CREEM SHOWCASE
The word is loud. Loud in concept. Loud in packaging. Even the clothes come equipped with a volume control. After years of constant touring (as much as 13 months at a stretch), Iron Maiden have pumped themselves up into one of heavy metal’s top arena attractions on both sides of the Atlantic.
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CREEM SHOWCASE
IRON MAIDEN'S POWERSLAVIN' GEAR
Dan Hedges
The word is loud. Loud in concept. Loud in packaging. Even the clothes come equipped with a volume control. After years of constant touring (as much as 13 months at a stretch), Iron Maiden have pumped themselves up into one of heavy metal’s top arena attractions on both sides of the Atlantic. The secret? Simple—or at least frontman Bruce Dickinson thinks so. He reckons it’s the songs.
“There are two ways of approaching rock ’n’ roll,” he says. “And that’s form and function. With form, it’s ideas first, then interpret them the way you want. With function, you start with three chords and do an incredible virtuoso number on them. Play every scale in the book 10 times faster than anybody else. We prefer to go for the form.”
The band’s recent side trip into the land of living vinyl, Live Death (The World Slavery Tour), followed up 1984’s mammoth Powerslave world tour—12 months on the road with five buses, six semis, 50 crew people, 23,000 watts of stage monitors, 150,000 watts of PA, and a 700-lamp lighting rig. Fifty tons of gear in all, including their massive Egyptianflavored stage set.
Still, it comes back to the songs. Bassist Steve Harris tends to write on his own, putting down his basic ideas on tape “before I bring them to the band and say, This is what I’ve got.’ I work them out on the bass, show them to Dave and Adrian, make sure the melody line works for the lyrics, and then Bruce takes a look. If they come up with something better, fine. But I’ll normally work on something until I know it’s working properly. Adrian and Bruce tend to work things out on a Fostex—jam it out when we’re figuring out overdubs.”
As Harris points out, Iron Maiden write with their live show in mind! In the studio, the backing tracks (bass, drums, and the two rhythm guitars) are laid down live. “Then we lay the leads over the top afterwards. We do the basic things without solos, though. Sometimes we do use guide vocals, so it’s almost like playing live.”
Equipment-wise, the band have always preferred to keep things to a minimum. Dave Murray, for example, tends to switch off between his prized ’57 Fender Strat, a Dean Flying V, and a Gibson Les Paul SG Standard, Two Marshall 50s are his amps-of-choice on stage, driving two Marshall 4x12 cabinets fitted with Electro-Voice speakers. In the effects department, his preferences include a Cry Baby wah-wah, MXR Super Distortion, MXR Phase 90, MXR 10-band graphic EQ, .and an FET pre-amp put through a Pete Cornish splitter box.
Adrian Smith’s favorite guitar at the moment is his Lado Earth 2003, along with a Lado Earth 2001 and a Gibson Les Paul, which he calls “the old warhorse from the early '60s, my old reliable guitar." Originally a Deluxe, it now sports only one Humbucker, His Lado has a single Gibson pickup fitted to it as well, to keep the output of all his guitars roughly the same. In effects, he opts for a Boss DDL pedal, Boss stereo chorus, MXR 10-band graphic EQ and Peter Cornish rack relay system featuring a Lexicon, Ibanez digital delay, and a Furman parametric. For live work, he prefers two Marshall 50-watt heads and two Marshall cabs (decked out with four 12" E-Vs each).
For the most part, Nicko McBrain's drums are Sonors. His 24" bass, 14" snare (a Ludwig), tom toms (6", 8", 10", 12", 14", 15", 16") and 18" floor tom are augmented by Paiste cymbals: a 14" hi hat, 17" medium crash, 19" crash, 20" medium crash, 24" crash, 18" Rude crash ride, 16" Rude crash ride, 22" ride, 20" ride, 18" heavy crash, 22" China, plus a 40" gong and tubular bells.
As Bruce Dickinson points out, however, it’s not only the equipment, but the environment that’s important to Iron Maiden’s sound, particularly in the studio. As he says, “If a snare drum sounds good when you play it in the toilet, then we’ll mike up the toilet.’’
For live work, the toms are miked with Shore SM-57s, with two on each snare. Each of the guitarists’ speaker cabinets, meanwhile, is covered by a minimum of four mikes. “We use very expensive microphones on all of our stage equipment,” Dickinson explains. “They’re almost the same mikes we use in the studio.”
Steve Harris gives much of the credit for Maiden’s recorded sound to engineer Martin Birch. As he says, “Martin knows how to get the sound I like. His miking techniques in the studio tend to be more inventive than you normally find with this kind of music.”
Harris’s venerable blue Fender Precision had been his main instrument for years now. It’s pumped through no fewer than three dbx 160 compressors, a Pete Cornish splitter box, and four Alectro preamps (half of them fed through a direct box into the PA, the others sent into as many as six RSD 800 BC amps and a half-dozen Marshall 4x12" cabinets equipped with Electro-Voice speakers).
If anything, Iron Maiden’s story is a textbook case of how to make it even when the odds are stacked against you. When Steve Harris formed the band with Dave Murray in London back in 1975, new wave was in and heavy metal was already on its way out. When constantpub and club gigging in England brought no interest from the major labels, Murray, vocalist Paul Di’Anno, and drummer Doug Samson put out a self-produced EP, The Soundhouse Tapes, on their own. Rock Hard label. With a track list that included what are now Maiden standbys (“Invasion,” “Iron Maiden,” “Prowler”), the disc moved five thousand copies in two weeks. The record companies began lining up at the door, and toward the end of 1980, Maiden’s inaugural album—Iron Maiden—reached number four in the U.K. charts.
Clive Burr was brought in to replace the departed Samson on the drum riser, and guitarist Dennis Stratton added to the lineup. By the time 1981 ’s Killers appeared, however, Stratton had been supplanted by Adrian Smith. Tired of the constant roadwork, vocalist Di’Anno handed in his resignation, and Maiden lured Bruce Dickinson from competing band Samson in time to begin work on Number Of The Beast. Largely thanks to the subsequent 16-country tour, Beast went to 33 in the U.S. charts. In due course, Burr was replaced by Nicko McBrain (exPat Travers Band and Trust) in time for Piece Of Mind. Musical chairs? For sure.
“I think we’re finally solid, personnelwise,” Bruce Dickinson admits. “Nicko’s arrival solidified things in the drum department. As far as the big stage sets are concerned, the Egyptian thing was OK on the Powerslave tour, but if you’re not careful you can reach a point where it becomes absurd. After all,.there’s a very fine line between good heavy metal and Spinal Tap. It goes without saying which side of that line we’d rather be on.” HI
