IRON MAIDEN Guitarist Says Reaction To New Live Show Has Been 'Stunning'

Christina Fuoco of The Flint Journal recently conducted an interview with IRON MAIDEN guitarist Dave Murray. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On playing the band's new album, "A Matter of Life and Death", in its entirety on its current tour:

"We thought the songs were so strong that it justifies playing them live. There's a lot of highs and kind of lows (in the music). There's a lot of moods. ... They're not just straight-ahead bang, bang, bang. There's quite a lot of quiet passages and where it changes tempos. The fans can stand there and listen to the music as opposed to going out there and bashing their head away for two hours."

"We thought, 'Well, every tour we've come out and we've been playing a lot of the old material, maybe two, three, four, five, six songs from the new album. We just felt like, 'Let's do this whole album.' The reaction from the other night was quite stunning, so we thought we had made the right decision."

"There will be other tours when we're going out doing all the older stuff."

On "A Matter of Life and Death" debuting at No. 9 on the Billboard 100 album chart (No. 2 in Canada),the band's first U.S. Top 10 entry ever:

"I think we've pretty much done the same sort of things that we've normally done. We make an album, then we prepare for the tour. Maybe because of stuff like the Internet, the band is more accessible. Through that, (fans) can follow what's going on.

"I don't know really. For some unknown reason, this album has shot up. Maybe they've been listening to the earlier stuff and were just waiting for this one to come up. It's been a few years since (the 2003 album) 'Dance of Death', anyway. That's a good question. If we knew why, we'd bottle it and sell it as a magic potion."

On still being relevant after 30 years of peaks and valleys, numerous membership changes and the wrath of Sharon Osbourne:

"Yeah, it's nice to be relevant. I think everybody wants to be relevant — especially now. It's such a diverse time of music. But with IRON MAIDEN, fans they kind of know what they're going to get. They hook into the whole package.

"I think this is the 14th studio album we've done, and God knows how many tours. It's nice to feel that, 'Yeah, OK, there's still a buzz out there.' You just want to go in and make an album and have fun with it, go on tour and have fun with it, and enjoy it."