IRON MAIDEN Guitarist: No Plans For New Studio Album

Giorgio Mustica of The Aquarian Weekly recently conducted an interview with guitarist Adrian Smith of British heavy metal legends IRON MAIDEN. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Aquarian Weekly: Some of the songs you're planning on playing on your upcoming tour include "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son", "Can I Play With Madness", "Aces High", etc. What was the reason behind choosing a setlist like that of the famous 1988 excursion, 7th Tour Of A 7th Tour?

Adrian: Well, we just thought it'd be fun to revisit that period in time — there were some good songs there. It's just great revisiting some of the songs we haven't played for a long while. It keeps us fresh and it's just, you know, we got a lot of new fans coming on board now, a lot of younger fans who probably never saw or were around when we did that tour. That's one factor of it for us revisiting that time and I think there's some good songs from that period, so it's fun to do.

The Aquarian Weekly: IRON MAIDEN has been together for more than 35 years and yet "The Final Frontier" hit the No. 1 spot in almost 30 countries. What are your thoughts about this and how does it feel to still be on top of the game?

Adrian: Well, I think that we've always toured our music and brought our music to people — we've never relied on media and radio play. I think in that way, we've built up a really strong following. And like I said, we've got new fans on board that are rediscovering all the old stuff as well, so I mean, I don't know if there's any secret, I just think the band does it for the right reasons and we're in it because we love the music and I think people get that and they come along for the ride, so that's great.

The Aquarian Weekly: I saw a little while back that Nicko [McBrain, drums] said that he wasn't sure when there will be a new album. Is the band working on anything new at the moment or are you just focusing on touring right now?

Adrian: No, we're just focusing on this tour. We tend to put all our energy in what we're doing at the time. We don't really get together and rehearse songs or anything on the road. We tend to take a bit of time off it and see. Maybe next year. We haven't got any plans at the moment, but more than likely we'll be doing something.

The Aquarian Weekly: How do you think the upcoming U.S. tour is going to differ from in years past?

Adrian: Well, this is a new set; we haven't taken the stage set out, for example, so it's a new stage set. We got new effects. I think it's going to be actually more spectacular than the original tour and probably, technically, you got more stuff now to put into a live show in terms of lighting and that, which will make it quite spectacular, so I think this is going to be pretty special, this tour. What with the songs, we love playing these songs, and with the stage set and effects and of course we got Eddie, he's back, so it should be fun.

Read the entire interview from The Aquarian Weekly.