Iron Maiden undergoes a renaissance
Nicko McBrain opens up about the original line-up, the new CD and finding God.
“The Lord blessed this one with this incredible magic,” says Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain about the new album A Matter of Life and Death.
Given that he’s talking about an album from Iron Maiden, one of the darkest, most ominous heavy metal bands to emerge from the genre’s heyday in the 80s, it would be easy to take it for granted that he’s referring to his Dark Lord Satan. But surprisingly, he’s talking about the same “Lord” church-going folks pray to on Sunday morning.
But more on his conversion to Christianity later – first, let’s talk about this new album from one of the most successful heavy metal bands of all time.
While there aren’t many surprises on A Matter of Life and Death, which made its Canadian debut in late August, many critics have been surprisingly kind to the new CD.
“This album is a step up on everything else we’ve ever done, in my opinion,” says McBrain. “I know a few people don’t agree with that, but I don’t care, you can stuff that up your ass, I don’t give a s--t.”
With virtually no radio play and precious little ink being spilled about them in mainstream media outlets, Iron Maiden’s latest still debuted in the #2 spot on Canadian sales charts and has placed just as high or higher around the world.
It seems Iron Maiden is undergoing a renaissance of sorts, both among fans and within the band itself.
So what’s going on?
It seems to have started with the triumphant return of ear-piercing vocalist Bruce Dickinson, whose brief hiatus from the band ended six years ago. From 1993 to 1998, Iron Maiden recorded two poorly-received albums with another singer, Blaze Bayley.
McBrain has nothing but good things to say about the band’s time with Bayley but he and his mates were ecstatic to have their old singer back, along with guitarist Adrian Smith.
“Since Bruce has come back, it’s gone back like it was in the early ’80s, and there’s this escalation,” McBrain says. “In the mid-80s, people said it was the height of our career. Well it was then, but this is the height of our career, really, because we’ve come full circle, and we’re doing it again with the same people we had back in the 80s.”
The tour Iron Maiden is embarking on isn’t the longest they’ve ever undertaken – most members are well into their 50s, after all – but it will take them around the world, with three shows in Canada (Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver), followed by eight in the U.S., four in Japan, and an extensive tour through Europe that will run until the end of 2006.
In some areas of the world, most notably in many small Scandinavian countries, the band can sell enough tickets to fill huge stadiums in just a couple of hours. Do the large crowds they’re still able to attract surprise the band?
“In Scandinavia, there’s this new breed that’s come out, the next generation, and they’ve gone wild for the band,” McBrain says. “And these younger kids, they’re discerning, they like the faster stuff, but they’ve gone back – and I’m going to put ourselves up with Led Zeppelin and bands of that ilk, but we’re still out there doing it! – and they’ve gone ‘freak, my old boots, this is class music, this is melody, this is speed, this is great guitar solos.’
“It seems to have just gone ballistic since Bruce came back,” McBrain adds. “It’s like when you have a (spat) with the old lady, and sometimes it’s good to be away for a while from one another. And then you come back and it’s better than it was before.”
McBrain takes a deep breath before continuing. And he’s going to need it because a conversation with Nicko McBrain is like lighting a bucket of firecrackers and then standing back and watching them go off. The man can talk even faster than he beats the drum skins.
“Music, and being in a band, it’s very much like a love affair,” says McBrain. “And don’t get me wrong when I say this: the sex is the music! The first 10 or 12 years I played in Iron Maiden, I saw more of these guys and lived with them more than I did with my family.”
When he’s not with the band, McBrain makes his home in Boca Raton, Florida with his wife and son. In his spare time, the British-born rocker indulges a newly acquired love of baseball by following the Florida Marlins, and an even more passionate love of golf.
After too long at home though, the drummer and his bandmates start to get itchy for the road.
When it’s pointed out Iron Maiden probably doesn’t need new albums as an excuse for a tour, McBrain reacts as though the thought had never crossed their minds.
“We could probably get away with that, but we don’t want to,” he says. “We want to still make new, cutting-edge, progressive, underground music. You can call it heavy metal, but to me we’re a hard rock band, and we’re really a progressive blues band, to be honest, a bit like (Led) Zeppelin were when they came out.
“We are a very selfish band,” he continues. “We don’t compromise, and people go, ‘Well if you did this or that, you’d have a lot more people come and listen to your band.’ We say, well bollocks, we don’t want to compromise. If people don’t like it the way it is, then we don’t particularly want them.
“And our fans and the people who are coming to know this band realize, they look at our merchandise, they look at the way we put our shows together, and they say, ‘They care. They’re doing it for themselves, but they really do care about us, don’t they?’”
McBrain insists the recording experience was largely argument-free – not the norm when recording an Iron Maiden album.
