On the Seventh Day ... God Created Maiden

Rip It Up, Issue 130, 1 May 1988, Page 16

On the Seventh Day ... God Created Maiden

Iron Maiden have come a long way since they and mascot Eddie first sprang from the streets of London. An aggressive yet imaginative songwriting and playing style secured them with a record deal and the albums Iron Maiden and Killers were released as the 80’s began.

Main man and bassist Steve Harris and other founding member guitarist Dave Murray have taken Maiden (and Eddie) through various stages of progressive metamorphosis. International success was achieved after singer Bruce Dickinson joined for their third LP Number Of The Beast. The lineup has remained stable since Nico Mcßrain took over the drums in 1983 and now all is set for the release of their Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, and world tour to follow. Nutty Nico called up from England to let us know what Iron Maiden are up to in 1988.

“This is Nico here! It’s about 10 in the morning and I’ve been up a while, like about five minutes, haha. It’s cold up here though, mate, urrr. Had tea and toast for breakfast..." Are the band based over there at present? “We’re still UK residents except we’re so busy with recording the album and popping off to do the various tours here and there, we do what they call a tax dropout, which allows us 90 days of one working year in the country. So we’ve got a bit of liberty time back in England.” How long has Seventh Son of a Seventh

Son been in the making? “We recorded the album in Munich, Germany, from late October through to the end of January. All the overdubs and mixing were done in the very same studios, whereas all our albums from Piece Of Mind onwards have been done in two or three studios. I think we’ve got an edge with this one for the whole sound, literally from the drum track upwards.” Is Martin Birch still taking care of production? “Mr Birch, the court jester, is still with us — we love him to death. I think he’s stuck with us. We’ll chain him up, put a ball and chain ’round him to the mixer if we want to, hahaha! He’s part of the family. We’re very proud to have him doing our knob job for us.” So tell us about the new album, Nico... "We had four months off before we went to record the album — the longest opportunity to have some time like that to ourselves. It

gave us a new lease of life. We rehearsed at Steve [Harris’s] house in Essex and the very first day we’d come up with two songs written by Adrian, Bruce and Steve — ‘Moonchild' and ‘lnfinite Dreams’. It took about 10 days to write all the songs.and rehearse all of them. I think it shows within the confidence of each track, like we’d had time to get these songs really tight. We are all really excited to tour with this album, whereas the last tour we were a bit, 'Mmm, here we go again.’ We’d just had the mammoth Powerslave tour under our belt and were a bit burnt out from it. We were very unfortunate to not be able to come down to you; we had scheduled a show down with you guys and there was a problem with a sea strike while we were in Queensland. “We’ve got a chap here who personally takes care of Steve and he’s from Wellington. We call him Rangi but his name’s Mark Williamson and 'ee’s a diamond geezer. He’s been with the band for three years and he’s always telling us about New Zealand. Just from the stories he tells us we’re all keyed up to come and see you all. We should be down that way November time.” Staged Maiden “We’re putting on a hyped show this year. It’s not in the same vein as the others; we’re gonna do more with the visual light side of things, y’know — some actual amazingly different light techniques. We’re not going to be having too many big thunder explosions and all that stuff. There will be the odd one or two, but not as many pyrotechnics. The stage set is going to be pretty impressive with a sort of Antarctic theme to it ... I won’t tell anyone anymore about it so they can come and see it for themselves.” Sounds like you all had a lot of fun recording the B-side for ‘Can I Play With Madness. ’ “On the 12” singles we always put something extra on the back and this time we’ve got a song called ‘Black Bart Blues’, and it’s about Bruce’s escapades in the back of his tour bus, which I will leave up to your imagination. He had an old suit of armour, the mediaeval kind, that he called Black Bart, and it’s a song about what Black Bart sees in the back of the bus. Then they’ve got this outtake of my stupidity at the end of the track. I’m a complete certified nutcase you see. I say 'Fuck my old boots' and they haven’t put a sticker on it — you should see all the flak I got for it in the Sun today. So it’s a really hilarious B-side. The other thing we’ve got is an old Thin Lizzy song we covered called ‘Massacre’. If you took Bruce’s vocals away, it’d be Lizzy."

