less like press appointments and more like welcoming a new participant to an established table.
More Than Nostalgia
A podcast centered on a band formed in 1975 could easily become an exercise in nostalgia, and a lot of rehashing of known facts. Iron Maiden Pub Quiz certainly makes room for memories, but it does not present fandom as something frozen in the 1980s.
Iron Maiden remains an active touring band, and the podcast follows the continuing life surrounding it: current concerts, fan gatherings, changing setlists and the way younger listeners enter a community whose history began before they were born. During the band’s 2026 activity, the podcast released episodes connected to the Knebworth period and posted a short announcement directing listeners to an Eddfest gathering at Eddie’s Dive Bar.
That participation matters. Michael and Dan are not observing Maiden culture from outside it. They attend shows, meet listeners and occupy the same fan spaces they discuss. Their podcast functions as media, entertainment and a meeting point.
While spending those 2–3 hours drinking with Dan and Michael at the Cart & Horses' outside seating area, we swapped stories about our "metal" upbringings, our Iron Maiden experiences over the years, and how the band still affects our lives to this day.
The Nicest Man in the World
Since Metallica had just played in London (their fans descended on the Cart & Horses and drank up every keg of the Trooper Progressive Lager, bastards), Michael told a story about how he came to meet James Hetfield — and came to deem him "the nicest man in the world."
Michael had been visiting a cousin in the Bay Area back in the late '80s. Hetfield, sporting a cast from a recent skateboarding injury, was there with Lars and Kirk, and Michael went over to tell them how much he appreciated Metallica. This is where the phrase "the nicest man in the world" comes into play. Michael was around 18 at the time — old enough to order himself a pint back home at UK shows, but not in the US. He mentioned this to James, and Hetfield remedied the situation. A classic metal-fan story, with a beer at the end.
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The show’s growth also illustrates something important about contemporary Iron Maiden fandom. The band’s appeal has never depended entirely on radio exposure, fashion or critical approval. It has been sustained by people passing songs, stories, shirts, arguments and rituals from one fan to another. Podcasts are now part of that process.
Iron Maiden Pub Quiz turns those exchanges into a recurring program without making them respectable or overly tidy.
The Value of Not Taking Maiden Too Seriously
Iron Maiden inspires serious devotion. Fans catalogue set lists, compare pressings, study stage productions and debate lineup changes with the intensity of historical scholarship. Michael Legge and Dan Mersh clearly share that depth of interest, but they recognize that the music also contains monsters, sword fights, doomed expeditions, supernatural prophecies and an undead mascot who has survived more costume changes than most theatrical companies.
A sense of humor is not a rejection of the band’s importance. It may be one of the most honest ways to appreciate it.
That is where Iron Maiden Pub Quiz finds its strength. The podcast knows the records matter, but it also knows that fandom is messy. People misremember dates, love unfashionable songs, dislike acknowledged classics and attach life-changing meaning to moments that might look ridiculous to anyone outside the community.
Michael and Dan have built a format spacious enough for all of it.
The quiz may provide the title and the album discussions provide the structure, but the show succeeds because of the invitation beneath them: bring your knowledge, your stories, your unpopular opinions and whatever you are drinking. There is room at the table.
In the End
I spent a few weeks traveling around Europe this past summer and met a lot of great and interesting people along the way, but the few hours I spent with Dan and Michael were probably the hardest I laughed the entire trip.
Since then, I’ve met up with them once more at Eddfest and have become a regular listener of their show. It’s probably not everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s definitely become mine.
Lovely write up of a great podcast. Think we met briefly at Eddfest during the IMPQ meet up. Cheers!
Very informative and fun to read for the background of two guys creating an interesting venue! Besides the author of this site’s connected and continuous reviews of Heavy Metal bands and music plus the adventurous efforts to also discover and review Ales, Beer and Wines collaborations with the Bands an Musical genres 🤩