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Talkies, Jericho baby. Talkies, Jericho. Talkies, Jericho mama. Talkies, baby. Hey, man. How you doing? Chris, how are you, Mike? It's always a pleasure to talk to you, Mr. Smith. Here's the funny thing too. As we just jump right into this, you're actually in Winnipeg right now, which is the coincidence. All coincidences. I'll be there in about five hours, Chris. Okay, but you're you're playing there tonight. That's right. Yeah.
So how does it work? Do you guys just fly from town to town still? Yeah, yeah, no more tour buses for us. Leave that for the time on tour buses. Yeah, leave that for the kids, right? Yeah, yeah. It's pretty funny though. I don't know if you remember this. I've told you the story before, but probably I think nineteen. I think nineteen eighty seven. When you guys were in Winnipeg for, I guess it's somewhere on time to her. My friend found out what hotel you guys are staying in.
And somehow I ended up on the right floor and just started knocking on random doors and lo and behold, I knocked on yours. And you answered. Yeah, you answered. You had your hair. You actually weren't you had you if you consider with some punk kid knock at your door, you had your hair wrapped up in a towel. Oh, really? Yeah, and I said, uh, can I take a picture with you? And you said I just got out of the shower.
And then you close the door and I was like, uh, what does that mean? Should I wait or what should I do? Do you still have moments like that on the road where we're over zealous fans find out where you guys are staying and try and knock on your doors or that's a lovely story. It's so innocent. The trouble is now you get people. They find out what hotel you're in and they're professional autograph hunters.
As you probably know yourself right. And they they hijacked you as soon as you sit for outside the then you can tell them straight away because they just don't look like fans. They've got bags and bags of memorabilia that they want you to sign so they can sell it. And that is a thing that really, you know, ticks most of us off. You know, because the genuine fans like, you know, the kid that knocks on my door, you know, is kind of is all right.
But these people spoil it for because I won't sign any of that stuff because you know, they sell it on. What you write you and they find out for whatever reason what what airports your ads or what hotel your ad. Yeah. And like you said, you can see as well. And like, you know, in New York, like that can be really offensive route. If you don't, it will chase after you and start start start harassing you know, it's a real bit of a pain, you know, it's funny too.
But as far as fans go, we get we get we get fans in South America. They they tend to be the most fanatical ones and those fan outs on the hotel in, you know, sometimes in their hundreds, which is, which is, was he's mad. Obviously we can't sign everything for him. We, you know, give him away from that. But they were. I mean, the last time we were in our Salvador. It was absolutely mob that's not a hotel.
But when I looked an hour later, the police have moved them all on and there was like, right out police and everything, which is sort of. You know, it goes to show you what it's like down there. If you know group of kids crack and gather together, they just get split up straight away, you know, no messing around.
Isn't it amazing in this day and age though that you still have, you know, that things have changed like you said from music and for rock and roll, but a band that I would be still in sight, that type of reaction from the fans. Yeah, it is quite amazing really. It's quite amazing. But like in South America, they're very passionate about, you know, it's not a rich, your average person is not rich.
So I mean, they put great story in there and soccer, you know, sport. They love their passionate about sports almost like a religion and same in music. And if they think that someone's genuine, they really get get behind you. You know, they sort of they like football supporters. It's that kind of, you know, the spirit they have. Yeah, they kind of have a.
I think one team down there has even got the Eddie mascot as their mascot. I think it might be mascot to go. I'm not sure, but once soccer team uses the 80 logo is on their flags for their team and everything. And you see that, too, there's a gold tender in the NHL. I can't remember what team. I think we were the Vancouver canucks. He has that. Yep. Now it's now we just played there because because someone showed us it. Well, someone showed it to one of our crew. Yeah, the goalie.
And he said, you know, some studio, you know, the guy wears the thing and he said it. He held it and it said it was the most smelliest thing he's ever. But he had the Eddie mascot, but I mean, like I said, the last time I saw maiden, I think it was in Las Vegas. I saw you there. Just even in the concourse for the arena before the show, you know, people were singing and chanting Iron Maiden and it really felt like it, you know, it's not that, you know, like in 1986.
It says never ends just this. This energy that happens when Iron Maiden comes comes to town. It's a different energy now because it's a much warmer. I mean, I remember in the 80s, it was a much more aggressive kind of eye. It's wearing with priests and scorpions and, you know, the audience had a real crackle of danger about it. I think because young people were probably a lot of them, you know, pretty out of it.
