'No longer available for France, Germany and UK'? Drat.
"The Book of Souls" - Official pre-release thread (CONTAINS ALBUM SPOILERS)
- Thread starter Perun
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Virtual Factor
Nomad
It was going to be a concept album about a machine that steals human souls !?
BobaFett
An Iron Maiden loving Mandalorian
First post here on the forums. Looking forward to being involved with this community!
Obligatory "SO HYPED FOR THE ALBUM" post.
Seriously everything I've heard, read, seen, felt etc.. Makes me believe this is going to be one of the best Maiden albums since the 80's! Can not wait for September 4th!
Obligatory "SO HYPED FOR THE ALBUM" post.
Seriously everything I've heard, read, seen, felt etc.. Makes me believe this is going to be one of the best Maiden albums since the 80's! Can not wait for September 4th!
Travis The Dragon
AFTERGLOW!!!
I tried to register with fake info, but they have to approve everything. Hopefully I'll get in.
Virtual Factor
Nomad
We neeeed this interview right now !!
Virtual Factor
Nomad
I think you need to pay to get it, ,, shitty!
This looks very much like a press agency to me, I just looked at the terms and conditions. If you somehow do get hold of the copy, please don't post it here. With luck, someone will pay to publish it in the next few days and we'll be able to see the interview there.
Chained Prometheus
The Spiral King
I have a very special feeling about this album, one that I didn't have for The Final Frontier five years ago. I was excited for that one, but I was disappointed by the immediate direction of the album after hearing El Dorado for the first time. I wanted a darker album, like AMOLAD, but I've since grown to appreciate the album on its own terms. That said, I get the impression that they're going for the full monty with this album.
SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
Cool beans Brigantium. You've already done more as a a mod than people who've been mod here for years...so go you! 
Believe me, you don't see even half of the spamkilling and all the work done behind the scenes.
MrKnickerbocker
clap hands
...I read that as "spanking"...
SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
Naww....but banning a bot doesn't really require any skills does it? Anyone can do that 
What I am seeing is that you are taking responsibility for making this forum better and taking on new tasks...See, I appreciate that, much more than the mods that are just "there/keeping members in check" but never do stuff like this 
What I am seeing is that you are taking responsibility for making this forum better and taking on new tasks...See, I appreciate that, much more than the mods that are just "there/keeping members in check" but never do stuff like this
Travis The Dragon
AFTERGLOW!!!
32 days to The Book Of Souls! 11 days to Speed Of Light! Unless we get super lucky and get that rumored stream tomorrow! EVERYTHING crossed for that!!!
Gk1
Here I sit in a serenade of glory!
Travis it is 10 days man! Or are you located in the US!?
BTW a fresh Jan interview. Few more info on the new album process.
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/inte..._valid_now_and_what_we_play_now_is_valid.html
BTW a fresh Jan interview. Few more info on the new album process.
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/inte..._valid_now_and_what_we_play_now_is_valid.html
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sjsaur
Trooper
Another very detailed Jannick interview. There ARE some minor spoilers about some of the songs stylist direction
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/inte..._valid_now_and_what_we_play_now_is_valid.html
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/inte..._valid_now_and_what_we_play_now_is_valid.html
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Copying it here for preservation, in case it gets deleted like the previous one:
Making a list of the bands influenced by Iron Maiden would require 10 pages. Everyone from Metallica, Slipknot, Anthrax and Arch Enemy to In Flames, Dream Theater and Opeth have cited the iconic metal band as a major inspiration. In a continuation of their extraordinary legacy, which stretches back to 1975, the band has recently announced their 16th album titled "The Book of Souls." It is once again produced by Kevin Shirley [Led Zeppelin, Rush] and represents the first double studio album the group has ever released.
Buoyed by singer Bruce Dickinson's recovery after being diagnosed with a cancerous growth on his tongue, Iron Maiden has returned with an album that contains everything from the dark and epic guitar riffs they've long been known for to smatterings of hard rock, snatches of acoustic guitar and even pieces borrowing elements from musicals. "There's so many ideas and so many different themes, melodies and song ideas," says guitarist Janick Gers. "I just think that's fantastic for a band that's been around so long. We weren't scraping for ideas. We were locking ideas out and it was like, 'We'll use that maybe next time. We'll use that somewhere else. Let's use this bit here 'cause it sounds great.' We basically built the album up like that and if the songs got long, they got long.'"
UG: Before joining Iron Maiden, you had a band of your own called White Spirit?
JG: Yes. In the early years of heavy metal I think.
Very early years. Can you talk a little bit about a young Janick playing in that early band and what it was like?
What it was it we played a lot of the clubs around the north of England and from that we got onto a tour with the [Ian] Gillan band. We got a deal with MCA and we had an album out called "White Spirit," which had "Food for the Gods" and a lot of that early White Spirit stuff, which I'm really proud of. Then we did a lot of touring and we did a major with the Gillan band and we came off the road and the Gillan band asked me to join them. I ended up being in the Gillan band for a few years and we toured all over the world.
What did you do after that?
From that, I did some work with Fish from Marillion who were quite a big band in Europe. I did stuff with him andPaul DiAnno [Gogmagog].
So you really had a sort of tentative connection with Iron Maiden really early on?
I did the Bruce Dickinson solo album, "Tattooed Millionaire," and then I got asked to join Iron Maiden about '89. I think they announced it in early '90. I think we went out with "No Prayer for the Dying."
You were a huge Ritchie Blackmore fan so playing with Ian Gillan must have been very cool.
Yeah. Well they asked me to join them and to be honest I was in White Spirit and we'd come off the road and we had an accident coming back from London and rolled the van off. You don't know what to know about it, hahaha. So we were off the for a while and they rang me up and asked me to join them, which was great. I went and did some work with Gillan and did a few albums and toured around. He was a great singer and the band were a good band, good musicians. I had some great fun with them.
