NEWS: Maiden have started writing NEW material!

[JackKnife]

I doubt the writing was just 3 weeks. That's how long they were in Paris for and if you remember Nicko said that they still had to write a couple of songs afterwards.

They usually join to summarize and finish up what each member prepared in his own way. So they don't start from scratch and therefore a lot of music may come apparently easily and quickly while most of the work dates back from one year or more!
As far as I recall, Steve loves short writing sessions. When Adrian left (back in 90) one thing that really annoyed him was that the writting sessions for "No Prayer" were shortened by Steve when the band gathered the amount of music they needed to complete the album. Adrian complained that this prevented him from writing more new material and making interesting and inovating propositions (this comes from interviews published at that time).
I believe that the guys have stored many ideas during the last 4 years and that it may not sound that strange if they only needed a few weeks to gather this material. But this is generally followed by a more or less long period dedicated to polishing the arrangements and rehearsal. Then comes the recording et caetera
I can't wait to have the record......

 

[Forostar]

They usually join to summarize and finish up what each member prepared in his own way. So they don't start from scratch and therefore a lot of music may come apparently easily and quickly while most of the work dates back from one year or more!
As far as I recall, Steve loves short writing sessions. When Adrian left (back in 90) one thing that really annoyed him was that the writting sessions for "No Prayer" were shortened by Steve when the band gathered the amount of music they needed to complete the album. Adrian complained that this prevented him from writing more new material and making interesting and inovating propositions (this comes from interviews published at that time).

This version of these interviews sounds more how you'd like to see it.

I believe it that Adrian was given less time than he wanted plus on top of that: the style of the material wasn't really what he was into as well.

However, I doubt if Adrian himself said that "he was prevented from making interesting and innovating ideas". Adrian is too modest to say it like that. Words like "interesting" and "innovating" are subjective words and I can't imagine that Adrian is the person who'd say his own (non-existing!) material was more "interesting" and "innovative" than the material of his bandmates. He's not such a big ego. Others (people who dislike NPFTD) can say that, but then it's "the wish is father to the thought".

 

[JackKnife]

This version of these interviews sounds more how you'd like to see it.

I believe it that Adrian was given less time than he wanted plus on top of that: the style of the material wasn't really what he was into as well.

However, I doubt if Adrian himself said that "he was prevented from making interesting and innovating ideas". Adrian is too modest to say it like that. Words like "interesting" and "innovating" are subjective words and I can't imagine that Adrian is the person who'd say his own (non-existing!) material was more "interesting" and "innovative" than the material of his bandmates. He's not such a big ego. Others (people who dislike NPFTD) can say that, but then it's "the wish is father to the thought".

He probably did not use these words (exactly) but the idea was that he did not have the time he needed to materialise his ideas and wasn't happy because the writing sessions were shortened.  
The fact is that he left the band at that time.