There was a little bit of trouble here and now it seems to be, you know, people are a lot older. Obviously, you know, we're not going to be around forever. We're still rocking out pretty well. But you can feel that people are supposed to be wondering how we can keep doing it. I mean, we're doing it at a pretty, pretty high level, I think still, you know, because we don't play every single night.
We play two, three shows a week and we try to put the same energy in the Army, especially Bruce is pretty amazing. But it's a different kind of energy now, you know, I'd hate to say nostalgia because we're still, you know, making new music, which is what I think, you know, is the lifeblood of the band, you know, keeping, you know, doing new music. Well, it's very important to Iron Maiden and plus you're one of the bands. There's a few like Metallica does it and ACDC does it.
When you put out a new record, it's an event and you have no problems playing. When you do put out a new record like Book of Souls, for example, five or six or seven tunes from the new record, which a lot of bands wouldn't be able to do, but Maiden still can do that because people are into it. Yeah, I mean, you know, Book of Souls, I mean, there's a song that read on the black and I think it's 12 or 13 minutes long.
I thought this is not going to fly live, but people are so we loved it. There's a really long instrumental sections and that. But they are kind of it is kind of an old, sorry, melodic, you know, so, you know, there's there's stuff that people can sort of latch on to, but yeah, also remember back a few albums ago, we played the whole album in his entirety, you know.
A matter of question, yeah, more like a statement, you know, we're not we're not on the stale, we're not a cabaret actually, you know, we're going to and that's what that's what we are, you know. There was a lot of confused people on that tour, I remember because I saw that one too. Well, I've got to be honest, when it was these suggested doing it, I didn't think it was a very good idea, but once he's got something in his mind, you know, that's it.
And that's it. So we start with it and it's probably a thing of good thing in the long run. I think that you just hit something really interesting to me too, because since since you've come back and it's been gosh, 20 odd years since you and Bruce came back, do you guys now that you're older and wiser, do you kind of give each other a little bit more space, like you said, like in the past, maybe you would have fought Steve for having that idea.
Now do you guys kind of just go, well, it's Steve's idea. We just got to go with it and make it work. Does it make it easier to get along in this day and age? Yeah, I think, yeah, you definitely get older a bit wiser. You get a bit more aware of other people as you get older generally and how they feel about things, I think it's just a natural thing. So yeah, it's a bit more, a little bit more compromising in what we do.
But you know, I think we're all sort of buying to the, you know, the ethos of the band, you know, we all know we've got much clearer idea what it's all about. Especially I was out of the band for sort of nine years. So it's almost I came back with a different perspective, you know, I could see it from an outside this point of view.
Whereas in the 80s, we were just album, saw album, saw, you know, there was no life outside the band. So there's different to get difficult to get perspective, you know. Sure. I've spoken to to Bruce and to Steve about kind of how Bruce got back in when you, because you were jamming with Bruce at that point in time, was that always kind of the thing where you guys a package deal? How did they get presented you to come back to?
Very interesting. Yeah, I, I, well, Bruce approached me sort of mid 90s in the, he had this, he'd written some songs with Roy Z for his first album. We were at, it wasn't his first solo album, but around the accident, the birth time. So I really liked what they were doing. So I, I just chucked my lotting with him and contributed a few songs and it went on from there for the next sort of three, four, five years.
Then they wanted Bruce to come back, blazed, potted from the band. So I was playing with Bruce and then there was something in the air about me coming back. And I thought, well, maybe I'll just do one tour or come on for after set, you know, I don't know. But at time, I would have, you know, if you'd have asked me 10 years before, I said, no, I'll probably never do it. But you know, things changed like you say, get older and why is I for work? It might be nice, you know, just around it off.
But again, Steve, you know, come out, he does come out with some wacky ideas. At first, you think, I'm not going to work. And so he suggested to the guys, why don't we have three guitarists? You can imagine what that, what the room was like when he said that. I probably, Dave and Janik looked at each other like, what? You know, Leonard, Leonard Maiden. But, you know, I joined up and we went down a portrait, you all to write some songs and I had the song we come out, I had the riff and that.