During this earlier period of your career, were you still trying to hone your guitar style and identity?
I think you have an identity. I think you probably lean on people. I used to love Rory Gallagher and still do. I'm a big fan of Jeff Beck and everything he's done. I kind of liked the guitarists that were kind of real and it didn't seem like it was processed. I wanted a real sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan had that real sound. I think there's bits of all those players in what I do. I listened to BB King and Paul Kossoff from Free had a very simple sound. Jan Akkerman from Focus had a really kind of flash, jazz sound, which I loved. All those things and all those players is kind of in what I do.
So you were really listening to a lot of different players and styles?
I think what you do is you just play to your own personality. So it's about your personality and if you can make your personality come out in the music then I think that's what happens. I got the Blackmore tag 'cause I did like Blackmore and still do. And I worked with Ian Gillan who happened to be Blackmore's singer so there's always gonna be that kind of Ritchie Blackmore thing. But I always liked his style as well and he's a great player. Jimmy Page is someone else I had a lot of time for. Great playing. Technically people go, "Unnnh," but it doesn't matter. That's part of what's great about his playing. He's a great player. And you've got Dave Gilmour and people like that from Pink Floyd who are just beautiful guitar players.
Your style is sort of a combination of all those players?
You listen to all of that and that comes out in how you play. But basically it's all about your personality. I think your personality comes out in your playing and you derive all your playing from your personality and everything you pick up along the way. Even on the new album, things I've seen on the touring aspect of the Mayan and Aztec culture and going to Mexico and getting inside pyramids and stuff, that adds to it and you kind of regurgitate it when you write songs. All those things become a part of you and from becoming part of you that becomes part of your guitar style.
Talking about guitar styles, were you playing a Stratocaster back in the day?
I started off with a [Gibson] 335 copy when I was with White Spirit because it's all I could afford. Then the first guitar I could buy that was of a name was a Strat, which I'm still using today.
That same guitar?
The same one. I think it was a very early '70s model. I bought it secondhand. When I was with Gillan I got a '66 and I've got a '63. I've since had copies made by the Fender custom shop of the '66 and that's what I use onstage. But I still use the old '70s one.
Did you pick up a Strat because all your favorite guitar players - David Gilmour, Ritchie Blackmore and Jeff Beck - were playing that type of guitar?
Yeah, I've got to tell you it just felt right. It's like cars: people like Lamborghinis or Ferraris and it's about the shape. I think it's just the shape of the Strat just felt right to me. It always did. It's a hard guitar to play.
Very demanding.
I used to use a lot of single-coil picks with the Gillan and we'd pick up the police and we'd pick up the fire brigade and there'd be noises from the lights. There was nothing you could do about it. I used to use the radio of the police in certain gaps [in the music]. You try to use it. They're hard guitars to play. Then the stacked single-coil pickups came out where you could stack 'em so they become humbuckers and that helped a bit. For a band like Maiden, you couldn't use single-coils because the noise would be tremendous.
Iron Maiden is an incredibly loud band obviously.
I used to put silver paper over them and whatnot and try and blanket out some of the noise but even that wouldn't stop it. If the [light] dimmers were near me, you'd get all these noises coming through the Marshall amps and it would be just unbelievable. So it is a hard guitar to play and you've got to fight it. Whereas a Les Paul is a much nicer guitar to player but I don't think you get as much out of it.
In many respects, a Les Paul is a much easier guitar to play than a Strat.
The great players to me all use Strats and even if they played a Les Paul like Jeff Beck [Beck played a Les Paul for the Jeff Beck Group and then changed to a Strat later], they'll go back to a Strat because it has so many options. A Les Paul is probably better built but I think a Strat just has something about it.
You mentioned earlier about using the stacked single-coil picks, which is when you went to the Seymour Duncan JB Jr. and Hot Rails pickups?
Seymour Duncans are great pickups anyhow but it was just the single-coils and with a band like Maiden with the amount of lights we used and the dimmers and whatnot, the noise was just [impossible]. I once met the guy who was working with Motörhead. I was talking to him and it was the guy that used to play with Thin Lizzy [Brian Robertson]. He joined Motörhead for a while when I was Gillan and we met up at a Yugoslavian gig. I used to use a WEM Copicat as a preamp, which was pretty basic but I liked the sound but the noise was just unbelievable. I said to him, "How do you get by with the noise?" 'cause he was using three of 'em and he went, "Ah, it's f--kin' Motörhead. It doesn't matter," hahaha.
What did you do?
I thought, "I'm gonna have to do something" so I ended up using the Seymour Duncans. The stacked ones just cut the noise out. It's a different sound slightly but I've kind of got used to that now. Also with Maiden it's kind of a more middly sound anyhow. But I still love that single-coil sound. That's one of my favorite sounds.
You eventually ended up playing on Bruce Dickinson's first solo album "Tattooed Millionaire" and then you're asked to join Iron Maiden? That must have been a surreal moment, right?
That was a bit of a shock. Me and Bruce had done the solo thing. I'd worked with Fish [singer for Marillion] at Wembley and Bruce had come along and we'd done a song with Bruce. We did a single of that song. We'd known each other from the early White Spirit days when he was in Samson. So we knew each other and he asked me to do a solo album with him. We worked on "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter" together and a few other things. From that we decided to do a solo album so we did the solo album and then we were gonna go out on tour for three months or so with "Tattooed Millionaire."
What happened after the tour?
We weren't gonna do any Maiden stuff. We were not touching Maiden but just doing the solo stuff because he was in Maiden already and we didn't wanna do any of their songs. Then they rang me up and asked me if I'd pop along for an audition and I was like, "Whaaat?" I've never played with another guitar player before.
So that was going to be a monumental change for you.
I didn't think I would be able to work with another guitar player because I'd always been the only guitar players. So I wasn't sure. But anyhow they asked me to go so I went along. They sent me the tape of the songs and I went along.
