Author: Jernej Vene
Interview date: 25.09.2006
After twenty-seven years on the metal scene, Iron Maiden are back in truly triumphant form with A matter of life and death. There’s hardly a major chart on the planet where the new record hasn’t left its mark. They even surprised everyone on Slovenia’s Slo top 30 chart, landing at number one in their first week. The Iron Maiden sextet is still made up of bassist and co-producer Steve Harris, vocalist Bruce Dickinson, guitarists Adrian Smith, Janick Gers and Dave Murray, and drummer Nicko Mc Brain. They shared a few thoughts on their work with us, too.
First up, bassist Steve Harris on how the music for the new record came together:
“When we write songs, the vibe is totally natural. We don’t sit down at a table and say, ‘right, we’re going to write songs on purpose.’ We don’t write for the fans, I mean, we don’t write what they most like to hear from us, because that’s not our goal. We’re a bit selfish when we work, we do what we want. We don’t map out in advance what our music should be like. It just turned out that way. We don’t measure how long the songs are, we only see how long they are at the end. It doesn’t matter if a song is too long or too short.”
Vocalist Bruce Dickinson on the variety of the music on A matter of life and death:
“We tried to get variety on the previous two records too. Maybe we thought about it most on the new album. The approach is very instinctive, since everything happened really naturally and fast. The last record, Dance of death, took us ages to record, but the new one came together really quickly and live. For me, that’s confirmation that we’re doing the right thing. The record sounds incredibly heavy, but the work wasn’t a grind. It was like flooring the gas pedal in a really powerful car. It just flowed by itself.”
Iron Maiden guitarists Adrian Smith and Dave Murray on how the work is split between the three guitarists in the band:
“It sorts itself out, it’s not stressful for us. Usually somebody brings in an idea for a song, then he also plays the solo or several parts on it. There are loads of guitars on the record, so all three of us have plenty to do. The parts of the songs fall into place as a whole very naturally. We guitarists play solos on most of the songs, and in some places there are gaps during the writing process that we work on individually. Bassist Steve doesn’t know what to add in those spots, so we fill them in at the studio. But we don’t force anything, it all just flows. After so many years we’re so experienced that studio work is a piece of cake. There are so many guitars on the record that we only dreamed of them in our wildest dreams. Sometimes Steve Harris, who isn’t a lead guitarist, says, ‘Dave, can you play this, Adrian, try this,’ and it’s easier for us when somebody steers us a little. Sometimes Bruce jumps in with suggestions too, because the guitars are stylistically quite different. We don’t brawl over who plays what, though.”
Iron Maiden sold out more than four fifths of all the shows on their 2006 autumn European tour. Guitarist Janick Gers on the fact that they’ll play almost the whole new record live:
“The easiest thing for us is to play the songs people love to hear and go home happy. But then we’d turn into a cabaret act playing the same songs over and over. If others do that, fine by me. If you’ve got something to say, you should say it. Right now we’re a respected band, and we’ve all got loads of ideas. Each of us surely has a whole hour of music that we couldn’t fit on the record. We’re all different from each other, so we can offer plenty that’s new. I think playing two new songs and a bunch of old ones just isn’t the right thing for us.”