You know, someone says, anyway, I've got any new ideas. And so I started playing that. And then the way we went and it just we never looked back really. Before I get in on all the NFL action at FanDuel, America's number one sports book, I just placed a couple of bets for my wife Jessica. You know, she's a huge Minnesota Vikings fan. So I picked the Vikings to win the NFC North, great value for a top tier team. I also picked them to win the Super Bowl, huge money if they come through school.
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Going from a two-guitar band for playing some of those songs from power, or two minutes from midnight or whatever. Was it pretty natural for the three of you guys to figure out the parts? I'll do this one. You do that one. Try that. There's a lot of intricate three-part harmonies in those songs that weren't there when you first recorded them. Well, put it this way, if you had three in-way maelstroms in the band or three richy-plat mors it would have been a fight after about five minutes.
Because a day is one of my oldest friends, we've worked together for years and we know the score. Yannick's a lovely guy. I had to say that Yann wasn't going to change where he was going to play. He's just very set in his way. I felt well, I sense that immediately, so I started looking at different ways of doing things. I've been playing it with a drop-d tuning in Bruce's band, so I've got used to that.
When I first joined up, we played Rothschild, I played that in drop-d tuning and run of the hills was in D. Again, I tuned it down. Yannick gave it a slightly different sound. I was bringing that in, playing lower octaves on the harmonies and stuff like that. I played a lot of stuff totally different to what I did when I was in the band before, which is quite interesting.
Yes, it's pretty professional of you to understand that those guys had the way of doing things and for you to come back and go, I want to do it my way again. You were adapting, right? Well, that's my personality anyway. I'm pretty good with other people. I think that's a reason why the band's lasted so long because it's the combination of people. In some bands, you know, it's a list as long as you're on.
You know, you're a deeper, which is at some point, they sort of implode you know, because of the ego's involved. But we've got a nice balance of personalities in the band, I think. You know, a right amount of extraverts and sort of people are prepared to compromise. That's not to say, you know, if you feel strongly about somebody, you shouldn't press it a bit. But, you know, I think that's why the band's one of the reasons the band's lasted so long.
And I think too, and I'm not just saying this because you're on the phone. There's a real chemistry that, it's like a great soccer team or a great hockey team. Sometimes you'll have a guy that just, the chemistry is so good. And then when he leaves the team, even though everyone else is still there, it's not quite the same. And there's a definite chemistry that you bring to the band that wasn't there when you were gone.
So I think when you came back, even though there was another guitar player, it really kind of completed the overall package of the kind of modern era Iron Maiden. Well, thank you very much. I think, I think I'm a stickler. I mean, I have this thing about tempo. And that's, I've had it ever since I joined the band and I still have it to some degree. And I'm really fanatical about the tempo of the songs. Because sometimes when we play live, it just absolutely takes off a lot of train.
So I'm always on one of the sticks, man, I'm saying, I think we should try and play some proper tempo. I know it's exciting and everything. But if we play it this way, it'll breathe, it'll sound bad. I wouldn't say we've had arguments about it, but it's like two minutes to midnight when we came out of the band, I'm playing it much too far. So this song does not work because I said, I've seen you play this live.
I saw a few of the songs and I'm like, great, I'm two minutes to midnight, it's too far. So I said, let's try a lot of it. So that's, you know, it's stuff like that. You know, little things like that make a difference. And you know, and it's chemistry. And then someone else is bringing something else, you know, but that's one of the things I'll try to do. It's funny because even when you get a new, we just got a new bass player into our band a couple of years ago.
And when someone comes from the outside, you don't know even if sometimes if you're playing something a little bit wrong, because everyone's just played it that way for the longest time. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Right. Takes someone from the outside to go, you know, this isn't exactly right. You guys sure you want to do it that way? What do you mean it's not right? And then you actually listen. Yeah. Yeah. He's right.
Exactly. Exactly. You know, sometimes I noticed something we did on a few of the songs we're playing now that I had to go back and listen to. And we were, you know, well, I wasn't playing it right. You know, you can't get too complacent. Speaking of complacent and kind of guys being, you know, you guys are in Maiden taking on the world. And then a few years ago, and Bruce discussed us when he was on the show, Bruce gets diagnosed with with tongue cancer.
And then you guys don't know what the future of the band is. It seems since Bruce has come back, you guys are almost better than ever as far as being tighter on stage, more energy on stage. Bruce has given it more on stage. Did that throw you guys for a loop thinking that we don't know what's going to happen with this band? Yeah. It was awful. You know, we got a phone call just before Christmas, you know, Paul Bruce said this thing he had to deal with. And, but I don't know.