What was that first audition like?
Me and Dave [Murray] just clicked. It felt really good. We did three songs and one was "The Trooper" and it just felt really good. They just said, "Look, we want you to join."
Did you know that Adrian Smith was no longer in the band?
I didn't know what had gone on between Adrian and the rest of them. I wasn't sure that he'd gone 'cause his gear was still there. So I wasn't very happy about it but we talked about it and in the end they said, "Look, he's gone."What went down, I don't know. So they asked me if I'd join them and I said, "Yeah."
Your first album with the band was "No Prayer for the Dying" in 1990.
We did "No Prayer for the Dying" and then I went back out and we did the Bruce Dickinson solo tour. I was already in Maiden then and we'd done the album. When I came back, we had a couple of weeks off and we learned the Maiden tracks and then we went out and did a nine-month Iron Maiden tour. So it was quite a long period of time where I was working between "Tattooed Millionaire," "No Prayer for the Dying," the Bruce tour and then the Maiden tour. So it took about a year of my life just doing that.
That must have been an amazing transition for you.
It was quite a shock and I hit the ground running so it was great fun.
What were those first sessions like for "No Prayer for the Dying" working with Martin Birch?
It was great working with Martin. He's one of my favorite producers anyhow so just to meet Martin was great. I just set up a Marshall and off we went. Pretty basic sound straight in. We had the Rolling Stones mobile outside so it felt like a circle. The whole thing was coming 'round in a circle. I'd worked with Ian [Gillan, who'd worked with Martin Birch on the Deep Purple records] and I was working with Martin and we had the Rolling Stones mobile outside and yeah, it was a fantastic time.
It felt very natural for you playing alongside Dave Murray?
Yeah, the songs were already written so I just came in and we just learned them and off we went. Yeah, we just played 'em all live.
You also did covers of Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown" and Free's "I'm a Mover"?
Yeah, when we finished the album, we got a couple of these records out. I don't even think there were CDs and we used to just say, "Let's do that one." We'd just listen to it and then go in and do it. I mean we didn't sit learning it. We just went in and did them off the bat so they wouldn't be perfect renditions. It was just a piece of fun for us really. We'd go, "Let's do this one." We'd have a look at the chords and off we'd go and we'd just do it live one take and that would be it.
You'd already worked with Bruce Dickinson on his solo record so when you worked with him in Iron Maiden, it must have felt comfortable and familiar.
Basically we just wrote the songs and Bruce would come in and sing on 'em. That was what we did then. I'd be in the studio and we'd put the songs down and then I'd do the overdubs with the guitar with the producer and then Bruce would come in and sing on 'em. He wasn't there all the time. It was the same with Maiden. He'd come in and sometimes he won't be around for a while and he'll just come in and he sings on the stuff unless he's written it and he'd be there while we're recording it.
Bruce wrote some songs on "The Book of Souls?"
In this particular case on the new album, we were all there because we were all working on the album together in the studio. There's lot of different ways of doing it and there's no set way. I think it's good to keep it open so you do something different every time. It keeps it really interesting.
You joined Iron Maiden and then after you did the "Fear of the Dark" album, Bruce left. What did that feel like?
That was a bit of a shock. I found it very difficult because I'd come in with him and at that point he just didn't want to do it anymore. I don't know why. You'd have to ask him really but he didn't want to do the Maiden thing. He didn't want to do rock in particular. I think he just burned out a little bit and he wanted to leave. We did a tour after that and he was already leaving. So we knew he was leaving and it made it really difficult.
You felt lost?
It was quite hard. Then he went off to do a completely different kind of music at that point. He wanted to do a different kind of music. That didn't happen in the end and he went back to playing kind of metal stuff. But you'd have to talk to him about all of that. But yeah, it was a shock. I was devastated really.
Blaze Bayley came in to replace Bruce Dickinson?
Yeah, we did "The X Factor" and then we did the "Virtual XI" album. We out and did long tours on both those albums. We came back and bridges had been burned and they were rebuilt again. Blaze had gone and Bruce came back.
And returned with Adrian Smith.
He had been working with Adrian. You know what? If Bruce had just come back by himself, it would have been going back to "Fear of the Dark" period. If I'd gone and Adrian had come in, it would have been going back to "The Number of the Beast" and the "Piece of Mind" period. I mean that was a strange move but if Adrian came and we kept the two guitar players too, then we could go somewhere totally different.
Is that how the band looked at the idea of having three guitar players?
That was the thinking behind it: "Let's just go somewhere totally different." That was purely the thinking behind it. It meant we could launch off into something that was a hybrid of all of those things we had done in the past. So we could build tapestries up with the guitars.
The addition of Adrian Smith at that point really opened up a lot of possibilities?
We didn't want to go guitar mad and have guitars all over the place but it meant we could 'em in different facets. One could play a melody; one could play they rhythm. For instance, on "Tattooed Millionaire," I put eight guitars on that. There was high octaves, low octaves, bottom notes, full crash chords all in the first two bars. When you come to play 'em live, you've gotta think, "Well, what do I play? Do I spread it?" And you've got to decide what you're not gonna put in.
Working with three guitars meant you could play virtually every riff from the record live, right?
We have the option with three guitars, to add melodies that had been left out when they played them live before. Or you could have the guitars underneath the rhythms and melodies that were going. So it added a whole different concept to it and it just broadened the horizons.
When you, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith all played together for the first time on the "Brave New World" album, what was that like?
To be sure, I didn't know whether it was gonna work. I'm sure Adrian didn't know whether it was gonna work and until we went in the studio and started playing, none of us knew whether this was gonna work, hahaha. But it was a really interesting time and it came out great.
Because "Brave New World" was the first album with the three guitar players and producer Kevin Shirley's first record, can you hear a difference in the band's sound from earlier albums?
