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• Iron Maiden Guitarists Discuss 'The Final Frontier'

In his place Maiden recruited Adrian Smith, a childhood friend of Murray’s who had been fronting his own band, Urchin (an outfit which, at one time, included Murray in its ranks). One album later, the band would trade Di’Anno for Bruce “The Air-Raid Siren” Dickinson and begin its ascent to the top of the metal heap in earnest.

And yet, many of the songs from Iron Maiden’s quickly recorded debut continue to be fan favorites, as well as staples of the band’s live show. “ ‘Iron Maiden’ is always in there,” Murray says. “And on this most recent tour we closed every night with ‘Running Free.’ So it shows you these songs have really stood the test of time.”

As for why he believes this to be the case? “The album just captured something,” Murray says. “Listening to it now, 30 years later, it’s still quite interesting. It’s very raw sounding, and for the most part quite uptempo—the songs are almost frantically fast paced. But that was our frame of mind at the time. We were very excitable back then.” He laughs. “Though I suppose we still are.”

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