I just had the feeling he would come through it because he's so positive, you know, never heard him. Well, hard, he ever heard him feel sorry for himself or be negative. You know, it's one of his strengths. Although, you know, I can't possibly imagine what he went through. I thought he was going to be okay. And certainly the band wasn't the foremost thing. You know, we just wanted him to get better and then let it take its course. And if, you know, if we carried on so be it.
But yeah, I mean, he's come back and he's absolutely thrown himself into the band again. I mean, the show is, I mean, a lot of stuff, you know, he had a big, big hand in, you know, a lot of the props and the actual show aspect, apart from the singing, you know, he's really brought out of that theatrical side that he's got. And he's absolutely loving it. He's like a kid in a sweet shot, you know. So yeah, and with this set and the music, the set is, you know, it's really a lot of fun to play.
And the whole production, I think it's just kind of peaked on this tour, even, you know, we're sort of the veterans, I just know, you know, and I certainly give for my point, if you want to ever get complacent about it, you know, I'm always trying to push myself a bit. When, when you guys are putting together this, this set and it's, it's a great thing that means done over the last 10 years or so. We mentioned you'll play a matter of life and death and it's entire year.
You'll do six songs from book of souls. But then the next tour afterwards is always more of a, of a greatest hits type of a vibe. And what I love about this set list and it's something I hate nowadays, you can cheat and go online and look up the set list. But you'll see that it's not just, you know, 80 songs, which I would be very disappointed if it was. There's a lot of, there's a couple blaze tunes. There's a couple tunes that create a good of God from matter of life and death.
At this stage, how do you guys put together this set? And like you said, you enjoy pushing yourself. What's type of songs push yourself in this day and age? Well, you used to kind of do the set way back in the day. There's songs that you had to play, you know. But with this, I mean, it's tied in with the video game and the different worlds that are in that, I say, video game is a computer game showing my age really. So it's combining all that.
So that was a bit of a guideline to the set, you know. A lot of the time, you know, Steve and Bruce will get their heads together to come up and say, obviously Bruce got his, you know, as a singer, you know, what you want to sing live and what you're happy singing live. Right. You know, in terms of the, you know, the punishment on your voice and whether you could do that particular song, night after night, or, you know, so, yeah, the set works out really well.
I mean, if, again, if I really strongly eject or something, I'll say so. But usually it works out great. Everyone's got, you know, the run to express themselves as solo as a share there. There's audience participation. You know, you've got to take all those things into consideration. But yeah, I think this is one of the most enjoyable. I'm certainly personally, I'm having, you know, great time on stage. It's, you know, most fun tour ever done. Really?
Out of all the main tours, this is the most fun you've had. Yeah. Yeah. And back in the eighties, it was just, it was just mad, you know, we were playing every single night, you know, your party and as well. And you just come sometimes, you go on stage and you can, you know, you just close. Split it. Like, you know, you're playing Phantom of the Opera 100 miles an hour and you're not jeez, you know.
But this one is like the music lead, the bands playing great, you know, I'll tell you another thing now, Chris, you probably know this yourself is the monitoring systems are so good now. Oh, yeah. I'm playing. And we have, well, I have any monitors, which makes an incredible difference. You know, I could say, you know, when we first started, it was just absolutely, mayhem on stage. No, Steve has hired 2,000 lots of bass gear. He's got cabinets everywhere.
So you get into this thing where you're all competing, Bruce joined the band and he had a huge PA system built for his voice on stage. And so that was deafening. So everyone was competing with each other. But now, you know, the sound so much better, you can hear what you're doing. And it's just like some enjoyable. You know, it's interesting. Was it hard to get used to the interiors?
I know I was talking to Biff from Sacks and he said it took him years to get used to having the inner your system after fighting on stage and trying to find the sweet spot and nowhere where you can hear yourself. And now suddenly it's also clear, was it an instant acceptance from you after being doing it for so long off the monitors? Well, the first thing you have to do, again, is all of a sudden you can hear yourself really clearly. You go, oh, that's what a sound like.