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Just having the three different guitars. We all have a different style and a sense of how we play. We all play differently and we have different rhythmic feelings to how we play and all of that added to the songs I think. There was some great stuff on there and I'm really proud of it.
Was there a breaking in period on "Brave New World" in terms of getting the three guitars to work together?
It took about 10 minutes and going through the songs when we did the album. We sat for 10 minutes and went through a few things and it was obvious we were all playing slightly different but that's what made it sound like it did. Say I was gonna put three guitars on it, it would be me playing the three guitars. They'd be exactly the same. But if you have three different people, we have three different textures and there different tones.
It felt natural right from the beginning having three guitars?
It gives a spread of the band. Instead of having one take [perspective] on it, we have three different takes on each song. I might be playing a melody along with Bruce's vocal and there might be a rhythm crash chord going on on one side and a staccato rhythm going on on the other side. So you've got three things and each one is in a different frequency so the whole thing opens the song up and gives it a different vibe. That was what we were looking for.
Like you said earlier, you wanted to try and orchestrate the guitars and not just have wall-to-wall soloing everywhere.
We weren't looking to have guitar frenzy anywhere. In fact, I probably underplayed more than I overplayed but it just added to the songs. We wanted to add to the songs and that's what we've always tried to do. It's always been very natural and it tends to just come without working it too hard.
Which brings us to "The Book of Souls" record, which Steve Harris has noted as having more of a live feel than earlier albums?
Yeah. Normally we rehearse a few weeks before and we have the songs ready or at least most of them and then we go in and we play 'em live and we're already pretty solid with them. This time we went in and we had the basic idea of the songs and we kind of learned them in the studio and rehearsed them in the studio once or twice then had a go at it.
Again as you noted earlier, trying to take a different approach to keep it fresh?
Yeah, so it would be a question of learning the parts. Some of the longer songs we'd have to cut up and chop up and do different bits to them and try and get the same feel. But yeah, it was a totally different way of doing it. We'd never done it that way before but it's important. I think for us to be a valid band in 2015, we have to do things a bit different every now and then. We're not gonna be a parody. I'm not gonna go out and be one of those bands that literally is a parody of what they were in 1980 or 1990 or 2000. We are valid now and what we play now is valid.
That is critical for a band to survive as many years as Iron Maiden has.
The amount of ideas we brought in for this [was amazing]. I mean we all brought probably over an hour-and-a-half's worth of music in. You're not gonna use that but everybody had at least an hour's worth of music they brought in. We're only gonna use 10 or 15 minutes of it that fits in with everything else in this particular system we're using.
Does that account for the 18-minute long "Empire of the Clouds," which is the longest track Iron Maiden has ever recorded?
I know people's attention spans are like the span of a gnat at the moment because these are the times we live in. We've got songs on there that are 18 minutes long but it doesn't matter. We do what we feel is right and we dance to the beat of our own drum. I feel it's an honest album and I'm really proud of it. There's some amazing melodies on there and loads of thematic things.
Specifically?
We range from heavy metal, really hard rock songs to almost Broadway songs with "Empire of the Clouds." It's almost a musical in itself. "The Book of Souls" has that Eastern sound to it and I just think there's so many ideas on there. For a band of our ilk and for the amount of time we've been writing, to come in with this many ideas and for it to be valid now I think is a fantastic achievement I'm really proud of.
Did you record "Empire of the Clouds" in sections?
We had to do that in sections and parts of "The Red and the Black." It's quite complicated. What happens is you'll have a 10-minute section where you'll be playing and what you'll find is the beginning just feels great. But maybe when it goes to the second verse, it might feel a bit rushed. Rather than redo the whole lot and try and get the same feel, you'll keep the first and play the first section and you'll try and come in with the same feel. Otherwise you'll be just choppin' it all up and what we're trying to do is play the thing [live].
You wanted the song to feel like a performance?
Sometimes you want the second verse to speed up a little bit but maybe it just notches up too much. So rather than go back and do the full 10 minutes or 20 minutes or whatever it is, you will go back and try and recapture the first verse and redo the second so it's still live. Also if it's very, very complicated, it might be really hard to get one section and then carry onto the next section so you might have to renegotiate the second section. It might have been too fast so you might want to pull that back a little bit. It gets a bit complicated.
What role does Kevin Shirley play in all of this?
You've got to have trust in the producer because sometimes we'll do a song and think, "Unh, we didn't like that take" and he'll go, "No, come in. It's great." And you'll be thinking, "It can't. It sounded terrible." Then you go into the studio [recording booth] and it's a totally different song. 'Cause you have a mix in your headphones but when you listen to it overall it sounds great. The drums might have been amazing and you might have been on the backend or whatever and you might be pulling the song back a little bit and that's what makes it work. So you've got to have a bit of trust in what the producer is telling you as well.
You co-wrote "The Book of Souls" with Steve Harris. Can you talk about that writing process?
It can happen any way. You can bring a riff in and Steve might pick up on the riff and take it somewhere else and come back with some vocals. But this particular one, I pretty much had the song pretty much together or most of it anyhow. I just brought it in and he liked it and he had the vocals for it immediately and a melody for the vocal. He put it together that way and then we rearranged it here and there. He wanted a part to be longer so he put the chorus everywhere where originally I think it was only once. That's how it works. He brought in tremendous [lyrics]. He brings these words in that just make you shiver. Mystical. That whole Mayan thing and I love all that. In Mexico, I go to the archeological museum and check it all out.
You touched on that earlier about how much you're fascinated with the Mayan and Aztec cultures.
We've been to the pyramids. We actually got took in one year. The guide turned up on the site and took us in the pyramid and we were looking at these three tombs where they used to kill people and sacrificed them and we were right in the depths of the pyramid. Those things stick with you and when Steve brought these words in I just thought, "Yeah. That's exactly where I'm at. That's what I was thinking." That's where I was exactly and it was just fantastic. He's got a great, great way with words. He's very straight and honest and I love that.
