IRON MAIDEN guitarist Adrian Smith has told VH1 Classic's "That Metal Show" that the band might approach songwriting differently for its next album and move away from composing long, progressive-rock-style tracks which have characterized some of MAIDEN's most recent efforts.

MAIDEN's 15th studio CD, 2010's "The Final Frontier", featured 10 tracks that had an average running time of seven minutes and 40 seconds, with the shortest song, "The Alchemist", clocking in at four minutes and 29 seconds, and the longest, "When The Wild Wind Blows", lasting ten minutes and 59 seconds.

Smith tells "That Metal Show": "On the last couple of albums Steve [Harris, bass], Bruce [Dickinson, vocals] and me have written together, which is a new thing. Steve used to bringing three, four, five completed songs. But now he's doing more arranging, production, overseeing. We sit down and write, and that's reflected in the slightly different stuff."

He adds, "We've been writing longer for some reason. Maybe next time we'll do some shorter stuff — but it's difficult to look into the future too far."

The guitarist also expressed his admiration for the likes of Jimi Hendrix, FREE and THIN LIZZY and the way they approached composing new music. "They did some great singles — put things into three minutes, which is a difficult thing to do, but it can be done."

Adrian is quick to point out, however, that IRON MAIDEN will continue to do things its own way, as has been the case throughout its 30-plus-year recording history. "It's just the band," he says. "There's no outside influences. There's never been a record company in the studio with us, so we're lucky — but we kind of worked for that."

IRON MAIDEN will return the road this summer with a series of arena, amphitheatre and festival shows in the USA and Canada, opening in Charlotte, North Carolina on June 21 and finishing in Houston, Texas on August 18, to be followed by further dates around the world in 2013. The "Maiden England World Tour" will closely mirror, in terms of production and content, the original 1988 concert video of the same name, shot on the "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son Tour".

Says Smith : "Probably two-thirds of the set is going to be [revisiting the setlist from the 1988 tour]. It's good to rediscover [those old tracks]. I like to play them slightly differently, but people know them so well you can't deviate too much. If we remember the songs, it'll be alright."