And it's all about tweaking it and getting the sound right. And I say to my monitor guy, I don't want to sound like the amps in my ear roll. I want to sound like if I'm watching the show and it's a balance through everything. Obviously, I'm going to hear my guitar a little bit louder. And I started off just using it in one ear and having my left ear and then my right ear was just, you know, I didn't have anything in there. So I got used to it gradually.
And I was the only one who used them for about 10 years and then Yannick and they started to use them. And again, they said, they couldn't believe what they didn't use to start using them earlier. So the three of us, three guitar players used in the monitors, you know. The rest of the guys have their own things. Steve doesn't use anything. So Nick's got an old fashioned kind of speaker system and Bruce has got, you know, his regular wedges.
Bruce doesn't like, so you can't, I mean, you can get a sweet spot on stage without, you know, but then you can't stand rooted to one spot all night, you know. Well, sure. You can do that. You can just stand. We can't just, I love to stand in front of my amp and just play because then you can feel it and hear it. You got to be in, you got to move around and interact with the audience a bit. So that's what I have done to with ears.
I actually have a, I got a special earpiece made with just the left ear and there's nothing, there's no piece for the right ear because I like having the live ambiance and the crowd because even if you like the car, it's not the same, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you need to, I think it's slightly different for a frontman because you need to gauge, you know, what's going on in the audio. If you just have like a live album sound in your cans, you're not really, your audience can be not reacting.
You would know, you know. So yeah, that's probably a good way to go. When you're looking at the set list here and there's a song like Flight of Vicarist, for example, that has been played in such, I don't know, 30 odd years. And it's funny because hardcore maiden fans will tell you the exact, oh, they haven't played this since 1984 on the piece of mind final show Endortment. Is it fun playing this? You know, is it fun digging out those type of old songs from the past and playing them again?
Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's really weird. You know, some songs haven't played for 10 or 15 years and we got rehearsal and just not just play it, right? Well, after that, it's amazing. It's like a muscle memory, you know. Right. There was a few train racks here and there as well, but you know, it's amazing what you do remember. And it's, you know, you forget how good some of the old songs were, you know. Right.
And even so, like you said, some of the ones like Sign of the Cross and for the greater good of God, those are 10 minute songs that you have played for a while. You probably can't just pick up the old guitar and go right into those ones. He'd be surprised. Really? Yeah. Well, I've done about Sign of the Cross, but you know, it's great. But those are probably my two favorite songs of the play on stage. I mean, they're so dramatic and so, you know, interest him musically.
And I think as Steve really nailed it on those ones, you know, he's an epic style of sort of proggy metal, right? And I mean, they're really great live songs. Those are the ones that you really have to kind of pay attention to what you're doing. Well, they have a flow to them, you know. And Sign of the Cross is pretty off the wall with the Gregorian months singing your way and everything.
It's, you know, and the time, some of the time signatures, but you know, after a while, you get in the flow of it, it gets in your blood and you just do it, you know. So you want to be a marketer. It's easy. You just have to score a ton of leads and figure out a way to turn them all into customers. Plus manage a dozen channels, write a million blogs, and launch a hundred campaigns all at once. When that's done, simply make your socials go viral and bring in record profits. Go sweat. Okay, fine.
It's a lot of sweat. But with HubSpot's AI-powered marketing tools, launching benchmark breaking campaigns is easier than ever. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Do you ever sit back like when there's a show going on? Like you said, where there's starts off with a giant plane flying above you and then it goes to Scottish clans and then it goes to the Gregorian monks and flame throwers and winged idols. Like, do you ever sit back and go holy shit? Like this is just insane.
Yeah. Well, maybe when I'm old, you sit in my armchair and reflecting on it. I mean, yeah, it is. You certainly go through all the, I guess the songs are very, they devout sort of, sort of these feelings, you know, they're pretty dramatic. I mean, I see any way I can put it. And they did just great fun to play live. And I think the audience sort of gets into that as well.
Yeah, I mean, certainly you do go through a lot of themes and playing a guitar solo with a Spitfire, you know, two foot from your head is quite a thrill, I'll tell you. It's one of those things that I mean is a band that can do this and probably no band ever again will be able to do the things that you do. I remember last time when Bruce was, I think it was Book of Souls where he pulls out the Eddie's heart and throws it into the crowd. And it's like this plastic heart.
