IRON MAIDEN Guitarist On GRAMMY Win: 'I Don't Know That It's That Important To Us'

Australia's Faster Louder recently conducted an interview with IRON MAIDEN guitarist Adrian Smith. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Faster Louder: Congratulations to you and the rest of IRON MAIDEN for winning your first Grammy award ("Best Metal Performance") for "El Dorado" from your new album, "The Final Frontier". How does it feel to finally have that kind of recognition? Is that something that's important to IRON MAIDEN?

Adrian: I don't know, really. I kind of see us as having our own sort of niche. It's a very simple connection with us and our fans and we've always kind of tried to bypass the business or corporate side of it. I don't know that it's that important to us, the Grammys, but it's kind of nice to get that recognition. As a band, we just do what we do.

Faster Louder: Last August, IRON MAIDEN played at the Sonisphere festival in Finland where just after SLAYER played, a freak storm came through and destroyed the second stage and injured a whole bunch of people. What actually happened?

Adrian: It was bizarre! It was just a freak storm. As a matter of fact, when we flew into the airport, we'd heard that there had been a storm only a few hours previously and when we got there it had kind of finished. But there was quite a big plane and it was tilted on its side — its wing was touching the floor and someone said, "Wow, that must have been the plane that the crew were on." So that was quite a shock because that turned out to be the case. Obviously, the crew weren't on it at the time but just after they disembarked, this terrible storm hit. Anyway, we got to the show and we'd heard that we'd had some equipment damage, but Alice Cooper, who had played before us, well all their gear was wrecked and they had to borrow equipment. May have even been from us, I don't know. It was pretty tragic what happened, really. The equipment damage was the least of the stuff that happened. But I guess these things are always a risk.

Faster Louder: What, if any, are the differences between the festival shows and your own shows in terms of song choice or production? Especially with such an extravagant stage show such as IRON MAIDEN's, do you have enough time at a festival to get the whole thing up and running without sacrificing any of the show?

Adrian: We don't sacrifice anything. We've got a great crew and they get everything up and running the way it should be. I know a lot of people will be there to see us, so you got to make sure that you take care of all that. As far as song choice we do exactly the same as what we do on the rest of the tour. Because it's a full show so we can't really change too many songs anyway.

Faster Louder: Recently, Activision announced that they would be discontinuing "Guitar Hero" — a game that IRON MAIDEN contributed four songs to, including "2 Minutes to Midnight", a song that you wrote with vocalist, Bruce Dickinson. Did you ever try and play "Guitar Hero" and were you any good at it?

Adrian: I have tried to play it, but I was absolutely useless at it. I can't understand it at all. When you actually play an instrument and you try to play ["Guitar Hero"] like a real instrument, it just doesn't work. I used to play a lot of soccer but I can't play soccer games. It's really frustrating! I don't know what it is but I'm just not wired up for the computer age.

Faster Louder: Was there ever any tension caused by Janick [Gers, guitar] staying in the band after you rejoined?

Adrian: No, not really. I've known Janick for years anyway. Dave [Murray], Janick and I all get on really well. There's never been any problem. Potentially it's a nightmare, isn't it?! Three guitarists… You can just imagine backstage fights and onstage fights! But there's never been anything like that. I think in any band it's all about chemistry and it's about the band, not the individuals. Certainly with the three of us, we're really aware of that.

Read the entire interview from Faster Louder.

(Thanks: NJthrasher)