who has been more important to the band? Adrian or Dave?

Rotam said:
I have the feeling that Dave is Steve's eternal friend. So, imho, there can only be Maiden with Mr. Murray and Mr. Harris. All the other members are "replaceable" (though Nicko is another "plank" of Maiden, i think).

Maybe Maiden is not only about music, but a long story of friendship between the two.
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Lol that sounded waaaaaay gay but I get your point.
 
The band carried on without Adrian when he left. But if Dave left, that would be the end of the band. His fluid legato solos are as much as the Maiden sound as Harry's bass is. So within that context....the answer is Dave.
 
Rotam said:
All the other members are "replaceable" (though Nicko is another "plank" of Maiden, i think).
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I would agree that for most of the band's history, the other members have been "replaceable," but I think at this point, if someone quits, the band will be finished too. I hate to point it out, but I get the sense that Nicko is on some subconscious level being regarded as a 60 year old time bomb, i.e., it's a matter of time before he won't be able to keep up anymore and at that time Iron Maiden will retire.
 
I agree. I don't remember where but I've heard Steve say in a video that he's just not playing with another drummer. Lets' just hope all of them have the strength to carry on for as long as possible.

Just to get back on the topic of why and how Adrian left. It seems that he was not willing to go, it was the others (Steve and Rod, mostly) that kind of forced him to leave. Here's a quote from Mick Wall's biography, it's a bit long, so I'll put it withing spoiler tags:

Steve, however, thinks that Adrian had been unhappy for a long time: "There was always something wrong. Sometimes he'd have his head down and we'd pull faces at him - you know, trying to cheer him up - but he wasn't having none of it. Then, before going in and doing Seventh Son..., I said to him, 'Look, do you want to be on this next album?' and he was, like, 'Yeah, yeah. Course I do.' I said, I just wanted to hear you say it, that's all.' But we did the Seventh Son... album, did the tour, and he seemed a little bit more up. But towards the end of it again, and going into the next album, Adrian seemed really negative about a lot of things. He just didn't seem to have the passionany more, and so it came out again, the six-million-dollar question, 'Do you or don't you want to be in the band?' And he was, like, 'Well, I don't know. I haven't had time to think about it.' And I thought, 'Well, hold on a minute,' you know? 'All I want to hear is, "Of course I bloody do. Don't be stupid."' That's the sort of answer we wanted. I know he's quite indecisive, to say the least - his nickname on the tour was Willy Orwonthe - but this was serious."
"It was decided to have a band meeting," says Adrian. "It was mainly Steve that did the talking. He said, 'You don't seem happy or into it any more,' and I said, 'Well...' and took a deep breath and went on for about an hour, talking about how I felt. I'd just done an album really expressing myself, really happy singing and playing. I knew Maiden was its own thing, and I was still happy to contribute to that, but it didn't look like I was going to get much of a chance to do that on the next album. I felt we needed more time to work on new songs, but the mobile had arrived and I hadn't written any songs and I was just very unhappy."
"So we sort of said, 'OK, you know, perhaps we'd better make the decision for you, then,'" says Steve, "and we said, 'If you're not 100 per cent, then you can't do it.' And he sort of shrugged his shoulders and said, 'I was hoping it was going to go the other way.' He was hoping that we still wanted him. But he had to want to be there first. It was awful for me, 'cause I really like Adrian. Personally, I was probably closer to him than anyone, and it gutted me. It gutted me that he didn't want to be there any more, but I thought, 'We've got to be strong about this. We can't keep someone there just hanging,' you know?"
"I wish I could have just gone in and said, 'Yeah, great, whatever,' you know?" says Adrian. "But life is not black and white. There's always doubts, especially as you get older, and it all happened over a couple of agonising days. There were lots of long phone calls. It was all very emotional. Maiden had been my life for ten years. It had become like a family to me
 
Well well, this is all very dependant on the angle you approach it from.

From the most straight forward perspective - Dave, hands down. Because of those pre-debut years, sure had Adrian been the one Steve met and decided to join etc I have no doubts the band would still exist, but the direction would have been different. Murray's presence helped bring the band into it's starting years and get them both noticed, and a specific style.

Whilst song-writing isn't everything, it certainly cannot be overlooked. There is NO way to tell what the albums would be like minus H's contributions, for all we know they could've turned out completely different (not just due to lack of songs but the different input the rest of them would've taken) - the band may have fallen into obscurity mid-80's, likey? no.. but possible. He helped to shape maiden just as much during the 80's as Dave had done during the early years.. perhaps more, because of the larger direct contributions rather than the passive (by which I mean the tone of his playing, or say his preference of style).

The song writing and 'presence' are incomparable really. I am also very much of the opinion that had the two guitarists 'moods' been reversed back then, and Dave was the one who had grown tired and eventually departed, Maiden would have continued just the same as they did without Adrian. The resulting material would differ but the band would not have folded apart due to the loss of Dave vs Adrian. Once the musical style of the band has been decided (in maidens case, very melodic heavy metal) then personally I deem the vocalist to be the single largest contributor to the band's overall sound, certainly where existing material is considered* - so if they continued without Bruce AND Adrian, then they would've continued just as much without Dave.

The individual guitarist issues during 1999/2000 - Adrian was just coming back, and so I imagine not quite back into full swing with playing all the material (especially the 90's songs) so was less integral to the band for that tour. Janick was used to playing all Adrian's parts and of course his own from NPFTD/FOTD/TXF/VXI so that wasn't an issue, but vice versa does not work. And of course, Davey having been ever present, the other 2 guitarists would've had no reason to learn his guitar parts and not be prepared to cover for him in absence.

Ultimately, there is no possible way in which this can be measured.

* This is why I believe Blaze was the wrong man for the job, sure you can write material to fit his voice but he did not fit the existing material (imho). It's also why I had no problem seeing GnR perform in 2010, the old band may have been responsible for writing the material but in a live environment 1 guitarist sounds practically the same as another, whereas the singer will change it entirely.
 
I think at this point, really everyone is of pretty equal importance. If anyone decided to call it a day, that is probably the end of the band. It looks like Steve is in a good comfort zone with the band as-is and I tend to doubt they want to go through a round of finding a new guitear player, drummer, or singer.

To the original question, Adrian is my favorite of the 3 guitar players, but if I had to pick one "most important", I guess it would be Dave, if anything based on longevity.
 
It's kind of hard to say, I personally think they're both equally important but in their own way. Dave has been around much longer than Adrian and has been on all of the band's albums, although Adrian has contributed much more to the songwriting than Dave. I think they both have their own special place in Maiden.
 
I'm more an Adrian fan, but Dave is the true 'sound' of Maiden, take him away and it wouldn't work. Also, Dave's ego never got too big and quit.
 
Dave created the guitar sound of Maiden, but H is the band's conscience. Both are important to have. On the albums without H it feels like something is missing. Conversely, Bruce's 2 solo albums with Ardrian have that something extra. I don't think it is a coincidence both Maiden and Bruce out out their most universally acclaimed albums with Adrian in the fold. I have to give the nod to Adrian ( but only very slightly).
 
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