And it's like only Iron Maiden to do this to where you think it's the coolest thing ever, right? Yeah, it's, yeah, it's got a version on the ridiculous in it really sometimes. But I think, yeah, it just seems to, I mean, Bruce points out now. We're even getting good reviews from Rolling Stone magazine. What? And that's all exactly, they've always ignored us and kind of looked down in those hours. But now they're like saying, well, it's almost like we've become acceptable.
It's a bit of fun, isn't it? It's a bit of fun. I think, you know, if you want to go and see a band just standing one place and just recreate the sound of the album, it's, you know, that's fine too. But, you know, you certainly don't get out with us. You see a lot more, you get a lot more show, you know? No, and that's why I think maybe, and you can answer this better than I can. It seems to me on the surface that made it as bigger now than you ever were.
Well, I couldn't tell you in terms of, you know, facts and figures, but it certainly feels that way. Yeah, certainly feels that way. I'm sure we can ask Rod, he'll know every figure down to the last time. He can tell you. Yes. Let's talk about, you mentioned earlier touring with Judas Priest. You're very first tour of the States. I'm not sure if it was with Priest, but just talk about when you guys first came over here, what that was like. Ah, it was incredible.
I mean, it was opening up for Priest. And the first show was what we flew into to LA. It went to the sunset marquee, which is like a mecca for all English bands when you go there. It's like, I walked into the lobby. The first person of Saul was Jeff Beck, you know. Right. We stayed there for a few days. Did some interviews, went down to the rainbow bar and grill. You know, Jimmy Page is sitting at the next table. You know, it's like incredible. There's all these women jumping all over us.
And then we went, the first gig we did was in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Theatre opening for Priest. And I think I was physically sick before the show. Oh God, this is America. I've always dreamed about playing here, you know. And then after that show, we were joined on the tour by a band called Humble Pie. And they, it was us in the show for 30 minutes, Humble Pie and Judas Priest. And Humble Pie was one of my all-time favorite bands. I mean, Steve Marriott, absolutely hero of mine.
And there he was, you know. And, you know, we looked up to all these guys, you know. And then White Snake came on the tour. Old White Snake. You know, I say the original with Bernie Mars and Mickey Moody, Coverdale obviously. And Ian Pace and John Lould. Oh, I'm deep purple. Well, like my religion when I was 15, you know. So there I am, you know, on a flight sitting next to Ian Pace, you know, Gunner McGiggan, we're talking about sound and songs and music. It was just incredible, you know.
Really amazing. Did you go over pretty well right off the bat in America? We did. We did, yeah. And talking about, you know, playing live, I was watching, you know, we got Steve Sons playing out at a Raven Age. And these guys are so smooth and professional, you know, they've got their in-em monitor system. They've got their whole system working, they're on stage and they're all relaxed. And when we played, it was like, it was like a hurricane, you know. Quite often we didn't have sound checks.
The sound wasn't great. We didn't have a lot of room. We were falling over, tangling leads. It was just chaos. It was exciting, you know. And we did go over. I mean, Steve really attacked the audience, you know, he just had such conviction in what he was doing. He'd be right out the front from the very first song, you know. And he just made people go into it, you know, his incredible watch, really. Well, I think back on it.
Yeah, because you always heard too about, you know, Iron Maiden coming even when up and counted up in Winnipeg and then you guys were touring with Priest and then you're going to tour with 38 Special and then suddenly out of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah, that must have been an interesting mix with a Southern rock band. Amazing. So I thought, yeah, special rainbow and they were they were alternating headline in.
So we'd open up and then it would be 38 and then rainbow and then the next night, we asked rainbow, 38. They were great guys. They were just happy, go lucky. Very happy to be doing it. You had Donnie Van Tant singing in the band, you know, who looked exactly like Ronnie, which is really weird. Who looks exactly like Johnny? So I called him Ronnie once and I felt terrible. He didn't say anything. They were great.
And rainbow, you know, with Richie Blackman, you know, like I said, purple or my religion, but we hardly ever saw Richie off stage, a very kind of moody character living up to his reputation. Right. And yeah, I mean, some nights he'd come on stage and and start smoke on the water and then just play the intro and walk off and leave the crowd absolutely going crazy, almost rioting, you know, but that's what he was like. He never gave you any advice, did you ever run into him at all? Not really.
No. You know, this is the thing I wish I was so shy now. I was only a kid really. I was only 23, 24. I just wish I could do it now because I'd love to talk to Steve Mariett, mind depth. I'd love to talk to Richie Blackman. I would probably bad more confidence myself and just gone right in, going right up to him and sat him down and picked his brains, you know, but you can't go back in time. Actually, I had a few chats with Steve Mariett, but you know, he was a very intimidating character.