Seventh Son has captured a similar energy to that of Piece of Mind. “It’s pretty much the case. There is this fire on the album. There's a lot more feel in the songs, the grooves. Like the beginning of Infinite Dreams’ there’s a really slow, almost bluesy feel and then it goes and sorta sticks itself into overdrive after the second verse and then it’s off and running. I think it’s got a little bit of everything on this album. There are definitely different courses for different horses with Maiden fans. Some say Somewhere In Time is the best and yet others say Powerslave and other people keep to Number Of The Beast. It’s nice that way. I think it’s refreshing. We listen to our fans and we listen to people’s reaction. Drum Fun How much of the album will you be playing “This is something we’ve been a bit at loggerheads over. Like, do we do the whole album as a concept, y'know, from start to finish, or shall we just do five or six off the new album? We might do one show for America which ’ll be a bit more of the old stuff — now we’ve got the problem of what we’re not gonna play. We’ve gotta do ‘lron Maiden’, ‘Number Of The Beast’. I think we gotta play ‘Run To The Hills.’ Steve and I have talked about doing a three-hour show but you even mention doing more than two hours fifteen minutes to Bruce and he’s like, “Forget it.” His instrument is his voice. The way he sings — you know what he’s like if you’ve seen the video. He’s like that .every gig, there’s not

one night he doesn’t loon about like that and of course he wouldn’t be able to do it, not from the physical energy but from the voice point of view.” So you’re playing one big UK concert at Castle Donnington? “Oh yes. Every year when we’ve played these Hammersmiths and Leicesters and all these smaller places we haven’t been able to take in our show for them — not our complete American show. But we thought, well, if it’s only one show, let’s give our English fans the whole bit. We decided to accept the [Donnington] offer and just do the one gig in England and put on this mega-mega stage production, which will probably be even bigger than what we would put on in America. wish you could all be here for it; I think we might be able to get some footage of it, and then at least our fans down in New Zealand can get a little whiff of what we’ll be carrying [on tour]. If we do come [to NZ] we’ll bring the show we’re taking through Europe with us. We gotta do it right first time!” What’s one of the funniest things that’s happened on the road? • - “The last night of the Somewhere In Time tour, we were in Japan. My drum technician Steve Gadd was just getting ready to take over the drum stool from me so I could go out and just stand at the front of the stage. So there he is ready to rip on without breaking the beat up, and Tamara — Davey's wife — was video recording, standing behind us. Steve had a pair of track suit bottoms on and he didn’t wear knickers y’see and someone came up just as he started to play and pulled

his pants down. I’m bursting out laughing. None of the band realised what was going on; , they’re still out. front giving the guitarthrusting to the audience, y’know. I’m standing up there, walking around, and Steve Gadd sits down and he’s got his pants around his feet, hahaha! He couldn’t stop playing! He was petrified anyway, of playing an Iron Maiden show — he couldn’t stop to pull his pegs up so he’s up there, starkers.” Sport and Censorship Does the band get into playing soccer quite a bit? ’ “Yeah. I first played when I joined and got severely injured. I used to play in goal at school. So we’re playing Rainbow in Copenhagen and up three nil about 15 minutes into the game. The guitar roadie for Ritchie Blackmore came steaming down the old left wing; I managed to save the ball and this geezer was on a full tilt and he kneed me right in the middle of the back. He winded me severely and he split one of my vertebrae in my spine. For the next three weeks I was touring and in real pain and some nights I very nearly couldn’t do it. My manager said it was too dangerous being the drummer in goal, but the rest of the chaps really love to play. They’re serious football fans.”

How’s Eddie these days? “He’s fine. He’s grown hair these days — he looks like Johnny Rotten, hahaha! It’s quite interesting the way he looks — there’s a little bit of everything in him. He’s still got the lobotomised bonce and the plate in his

head and a space-age eyeball and a bit of hair.” ... The album went straight to number one in the UK ... “We’re going to lose sales through this press thing about swear words on the Bside. It’s only on the 12” and the CD. When we heard it, it was all good fun, but I’ve just realised the biggest mistake we’ve made was doing that.” You've had trouble with censorship people before, haven't you? “With those people it was their personal of a particular situation — the song ‘Number Of The Beast’. They were barking up the wrong tree, all of them that got on that trip, whereas this [B-side swearing] is audibly there. The actual word is right there so you don’t have to opinionate yourself about it. You think, ‘That bloke’s just sworn,’ but not 'Oh wow, I think that bloke’s singing about the devil and wants us to go out and do all this Satanic business,' which is a load of bosh. Quite rightly, the censorship should have been taken care of up front, so that people know there’s swearing on the record.” With that Nico says goodbye, but not without a farewell to Iron Maiden followers dbwnunder:

“Regards from me and the band to all our fans and heavy metal rivet-heads and whatever you want to call everybody down there who bangs their bonce every night. We're looking toward to coming down and banging ours with ya! Cheers!"

Geoff Dunn