Are you playing the acoustic guitar that opens "The Book of Souls"?
Yeah.
You said the album was done live but are the three guitar parts recorded separately?
No, when we're playing, we're playing 'em together. A lot of it's done live. I did that [acoustic guitar] separate but most of the live stuff we played together. Even if sometimes we need someone to do another take, we'll all play and we just might be taping one of us. Do you know what I mean?
I understand.
Because the fact we're in the room together really changes things. I mean there's been times when we've had two people in the room and we're only recording one. Because the fact there's two people in there and you interact with the person you're playing with and it makes you play a different way. That's like a subconscious thing that works throughout the band. When we're together, we play differently than when we would be apart.
So few bands record live anymore.
Everything's done pretty much live. I'm in the studio with Nick [McBrain, drummer] and I can see him and he's looking at me and I can feel every nuance that he pulls. I can Steve and he's the far side and we're looking at each other and you get a connection and that's what makes the music really work. There's odd parts where you'll do a piece by yourself but the majority of the songs were done with us all looking at each other and playing together.
What are the plans now?
Well obviously Bruce has been ill and we kind of canceled everything this year and put the album back a little bit because we didn't want it coming out while he was recovering. Hopefully next year we'll be touring. Where, I can't tell you yet but we'll be definitely out next year. Bruce's illness was on his tongue and it was nowhere near his vocal cords. It hasn't affected his voice and you can tell by the album that his voice is fine.
That must have been terrifying to hear when Bruce was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on his tongue.
That was such a shock when we heard. The album is coming out in September and hopefully we'll be looking at touring next year. So really looking forward to that and Bruce should be well on his way to being back to his best.
Interview by Steven Rosen
Ultimate-Guitar.com (C) 2015
Buoyed by singer Bruce Dickinson's recovery after being diagnosed with a cancerous growth on his tongue, Iron Maiden has returned with an album that contains everything from the dark and epic guitar riffs they've long been known for to smatterings of hard rock, snatches of acoustic guitar and even pieces borrowing elements from musicals. "There's so many ideas and so many different themes, melodies and song ideas," says guitarist Janick Gers. "I just think that's fantastic for a band that's been around so long. We weren't scraping for ideas. We were locking ideas out and it was like, 'We'll use that maybe next time. We'll use that somewhere else. Let's use this bit here 'cause it sounds great.' We basically built the album up like that and if the songs got long, they got long.'"
UG: Before joining Iron Maiden, you had a band of your own called White Spirit?
JG: Yes. In the early years of heavy metal I think.
Very early years. Can you talk a little bit about a young Janick playing in that early band and what it was like?
What it was it we played a lot of the clubs around the north of England and from that we got onto a tour with the [Ian] Gillan band. We got a deal with MCA and we had an album out called "White Spirit," which had "Food for the Gods" and a lot of that early White Spirit stuff, which I'm really proud of. Then we did a lot of touring and we did a major with the Gillan band and we came off the road and the Gillan band asked me to join them. I ended up being in the Gillan band for a few years and we toured all over the world.
What did you do after that?
From that, I did some work with Fish from Marillion who were quite a big band in Europe. I did stuff with him andPaul DiAnno [Gogmagog].
So you really had a sort of tentative connection with Iron Maiden really early on?
I did the Bruce Dickinson solo album, "Tattooed Millionaire," and then I got asked to join Iron Maiden about '89. I think they announced it in early '90. I think we went out with "No Prayer for the Dying."
You were a huge Ritchie Blackmore fan so playing with Ian Gillan must have been very cool.
Yeah. Well they asked me to join them and to be honest I was in White Spirit and we'd come off the road and we had an accident coming back from London and rolled the van off. You don't know what to know about it, hahaha. So we were off the for a while and they rang me up and asked me to join them, which was great. I went and did some work with Gillan and did a few albums and toured around. He was a great singer and the band were a good band, good musicians. I had some great fun with them.
During this earlier period of your career, were you still trying to hone your guitar style and identity?
I think you have an identity. I think you probably lean on people. I used to love Rory Gallagher and still do. I'm a big fan of Jeff Beck and everything he's done. I kind of liked the guitarists that were kind of real and it didn't seem like it was processed. I wanted a real sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan had that real sound. I think there's bits of all those players in what I do. I listened to BB King and Paul Kossoff from Free had a very simple sound. Jan Akkerman from Focus had a really kind of flash, jazz sound, which I loved. All those things and all those players is kind of in what I do.
So you were really listening to a lot of different players and styles?
I think what you do is you just play to your own personality. So it's about your personality and if you can make your personality come out in the music then I think that's what happens. I got the Blackmore tag 'cause I did like Blackmore and still do. And I worked with Ian Gillan who happened to be Blackmore's singer so there's always gonna be that kind of Ritchie Blackmore thing. But I always liked his style as well and he's a great player. Jimmy Page is someone else I had a lot of time for. Great playing. Technically people go, "Unnnh," but it doesn't matter. That's part of what's great about his playing. He's a great player. And you've got Dave Gilmour and people like that from Pink Floyd who are just beautiful guitar players.
Your style is sort of a combination of all those players?
You listen to all of that and that comes out in how you play. But basically it's all about your personality. I think your personality comes out in your playing and you derive all your playing from your personality and everything you pick up along the way. Even on the new album, things I've seen on the touring aspect of the Mayan and Aztec culture and going to Mexico and getting inside pyramids and stuff, that adds to it and you kind of regurgitate it when you write songs. All those things become a part of you and from becoming part of you that becomes part of your guitar style.
Talking about guitar styles, were you playing a Stratocaster back in the day?
I started off with a [Gibson] 335 copy when I was with White Spirit because it's all I could afford. Then the first guitar I could buy that was of a name was a Strat, which I'm still using today.
That same guitar?