He was very, he walked it like he talked to it. He was a wild off stage and he was wild on stage. He was always in trouble, you know. Right. He was a real character. I thought, what is going down everything has been everywhere, but in reality, he was only probably in his early 30s when we toured. You know, I thought he was an old guy. You know, an old guy. That's what, you know, a long guy it was. But let's get to your so green and such a rookie.
You know, if you would have known, now you could go to Richie Blackman because you would know, oh, it's Adrian from Iron Maiden, everyone knows Iron Maiden. At the time, you're just another opening band in a litany of probably a dozen opening bands on that tour, right? Exactly. Exactly.
So you, you know, you keep your head down and well, especially, you know, me, I'm pretty like mate, what I was saying, just keep your head down and, you know, just do the best you can and just keep pushing on, you know. Did you ever, I think you told me a funny story, but you met Paul McCartney one time, is that true? Do you remember this? No. No, he was an AMI thing in England. I didn't actually meet him. Some of the other guys mate, met him. Dave Murray said he's supposed to call McCartney.
And first thing Paul McCartney said is all my kids have got pictures of Iron Maiden all over their wall. I was going like that. He said, you're the band. You're the same thing. You're the band with the monster. You're the same thing. Johnny Cash said the same thing. Well, yeah, oh, yeah, he might have said that as well. Yeah. And then he said, you're the band with the monster. I mean, Johnny Cash turned up at Soundcheck of ours once. I mean, our bizarre is that we're soundchecking at this club.
All of a sudden this guy walks in the back of the club in the afternoon, long black gunfire coat, you know, I'm standing up on stage, you know, playing Rothschild or something. And then I think we saw a bloody old Johnny Cash. So we finished the Soundcheck about the dresser. And then he comes Johnny, a lovely guy, a really great energy. And he's with his band and he said to me, come on to me and say, my grandkids love you guys. You know, there were these grandkids were fans of the band.
So we gave him more grass. And I caused I got his autograph. That was really cool. How could you not, right? Yeah. Let's talk about quickly here as we start to wind down. That's a famous moment in rock and roll history. You have a history of the hearing aid project and stars. The song that Dio did for charity back when it was all about band aid and live aid. And the reason I'm asking this, I just happened to watch it the other day and you and Dave are involved.
And just tell us a little bit about that because you guys played this really killer little melody harmony behind the chorus where everyone else is just wanking away. What was that like that session and how did you decide to do something melodic rather than try and do a blistering solo? Well, I think we were, I can't remember. So I mean, Jimmy Bain got in touch with us because Jimmy, you know, he said, take a little bit of an interest in us and we kept in touch with him a bit.
He showed up at gigs in LA and lead us to Australia. And he asked Rod if any of the guys would contribute. So, you know, no one else wanted to do it. So Dave and I, we said, yeah, so we rolled out. To be honest, I was dreading it because I never really liked that whole LA shredder scene. I, it was kind of intimidating because I grew up playing rock blues really. That wasn't my thing, shredding and all that. And these guys, unless Face It, they were good.
They were good if you can't ball and all these guys. And Almstren and George Lynch and so on. Sorry. Neil Sean and George Lynch and Bounce Tally. Exactly. And they're all like trying to play faster than each other and, you know, it's like, God. And so we went in there and I thought, I said to Dave, look, why don't we just do some, I've got this guitar line, you know, and we put it over the chorus. Luckily, I can think of things like that on my feet. So they can come me out of trouble.
But, you know, it was, it was very much in LA recording scene. The control room was full of groupies. There were people smoking joints and snorting, blowing all sorts of things. It was like, you know, it was very decadent. So, you know, I couldn't wait to do my thing and get out of it to be honest. But, you know, I saw it in a good call, I suppose. Couldn't wait to get your thing down and go hang out in the control room.
Well, now we did our part in the control room, actually, I met all this debauchery, you know, although I must say Ronnie Dio's love was a lovely guy, you know, and he was sort of producing the session. And no, he was straight as a judge, you know, let's not not get out right. Let's get that right. So he directed us and I said, I've got this part. And he said, I'll call, we just put it out.
