Maiden's future (albums/touring)

I've never understood this. I think it's awful live, especially because of the vocal harmonies. Even seeing it in person didn't help.
 
There is no way Iron Maiden is going to be a "studio only" band. Why? Because they have to get their money back from somewhere. It costs a fortune to record an album. I have really no clue as to have they are managing with the albums financially, and The Final Frontier did indeed do well on the charts. But, Kevin Shirley stated that there's no way that a decent budget-production is going to make even on album sales alone. He would probably know.

"You can't make a decent record with a good budget and expect to make back your investment from record sales alone - those days are long gone."

Source: http://www.musicradar.com/news/guit...joe-bonamassa-iron-maiden-led-zeppelin-316822
 
I agree Maiden ain't going to record & not tour. However, money is hardly likely to be an issue should they choose to. Adrian & Bruce did albums (which were very well produced) & didn't tour; & while Steve toured, I can't imagine he made much judging by ticket prices & venue sizes. So it's not like it's never going to happen. The only viable reason it won't happen is because they're not likely to choose to do so, as Maiden; not for any other reason.
 
TBH if releasing an album actually cost them more than it earned, and they continued to do it but didn't tour... then that would be pretty good of them, and further reinforce the "in it because they enjoy making music" rather than "in it for the money" thing.
 
Crimson Idol said:
TBH if releasing an album actually cost them more than it earned, and they continued to do it but didn't tour... then that would be pretty good of them, and further reinforce the "in it because they enjoy making music" rather than "in it for the money" thing.
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True, but making music simply for the money and making sure you continue to sustain yourself doing what you love are two different things. Any professional artist who says they don't care about making a profit is lying, this is their job.
 
Forostar said:
Next tour, from these albums, nothing more than this:

IM: IM, Running Free
Killers: Wrathchild
NotB: NotB, RttH, Hallowed
PoM: Trooper
Powerslave: 2MtM
SIT: Wasted Years
SSoaSS: Evil That Men Do, CIPWM, Clairvoyant
FotD: Fotd
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yes, but I think they should play stuff especially from 90's albums, from "a matter of life and Death", they played a lot of stuff from 80's during the three history tours of 2005, 2008-2009, 2012 - 2013, so I guess if they want to play songs they didn't play for a while it's time to focus a little bit on 90's album...
At the same time we know that songs from number of the beast, piece of mind, seventh son of a seventh son, iron maiden, the songs from these albums can't miss so the set must be balanced according to the kind of tour (new album or another history tour or greatest hits tour, depending on their plans).
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
True, but making music simply for the money and making sure you continue to sustain yourself doing what you love are two different things. Any professional artist who says they don't care about making a profit is lying, this is their job.
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You're correct. Many "romantic" fans like to think otherwise and bash artists who flat out say they care about money, but if something's not selling well or a band isn't asked for many concerts, things are gonna change.

I really doubt Steve accepting Bruce's comeback after all that drama that went down was a music decision rather than a business one. The X Factor was great, Virtual XI had potential and there were only two albums done with Blaze anyway. But both of them had terrible sellings, Virtual XI was by far the lowest selling Maiden album if I remember correctly. Obviously it had effects on the music, but I think it was mostly a business call.
 
And that is the reason they are never going to do a history tour that consists of the band's least successful era. It would be a risky decision at best.
 
I don't agree. I still think the plan is to do a final history tour taking in albums up to VXI (or BNW) --I just think, like SBiT (which had fuck all SiT), it won't, in reality, have that much 90's stuff. I mean, they have pretty good form on this i.e. having a Hx tour with very little from the era that the tour is meant to be focusing on. What would they need? --four, maybe five 90's tracks at a push?, plus the usual mix of tracks. It doesn't sound that unlikely e.g. FotD, Afraid to shoot Strangers, maybe Tailgunner, & Bring Your Daughter... --let's face it, Maiden would probably call that a 90's Hx tour.
 
It's medical short-hand for "History" i.e. to take ones History --to note what medicines they are on, what conditions they have, or have had, etc etc. (See also "Rx" --at the start of a [handwritten] prescription, which is from latin.)
 
Mosh said:
Meh, they really don't need to pay so much to record an album these days.
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Don't know where to begin. Sure, they could do it themselves on the computer with a pirated version of Cubase and shit on the master engineer and just brickwall it, but really?
 
So Maturin, what's your explanation for Adrian's PRR (no tour) & Brucie's ToS (no tour, if I'm not mistaken) albums? Did these both cost a lot to produce, & did H & Bruce both loose a lot of money by not touring off the back of them? (And if yes, why did they bother?) I seem, also, to recall TFF starting with something Adrian recorded in his own studio!

Mosh's "meh" was a simple rebuttal to your plainly false rant about Maiden "...have[ing] to get their money back from somewhere" --& it costing "a fortune to record an album". His suggestion is: you exaggerate. I'm sure money is important & plays its part --but Maiden tour principally, I'd suggest, because they enjoy doing so.
 
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Mosh said:
Meh, they really don't need to pay so much to record an album these days.
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No you don't, but going down that road means a lot of compromises. And I don't see Maiden as a band that will compromise about much, and certainly not that aspect.

@Cried: PRR was probably quite cheap. It's not unlikely that the drums were recorded on a midi drumset (recorded the midi and then ran them through the appropriate samples. Very common approach nowadays. Very cost effective and if you do it right you will get away with it no problem). I doubt the guitars and bass were recorded at a studio and the vocals could have been recorded at home as well.
 
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I think Shirley was thinking more about Bonamassa in his statement than about Maiden. Yes, if you are a new band, or play the kind of music which is appealing to a limited fan base, in today's market you will probably lose money on making an album. It's not the same for established bands such as Maiden with an immensely loyal and fanatical fan base. Also, from what I've heard, the price for the band's appearance is around a quarter of a million euro (minus infrastructure and personnel costs), so multiply that by the 80 shows on this tour and compare it with figures they could potentially earn from selling 1-2 million copies of the album for 10-15 euro per piece (minus a pretty huge percentage of the sales that goes to the record companies)... Bottom line, the better part of their income comes from touring.

Also, I'd bet that playing in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans each night is a pretty good feeling.
 
I made a statement on the fact that Kevin Shirley himself said that a decent budget production is not going to make its money back on record sales. And that interview was published on December 1, 2010 - after The Final Frontier was released.

Tyranny of Souls was primarily done by Bruce Dickinson and Roy Z. Roy Z co-wrote, produced, played all guitars plus bass on a few tracks, and was credited with engineering and mixing the album, along with Stan Katayama. The guitars was probably not done on expensive studio time. And they didn't hire Bob Ludwig to master the album.

Primal Rock Rebellion's Awoken Broken was written and recorded without an external producer, which saves a lot of money, but I don't have the album and can't say who else was involved. Adrian also played bass on the album, and his home studio was likely used for guitars and bass. That is one less man to pay, not to say they don't need to rent a studio that costs a lot of money.

Kevin Shirley is a top name producer and is going to cost a lot of money to hire. It was done in Compass Point Studios in Bahamas, which meant that either they rented their gear there, or they flew in with it - either way, not cheap. The studio itself probably cost a hundred GBP an hour, not counting the cost of the people involved. The Final Frontier was also mastered by Bob Ludwig who is one of the most accomplished in the industry. Aside from those two, they credit several engineers and technician's on the album.

Since they record their playing live, there is going to be a lot of editing done by Kevin Shirley in Pro Tools. That takes a lot of time and he doesn't do it for free.

At the end of the day, the costs are not comparable.
 
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