The same one. I think it was a very early '70s model. I bought it secondhand. When I was with Gillan I got a '66 and I've got a '63. I've since had copies made by the Fender custom shop of the '66 and that's what I use onstage. But I still use the old '70s one.
Did you pick up a Strat because all your favorite guitar players - David Gilmour, Ritchie Blackmore and Jeff Beck - were playing that type of guitar?
Yeah, I've got to tell you it just felt right. It's like cars: people like Lamborghinis or Ferraris and it's about the shape. I think it's just the shape of the Strat just felt right to me. It always did. It's a hard guitar to play.
Very demanding.
I used to use a lot of single-coil picks with the Gillan and we'd pick up the police and we'd pick up the fire brigade and there'd be noises from the lights. There was nothing you could do about it. I used to use the radio of the police in certain gaps [in the music]. You try to use it. They're hard guitars to play. Then the stacked single-coil pickups came out where you could stack 'em so they become humbuckers and that helped a bit. For a band like Maiden, you couldn't use single-coils because the noise would be tremendous.
Iron Maiden is an incredibly loud band obviously.
I used to put silver paper over them and whatnot and try and blanket out some of the noise but even that wouldn't stop it. If the [light] dimmers were near me, you'd get all these noises coming through the Marshall amps and it would be just unbelievable. So it is a hard guitar to play and you've got to fight it. Whereas a Les Paul is a much nicer guitar to player but I don't think you get as much out of it.
In many respects, a Les Paul is a much easier guitar to play than a Strat.
The great players to me all use Strats and even if they played a Les Paul like Jeff Beck [Beck played a Les Paul for the Jeff Beck Group and then changed to a Strat later], they'll go back to a Strat because it has so many options. A Les Paul is probably better built but I think a Strat just has something about it.
You mentioned earlier about using the stacked single-coil picks, which is when you went to the Seymour Duncan JB Jr. and Hot Rails pickups?
Seymour Duncans are great pickups anyhow but it was just the single-coils and with a band like Maiden with the amount of lights we used and the dimmers and whatnot, the noise was just [impossible]. I once met the guy who was working with Motörhead. I was talking to him and it was the guy that used to play with Thin Lizzy [Brian Robertson]. He joined Motörhead for a while when I was Gillan and we met up at a Yugoslavian gig. I used to use a WEM Copicat as a preamp, which was pretty basic but I liked the sound but the noise was just unbelievable. I said to him, "How do you get by with the noise?" 'cause he was using three of 'em and he went, "Ah, it's f--kin' Motörhead. It doesn't matter," hahaha.
What did you do?
I thought, "I'm gonna have to do something" so I ended up using the Seymour Duncans. The stacked ones just cut the noise out. It's a different sound slightly but I've kind of got used to that now. Also with Maiden it's kind of a more middly sound anyhow. But I still love that single-coil sound. That's one of my favorite sounds.
You eventually ended up playing on Bruce Dickinson's first solo album "Tattooed Millionaire" and then you're asked to join Iron Maiden? That must have been a surreal moment, right?
That was a bit of a shock. Me and Bruce had done the solo thing. I'd worked with Fish [singer for Marillion] at Wembley and Bruce had come along and we'd done a song with Bruce. We did a single of that song. We'd known each other from the early White Spirit days when he was in Samson. So we knew each other and he asked me to do a solo album with him. We worked on "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter" together and a few other things. From that we decided to do a solo album so we did the solo album and then we were gonna go out on tour for three months or so with "Tattooed Millionaire."
What happened after the tour?
We weren't gonna do any Maiden stuff. We were not touching Maiden but just doing the solo stuff because he was in Maiden already and we didn't wanna do any of their songs. Then they rang me up and asked me if I'd pop along for an audition and I was like, "Whaaat?" I've never played with another guitar player before.
So that was going to be a monumental change for you.
I didn't think I would be able to work with another guitar player because I'd always been the only guitar players. So I wasn't sure. But anyhow they asked me to go so I went along. They sent me the tape of the songs and I went along.
What was that first audition like?
Me and Dave [Murray] just clicked. It felt really good. We did three songs and one was "The Trooper" and it just felt really good. They just said, "Look, we want you to join."
Did you know that Adrian Smith was no longer in the band?
I didn't know what had gone on between Adrian and the rest of them. I wasn't sure that he'd gone 'cause his gear was still there. So I wasn't very happy about it but we talked about it and in the end they said, "Look, he's gone."What went down, I don't know. So they asked me if I'd join them and I said, "Yeah."
Your first album with the band was "No Prayer for the Dying" in 1990.
We did "No Prayer for the Dying" and then I went back out and we did the Bruce Dickinson solo tour. I was already in Maiden then and we'd done the album. When I came back, we had a couple of weeks off and we learned the Maiden tracks and then we went out and did a nine-month Iron Maiden tour. So it was quite a long period of time where I was working between "Tattooed Millionaire," "No Prayer for the Dying," the Bruce tour and then the Maiden tour. So it took about a year of my life just doing that.
That must have been an amazing transition for you.
It was quite a shock and I hit the ground running so it was great fun.
What were those first sessions like for "No Prayer for the Dying" working with Martin Birch?
It was great working with Martin. He's one of my favorite producers anyhow so just to meet Martin was great. I just set up a Marshall and off we went. Pretty basic sound straight in. We had the Rolling Stones mobile outside so it felt like a circle. The whole thing was coming 'round in a circle. I'd worked with Ian [Gillan, who'd worked with Martin Birch on the Deep Purple records] and I was working with Martin and we had the Rolling Stones mobile outside and yeah, it was a fantastic time.
It felt very natural for you playing alongside Dave Murray?
Yeah, the songs were already written so I just came in and we just learned them and off we went. Yeah, we just played 'em all live.
You also did covers of Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown" and Free's "I'm a Mover"?