“Normally, (bassist) Steve (Harris) and I have this complete blow-out argument somewhere along the line, whether it’s in writing or making the record,” McBrain says, “but this time ’round we didn’t, and it was such a talking point, you know? Steve said, ‘Hey, do you realize we haven’t had an argument on this record?’ Well we still had four B-sides to record, and I said ‘Steve ’ang on a minute, we’ve got another day in the studio yet, that could happen!’”
The album was recorded nearly live, with all members playing their instruments at the same time, and the producer mixing on the fly -- something the vast majority of today’s bands wouldn’t even dream of trying.
But for McBrain and his bandmates, this seemed like a very natural approach to the recording since their live shows have gained a reputation over the years for being tour-de-force exhibitions of musicianship.
Their brand of thundering and often furiously angry music might not be for everyone, but anyone with a set of ears has to acknowledge that Iron Maiden is staffed by some very talented musicians.
“Pretty much anything we record, we pride ourselves on being able to actually reproduce it live,” McBrain says.
“At the end of the day, the fan that buys that record is very discerning, he’s going to go to a live show and he’s going to stand in front of the band or the solo artist, whomever it is, and he’s going to go ‘hey that doesn’t sound very good, that’s s--t!,’ you know? So at the end of the day you’re going to get caught, one way or the other. You can dunk your biscuit in it, and if it don’t hold together, it’s going to fall all over the cup of tea.”
Wait a minute. Golf? A reference to drinking tea? Christianity? Are we still talking about good ol’ head-banging Iron Maiden here?
Yes, we still are. And yes, Nicko McBrain is a Christian.
His conversion is apparently a complicated issue, but one McBrain obviously loves to talk about. What follows is his response to a single question about his conversion, which he says happened in 1999.
Are people ever surprised by his conversion?
“The usual question I’ve been approached with is people coming up to me and going, ‘How can you play Number of the Beast?’ Well, ’ang on, it’s a story. If you look in the Book of Revelation it tells you about all that, all that grief, all that business. And that, by the way, was a song written from a nightmare that Steve had.
“And my opinion is, well look, one of the greatest tricks the Devil ever pulled was making you think he didn’t exist, and I can tap people on the shoulder and say, ‘I’m not glorifying him -- if I was then I wouldn’t be Christian.’
“Because I understand, and most Christian people understand, that sin is the Devil’s domain, and the ultimate sin is death, but we have a way up, and that’s where your faith and your Christianity comes into play. Sometimes I’ve had an opportunity to talk to people about my faith, and what I feel, and maybe that’s the way the good Lord’s working with me.
“To still be able to be in such a great band, where people think we’re demonic or Satanic, most people that know and have a modicum of sense and intelligence knows that not to be true. It doesn’t take an Einstein to listen to the records and listen to the lyrics of the songs to know what’s going on.
Okay, so Eddie’s the mascot of the band, right? And he’s a… sort of… well, he’s a demon, you know! He’s whatever you want him to be, you know? I mean, listen here, look at the number of the Beast, here he is, the Devil’s the puppet! But you know, we’re not glorifying Eddie as being evil. It’s just … he’s just a cartoon character.
“But people can look at that and say ‘wait a minute, Nick, ’ow can you say you’re a Christian, you’re playing in a band that’s got this kind of stuff going on?’
“But when you become a Christian, you don’t become sinless, the idea is to sin less. We’re all sinners, we’re never going to be clean till the day the good Lord is standing in front and judgment comes, but to me, I try to live my life, I do fall off, and occasionally I fall off hard and I have to get down on my knees and beg forgiveness, so it’s not an easy ride, and it’s not professed to be either.”
Has Nicko tried converting any of his fellow band members to his faith?
“We’ve had some incredibly deep conversations amongst each of us,” McBrain said. “I can’t say to you that I’m trying to convert all these guys in my band to be Christians. I’m leading them on my route, and if they choose to follow what God’s plan is in the Bible, that’s up to them. I say to them all, you know, look, in my belief, at the moment, if you turn to your saviour Jesus Christ, I’ll have eternal life in Heaven with you! … We don’t talk about it every time we get together, but we’ve had some interesting conversations over the years.
“I truly praise the Lord for being able to carry on with this band, and the blessings that we have to be able to make this kind of music, and still go out there and turn young kids’ heads and they go ‘Crikey, these guys can play! They might be old farts, but listen to that!’
And, as McBrain points out, the band has bucked the trend of rock music by not having a dead member in its past despite nearly three decades in the business.
“The legacy here is that you can actually talk to each member of the band, you know? It’s not posthumously. We’re still around, and I praise the Lord again for that, and maybe I’ll go tomorrow, but the thing is that the passion that we have is to play this music, our music, together as a band, the six of us.”
And best of all, he adds, “I’m still the best-looking one in the band.”
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