Early Iron Maiden guitarist Dennis Stratton – who was a member of the band during 1979 and 1980 and performed on the self-titled Maiden debut – discussed “Phantom of the Opera,” telling Rock Candy Magazine(via Brave Words):
“I took ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ which was always a great song at its core, and added a load of harmony guitars and falsetto vocals to our basic recording.
“The engineer helped me layer the sounds, adding track after track, and when we played it back it sounded like Queen.
“I thought it was fantastic.
“But when we were listening back to the track [manager] Rod Smallwood came up behind me in the control room.
“I didn’t know he was there and at the end of the song, he said, ‘You can get rid of all that. It sounds like f*cking Queen.’ So it never made the cut.
“I’d still love to do a big, massive production of that song one day. I know it would be great.”