Yeah, when we finished the album, we got a couple of these records out. I don't even think there were CDs and we used to just say, "Let's do that one." We'd just listen to it and then go in and do it. I mean we didn't sit learning it. We just went in and did them off the bat so they wouldn't be perfect renditions. It was just a piece of fun for us really. We'd go, "Let's do this one." We'd have a look at the chords and off we'd go and we'd just do it live one take and that would be it.
You'd already worked with Bruce Dickinson on his solo record so when you worked with him in Iron Maiden, it must have felt comfortable and familiar.
Basically we just wrote the songs and Bruce would come in and sing on 'em. That was what we did then. I'd be in the studio and we'd put the songs down and then I'd do the overdubs with the guitar with the producer and then Bruce would come in and sing on 'em. He wasn't there all the time. It was the same with Maiden. He'd come in and sometimes he won't be around for a while and he'll just come in and he sings on the stuff unless he's written it and he'd be there while we're recording it.
Bruce wrote some songs on "The Book of Souls?"
In this particular case on the new album, we were all there because we were all working on the album together in the studio. There's lot of different ways of doing it and there's no set way. I think it's good to keep it open so you do something different every time. It keeps it really interesting.
You joined Iron Maiden and then after you did the "Fear of the Dark" album, Bruce left. What did that feel like?
That was a bit of a shock. I found it very difficult because I'd come in with him and at that point he just didn't want to do it anymore. I don't know why. You'd have to ask him really but he didn't want to do the Maiden thing. He didn't want to do rock in particular. I think he just burned out a little bit and he wanted to leave. We did a tour after that and he was already leaving. So we knew he was leaving and it made it really difficult.
You felt lost?
It was quite hard. Then he went off to do a completely different kind of music at that point. He wanted to do a different kind of music. That didn't happen in the end and he went back to playing kind of metal stuff. But you'd have to talk to him about all of that. But yeah, it was a shock. I was devastated really.
Blaze Bayley came in to replace Bruce Dickinson?
Yeah, we did "The X Factor" and then we did the "Virtual XI" album. We out and did long tours on both those albums. We came back and bridges had been burned and they were rebuilt again. Blaze had gone and Bruce came back.
And returned with Adrian Smith.
He had been working with Adrian. You know what? If Bruce had just come back by himself, it would have been going back to "Fear of the Dark" period. If I'd gone and Adrian had come in, it would have been going back to "The Number of the Beast" and the "Piece of Mind" period. I mean that was a strange move but if Adrian came and we kept the two guitar players too, then we could go somewhere totally different.
Is that how the band looked at the idea of having three guitar players?
That was the thinking behind it: "Let's just go somewhere totally different." That was purely the thinking behind it. It meant we could launch off into something that was a hybrid of all of those things we had done in the past. So we could build tapestries up with the guitars.
The addition of Adrian Smith at that point really opened up a lot of possibilities?
We didn't want to go guitar mad and have guitars all over the place but it meant we could 'em in different facets. One could play a melody; one could play they rhythm. For instance, on "Tattooed Millionaire," I put eight guitars on that. There was high octaves, low octaves, bottom notes, full crash chords all in the first two bars. When you come to play 'em live, you've gotta think, "Well, what do I play? Do I spread it?" And you've got to decide what you're not gonna put in.
Working with three guitars meant you could play virtually every riff from the record live, right?
We have the option with three guitars, to add melodies that had been left out when they played them live before. Or you could have the guitars underneath the rhythms and melodies that were going. So it added a whole different concept to it and it just broadened the horizons.
When you, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith all played together for the first time on the "Brave New World" album, what was that like?
To be sure, I didn't know whether it was gonna work. I'm sure Adrian didn't know whether it was gonna work and until we went in the studio and started playing, none of us knew whether this was gonna work, hahaha. But it was a really interesting time and it came out great.
Because "Brave New World" was the first album with the three guitar players and producer Kevin Shirley's first record, can you hear a difference in the band's sound from earlier albums?
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Just having the three different guitars. We all have a different style and a sense of how we play. We all play differently and we have different rhythmic feelings to how we play and all of that added to the songs I think. There was some great stuff on there and I'm really proud of it.
Was there a breaking in period on "Brave New World" in terms of getting the three guitars to work together?
It took about 10 minutes and going through the songs when we did the album. We sat for 10 minutes and went through a few things and it was obvious we were all playing slightly different but that's what made it sound like it did. Say I was gonna put three guitars on it, it would be me playing the three guitars. They'd be exactly the same. But if you have three different people, we have three different textures and there different tones.
It felt natural right from the beginning having three guitars?
It gives a spread of the band. Instead of having one take [perspective] on it, we have three different takes on each song. I might be playing a melody along with Bruce's vocal and there might be a rhythm crash chord going on on one side and a staccato rhythm going on on the other side. So you've got three things and each one is in a different frequency so the whole thing opens the song up and gives it a different vibe. That was what we were looking for.
Like you said earlier, you wanted to try and orchestrate the guitars and not just have wall-to-wall soloing everywhere.
We weren't looking to have guitar frenzy anywhere. In fact, I probably underplayed more than I overplayed but it just added to the songs. We wanted to add to the songs and that's what we've always tried to do. It's always been very natural and it tends to just come without working it too hard.
Which brings us to "The Book of Souls" record, which Steve Harris has noted as having more of a live feel than earlier albums?
Yeah. Normally we rehearse a few weeks before and we have the songs ready or at least most of them and then we go in and we play 'em live and we're already pretty solid with them. This time we went in and we had the basic idea of the songs and we kind of learned them in the studio and rehearsed them in the studio once or twice then had a go at it.
Again as you noted earlier, trying to take a different approach to keep it fresh?
Yeah, so it would be a question of learning the parts. Some of the longer songs we'd have to cut up and chop up and do different bits to them and try and get the same feel. But yeah, it was a totally different way of doing it. We'd never done it that way before but it's important. I think for us to be a valid band in 2015, we have to do things a bit different every now and then. We're not gonna be a parody. I'm not gonna go out and be one of those bands that literally is a parody of what they were in 1980 or 1990 or 2000. We are valid now and what we play now is valid.
