IRON MAIDEN - Maiden's Man Of Mad Motion Speaks Page 3
by Martin Popoff

Is there anything interesting Kevin does to get takes out of you guys?

"Not really, I mean, the thing with Kevin is, you have different kinds of producer. You have guys like Mutt Lange who are fantastic producers but have a sound of their own, that they bring to the band. Well, we don't need that - we have a sound. We don't want to sound like anybody else. We sound like us, and you have producers like Kevin who try to capture the sound we have, and put it in the digital domain. You would think that that's an easy thing to do, but go and ask Martin Birch, who is a very similar kind of producer - it's a very difficult thing. You've got a band in the studio, and to collect the sound on a tape or in the digital domain and have it sound as vibrant and exciting and as good as it actually does in the room, that's a very difficult thing to do. So this is where I think Kevin is good, because he can collect our sound and not interfere with it too much, because we are what we are. We're not changing. We don't want the guitars to sound sort of like a 2006 grunge band. That's not what we sound like. We sound like Maiden guitars, good, strong, powerful, aggressive, where you can hear the note in the guitar sound, not a processed sound. It has to be real; all those guitars sound real. You know, that's his forte. He gets a good sound in the studio."

A Matter Of Life And Death carries a whole pile of Steve Harris credits, with Bruce and Adrian in main supporting roles. Dave Murray is credited on the stunning lead single The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg, with Janick officially in on two compositions, The Pilgrim and The Legacy, the album's 9:20 closer and its darkest yet most psychedelic, textured and progressive track.

"Obviously, we all bring a lot of songs in," explains Gers. "I had about an hour's worth of material and The Legacy was one of them. And it was a song I felt quite strongly about. It came about because somebody was very ill in the political world, who everybody sensed was a man of peace. There was this whole media onslaught of this man of peace, and the Middle East was never going to be the same again, because he was ill or whatever. And I actually read some of the history in the background, and it was completely the opposite. You know, half the problems in the Middle East were created by this person. I won't say who it was. It made me realize that we had been fed a lot of lies, and it made me realize that there's a lot of untruths spoken, that come across as truths. So when you actually look into it and and read the in-depth stuff about it, you find out the complete and utter opposite. And it felt like a bit of a fairy story to me, so that's where the idea came from in the beginning. And I took that to Steve, and he took it away and took it somewhere else, which is what he does. It's still about truth and lies, it's still about people being lied to, the promises made that never materialized, and it became a song about soldiers coming back from the war. Which, in these politically sensitive times, it's probably a great idea. He has these ideas and these theories. He makes me shiver sometimes with his lyrics. And similar with Pilgrim. I took a load of ideas in, and I think that music took him along to sort of Arabic feel in the parts, took him where that came with the music. That content too... it's always interesting about Steve. He's very honest; I find him really very honest."

IRON MAIDEN - Maiden's Man Of Mad Motion Speaks Page 4