IRON MAIDEN Guitarist Talks New Album

U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine recently conducted an interview with guitarist Adrian Smith of British heavy metal legends IRON MAIDEN. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Metal Hammer: Talking to everybody else, the attention seems to be now turning to a new album…

Adrian Smith: "Yeah, we were talking about it briefly the other day and I've been thinking about it every day since because there are so many ways we can go with it. It'd be nice if we had the songs now and we could come off tour and go straight into the studio match-fit, as it were. Usually we have a long time off, and the way we play in the studio is as live, so it's always a bit tense at first because we haven't played for six months. I'd ideally like to go in [soon]. Again, it's a day-to-day thing, you go in, take it as you find it, try and do the best job you can.”

Metal Hammer: We've noticed one thing that was different from 12 months ago, when we interviewed Steve [Harris, bass], he said, "We've always said, 'We're only going to do 15 albums, we're coming up to it, there's going to be an ending point.'" Is everyone seeing things a little differently now?

Adrian: "Look, we write music, we're musicians, we'll carry on. The great thing is that there's clearly a huge audience out there waiting to hear what we're going to do right now; and in the real world, that's not a very common situation, so you have to appreciate it. It's not always easy to make an album; you've got six guys with their own ideas and focusing it into one outcome is quite difficult."

Metal Hammer: Is it the case that you use up every idea for an album each time, and that there's never anything left over from that for next time?

Adrian: "I know a lot of bands who demo stuff from 30 songs or something and then break up when they're trying to pick 10 because you get the ego and the each guy wants to get their ideas in, so we just try to write 10 or 12 songs, and get everybody's best ideas in there. You soon know when you start playing it whether it's going to fly or not. You just have to do the best you can. It's difficult for everybody to be happy with the album: there's always a compromise, but as long as you can get through it and come out the other side and still be a band that's what it's all about. Sometimes creative conflict is good in songwriting, it brings out the best in everyone."

Read more from www.metalhammer.co.uk.