That is critical for a band to survive as many years as Iron Maiden has.
The amount of ideas we brought in for this [was amazing]. I mean we all brought probably over an hour-and-a-half's worth of music in. You're not gonna use that but everybody had at least an hour's worth of music they brought in. We're only gonna use 10 or 15 minutes of it that fits in with everything else in this particular system we're using.
Does that account for the 18-minute long "Empire of the Clouds," which is the longest track Iron Maiden has ever recorded?
I know people's attention spans are like the span of a gnat at the moment because these are the times we live in. We've got songs on there that are 18 minutes long but it doesn't matter. We do what we feel is right and we dance to the beat of our own drum. I feel it's an honest album and I'm really proud of it. There's some amazing melodies on there and loads of thematic things.
Specifically?
We range from heavy metal, really hard rock songs to almost Broadway songs with "Empire of the Clouds." It's almost a musical in itself. "The Book of Souls" has that Eastern sound to it and I just think there's so many ideas on there. For a band of our ilk and for the amount of time we've been writing, to come in with this many ideas and for it to be valid now I think is a fantastic achievement I'm really proud of.
Did you record "Empire of the Clouds" in sections?
We had to do that in sections and parts of "The Red and the Black." It's quite complicated. What happens is you'll have a 10-minute section where you'll be playing and what you'll find is the beginning just feels great. But maybe when it goes to the second verse, it might feel a bit rushed. Rather than redo the whole lot and try and get the same feel, you'll keep the first and play the first section and you'll try and come in with the same feel. Otherwise you'll be just choppin' it all up and what we're trying to do is play the thing [live].
You wanted the song to feel like a performance?
Sometimes you want the second verse to speed up a little bit but maybe it just notches up too much. So rather than go back and do the full 10 minutes or 20 minutes or whatever it is, you will go back and try and recapture the first verse and redo the second so it's still live. Also if it's very, very complicated, it might be really hard to get one section and then carry onto the next section so you might have to renegotiate the second section. It might have been too fast so you might want to pull that back a little bit. It gets a bit complicated.
What role does Kevin Shirley play in all of this?
You've got to have trust in the producer because sometimes we'll do a song and think, "Unh, we didn't like that take" and he'll go, "No, come in. It's great." And you'll be thinking, "It can't. It sounded terrible." Then you go into the studio [recording booth] and it's a totally different song. 'Cause you have a mix in your headphones but when you listen to it overall it sounds great. The drums might have been amazing and you might have been on the backend or whatever and you might be pulling the song back a little bit and that's what makes it work. So you've got to have a bit of trust in what the producer is telling you as well.
You co-wrote "The Book of Souls" with Steve Harris. Can you talk about that writing process?
It can happen any way. You can bring a riff in and Steve might pick up on the riff and take it somewhere else and come back with some vocals. But this particular one, I pretty much had the song pretty much together or most of it anyhow. I just brought it in and he liked it and he had the vocals for it immediately and a melody for the vocal. He put it together that way and then we rearranged it here and there. He wanted a part to be longer so he put the chorus everywhere where originally I think it was only once. That's how it works. He brought in tremendous [lyrics]. He brings these words in that just make you shiver. Mystical. That whole Mayan thing and I love all that. In Mexico, I go to the archeological museum and check it all out.
You touched on that earlier about how much you're fascinated with the Mayan and Aztec cultures.
We've been to the pyramids. We actually got took in one year. The guide turned up on the site and took us in the pyramid and we were looking at these three tombs where they used to kill people and sacrificed them and we were right in the depths of the pyramid. Those things stick with you and when Steve brought these words in I just thought, "Yeah. That's exactly where I'm at. That's what I was thinking." That's where I was exactly and it was just fantastic. He's got a great, great way with words. He's very straight and honest and I love that.
Are you playing the acoustic guitar that opens "The Book of Souls"?
Yeah.
You said the album was done live but are the three guitar parts recorded separately?
No, when we're playing, we're playing 'em together. A lot of it's done live. I did that [acoustic guitar] separate but most of the live stuff we played together. Even if sometimes we need someone to do another take, we'll all play and we just might be taping one of us. Do you know what I mean?
I understand.
Because the fact we're in the room together really changes things. I mean there's been times when we've had two people in the room and we're only recording one. Because the fact there's two people in there and you interact with the person you're playing with and it makes you play a different way. That's like a subconscious thing that works throughout the band. When we're together, we play differently than when we would be apart.
So few bands record live anymore.
Everything's done pretty much live. I'm in the studio with Nick [McBrain, drummer] and I can see him and he's looking at me and I can feel every nuance that he pulls. I can Steve and he's the far side and we're looking at each other and you get a connection and that's what makes the music really work. There's odd parts where you'll do a piece by yourself but the majority of the songs were done with us all looking at each other and playing together.
What are the plans now?
Well obviously Bruce has been ill and we kind of canceled everything this year and put the album back a little bit because we didn't want it coming out while he was recovering. Hopefully next year we'll be touring. Where, I can't tell you yet but we'll be definitely out next year. Bruce's illness was on his tongue and it was nowhere near his vocal cords. It hasn't affected his voice and you can tell by the album that his voice is fine.
That must have been terrifying to hear when Bruce was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on his tongue.
That was such a shock when we heard. The album is coming out in September and hopefully we'll be looking at touring next year. So really looking forward to that and Bruce should be well on his way to being back to his best.
Interview by Steven Rosen
Ultimate-Guitar.com (C) 2015
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SixesAlltheway
Ancient Mariner
Janick's super hard audition with Maiden....
"So they asked me if I'd join them and I said, "Yeah.""
"So they asked me if I'd join them and I said, "Yeah.""
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Travis The Dragon
AFTERGLOW!!!
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