Woe to You Oh Earth and Sea…

Every metalhead in the world is familiar with that first line from the spoken-word introduction to the Iron Maiden song “The Number Of The Beast.” The man who lent his voice to that iconic intro, Barry Clayton, has died, according to the Islington Tribute. He was 80.

For the title track off their 1982 album, Number of the Beast, Iron Maiden had wanted horror icon Vincent Price to recite the intro for the song, but his fee turned out to be too high. That’s when the band turned to Clayton, a deep-voiced actor who read ghost stories at Capital Radio, to do the 25-second recitation taken from the Bible’s Book of Revelation.