IRON MAIDEN Guitarist JANICK GERS: I Never Think About Heavy Metal

Elizabeth Bromstein of Toronto's Now magazine recently conducted an interview with IRON MAIDEN guitarist Janick Gers. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On whether IRON MAIDEN is a metal band:

"I've never thought of us as a metal band, and I never think about metal. Bruce [Dickinson] will go on about us being a metal band, and maybe people see us that way, but I think there's more to us than that. If people want to call it heavy metal, that's fine with me, but I don't think of it that way."

On the new MAIDEN album, "A Matter of Life and Death":

"I think of this record as more progressive. The lyrics are subtle and moving, and the music has a powerful progressive thing, an orchestral feel and thematic melodies all the way through.

"For a band our age, we took a few chances, but we have the musicianship to expand songs to what we feel is the right length. If we feel a song needs to be eight minutes long, it's gonna be eight minutes long."

On the overuse of technology so prevalent in music today:

"I hear albums now and they sound unbelievable — everything's piled on top of everything else, and they're produced to the hilt. Then you see the band live and it sounds like any other band, because it can't have what the record has. Everything's done to a click track and there's no air. It doesn't breathe.

"Adrian [Smith] is using a guitar synth on this album, which is great. It adds a bit of sparkle. But what I don't like are all the processed sounds. You press the Jimmy Page button and end up with a supposed Jimmy Page sound.

"But you know, Jimmy Page didn't have a button to be Jimmy Page, and that's what made it exciting."