I think maybe he was relieved that the guy going to come in and start shredding for four hours, you know, it's too much. So we did our thing and then go out. Vivian told me when he got the gig with Ronnie, because he said everybody was just shredding away. And he came and shredded and then Dio said, what else do you got? He started playing Chuck Berry, Blues Riffs. And that's some de-excited. Now you're on to something. Let me hear more of that. So you're probably right about that. Yeah, cool.
Speaking of debauch, do you remember the night that we had after we went and saw Jekyll and Hyde in New York City? Yeah, you know what? I remember it to a point, Chris, but I, you know, I remember being in a restaurant and then going to a club or something. I don't remember much after that, mate. I think you might have paid the bill though. We went to see Sebastian. This is when you're in New York doing press. I think for maybe Psycho Motel, one of your solo records.
And we went in the studio and Hyde, your wife and my wife and a couple of the friends. And then after we went to Sebastian, he was the star of Sebastian Brock at a bar that we went to afterwards. And we went there and proceeded to just get completely, you know, off our rockers. And I think at one point, I do remember it. Yeah. So yeah, I do remember Sebastian Bart was really good in he played Jekyll and Hyde. He was amazing. He was.
And then we ended up pouring beer on each other's head and shooting catch up into each other's face at one point. I cornered you and then told you every one of the songs that you'd ever written in Iron Maiden. Oh, wow. You were like, yeah, I know, I know what songs I was written. I'm like, no. You were just reaffirming it. Exactly. Megan Schur. Last couple of questions for you, Adrian. It'll you've been on a long tour, but you still love fishing.
Do you still get to get a chance to go fishing on your days off once in a while? I do. As a matter of fact, I'm looking out my window in here in the in the Swyson pool in the Southerner. And I've got the Mississippi out side. I was over there yesterday. And like, I'll be up in Calgary in a few days. So I'll be going down a boat right now. I like to do your buddy dive a few years ago. That's right, my cousin Chad, my friend, Spee. We took your fishing a couple of years ago.
That's right. Yeah. And so I'll be doing that. And yeah, music fishing. But see, that's the cool thing is that is that you know, we know how it is when you have days off. And if you're just sitting around doing nothing, you're just wasting a day and it's the worst feeling in the world. So some guys like to evolve things, some guys like to go sightseeing, but for you to have that fishing outlet, that's probably, it probably helps you stay sane on the road.
Yeah. It's something to do, like say, you know, kiss your active, kiss your out there. It's actually quite good exercise. I do a lot of walking and get you out of fresh air, get out of hotel. Last couple of questions. What's the biggest fish that you ever caught? Oh, it's, I was thinking about it today. It's probably a sturgeon. I was in Vancouver one time and I never even seen a sturgeon that alone caught one.
So I went up to the Fraser River, got a guide, went out on a huge jet boat, and we got into the sturgeon. These things were over 100 pounds. Wow. And I was fighting the sturgeon and my arms literally hanging off, aching. And I thought, I'm not going to be outplayed to show it, but it's like, you know, right. Is that one of those things where you have to strap yourself in and like slowly reel it in over the course of like an hour or two hours or something like that?
Well, we hooked into this thing and the guide put one of those fighting harnesses on me. He didn't quite strap me in, but you know, you stick a rod in a sort of a harness that straps to you. Then he just sat down and started rolling the cigarette like, you know, don't rush. It's going to take a while, you know. So yeah, those things, you know, I don't think they even know what's going on. They're so big. They just kind of just keep going and you have to follow them.
Right, right, because that's what they say like, you know, the lock this monster could be a sturgeon, a giant sturgeon or something like that, because it's still big and it's slow, right? Yeah. Last question. What's your favorite song to play on this on this tour? Probably great. A good girl. I'd say. I love that tune. And like I said, it's always a pleasure to hang out and have a child with you. I'm glad we were able to work this out. All right, pleasure Chris. Nice to talk to you, mate.
Thanks, man. I'll see you in a couple of weeks and have fun in the peg, man. We're going to peg great rock and roll crowds. The peg, yeah, we'll do. All right, mate. Cheers, man. Thanks. Cheers Chris. Nice to talk to you. Thanks, Nathan. Bye. Bye. Bye. You've got questions. O'Reilly Auto Parts has answers. Need a pro you can trust. We've got that too. No matter what you need, our professional parts people have the training and expertise to help you do things right.
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