You spend a morning messing around with effects and you’ll probably get an idea for a song out of it." -Adrian Smith "Sometimes it’s fun to let the sound take you somewhere. That’s a good way of keeping my fingers limber.
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When I’m at home, if I’m watching a movie or something, I’ll have a guitar on my lap, something with really heavy strings that’s hard to play, like an acoustic. But I like playing just for the fun of it-it doesn’t feel like work to me. If you just played guitar from tour to tour, it’d take a long time to catch up. If you were an athlete, you’d exercise and warm up, and I think it’s the same with guitarists. Murray: I think it’s like any profession. Sometimes Steve will say to me, “Why are you changing that? What you had before is great, it’s melodic-it’s what people want to hear.” But you know, you have to try sometimes, especially with stuff you’ve played so much. One thing I like to do is work new techniques into old material. When I get time, I try to learn some new things and stay fresh. I can’t do what some people do-you hear about Yngwie Malmsteen practicing for eight hours a day. Smith: I definitely practice, especially before an album or a tour. You’re all accomplished players, but do you spend any time at home woodshedding, working on your chops? Premier Guitar sat down with Smith, Murray, and Gers to talk about the guitars and gear they used on the new album, how the blues figures into their playing lexicon, what it’s like to tackle an 18-minute bear of a song, and what steps they take to stay out of each other’s tonal space. There are no half-gestures or rote moves, and at times the fretwork even comes close to transcending the album’s material-no small feat considering this could be the band’s strongest set of songs in over a decade. The elongated arrangements give the guitar team ample room to shine, but what’s remarkable about their performances-take the Thin Lizzy-sounding “Speed of Light” or the spitfire disc-opener “If Eternity Should Fail”-is the way they never seem to repeat a lick. Indulgence seems to be the very idea behind the recently released The Book of Souls: It’s the band’s first double record (clocking in at an ADD-busting 92 minutes), and all but four of its 11 tracks are nearly six minutes long-three, in fact, break the 10-minute barrier, with the album closer, singer Bruce Dickinson’s majestic “Empire of the Clouds,” about the 1930 R101 airship crash, ranking as the group’s longest cut ever at just over 18 minutes. There’s plenty of space for us to do our own thing and express ourselves without our egos getting in the way.” I think it’s like a bit of magic.” Smith agrees: “For the most part, our songs are quite long and maybe a bit indulgent anyway. “There’d be a lot of overindulgence and the songs would get lost. “I imagine you’d probably get three guitarists in other bands and it just wouldn’t work,” Murray says.
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(Gers had replaced Smith after he left the group in 1990 when Smith returned to the fold, Gers stayed on.) But on a series of bracing releases-2000’s Brave New World, 2003’s Dance of Death, A Matter of Life and Death from 2006 and The Final Frontier from 2010-the trio pooled their individual strengths to form a potent metal guitar orchestra. Even when he’s soloing, you hear a certain kind of rhythm that’s different from what Dave and I do.” And for a self-assessment, he lets out a good-natured laugh and says, “I’m more of a ragged kind of player, rough around the edges but with a bit of a gymnastic edge.”Ī fair amount of Maiden purists scoffed when the band expanded to the three-guitarist team of Murray, Smith, and Gers in 1999, fearing that the classic twin-axe interplay that all but defined the New Wave of British Heavy Metal sound in the early ’80s would be lost in an interminable sea of noodling one-upmanship. As for Smith, Gers says, “He’s very rhythmic. “Dave is very smooth-very rock ’n’ roll but with a beautiful tone,” he notes.
Gers, for his part, sees Murray as the most melodic of the Maiden axe team. He tends to work out some of his stuff, but he always sounds very spontaneous.” “I think Janick’s the same actually-great melodies and spirit. “Personally, I like to try to be melodic but with a little fire and energy,” says Murray.
Dave plays more legato, whereas I do more muted stuff.” They both have a strong Ritchie Blackmore influence. “Dave and Janick’s styles are similar to each other, but they’re different from mine. Asking Iron Maiden guitarists Adrian Smith, Dave Murray, and Janick Gers to describe the differences in their playing styles creates something of a Rashomon effect, with each axeman offering a unique and sometimes contrarian view: “I think you can tell us apart very easily,” says Smith.
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