The age-old cliché is that in a band, be they heavy metal or psych rock, the guitarist writes the songs. To extend that further, the singer never helps with load-in, and the drummer is always late to practice. Iron Maiden's ever-present riffer Dave Murray, however, believes the band's success has come from the fact that they break that mold.
Since forming in 1975, when they originally leaned into the punkier side of metal, bass player Steve Harris has been their most active songwriter. Their most definitive hits, from the war-mongering gallops of The Trooper to the proto-prog epic Hallowed Be Thy Name, have come from Harris' imagination and perpetually twitching fingers. Murray believes that has been to their benefit.
“I think when Steve writes a song, there's an identity to it,” he tells MusicRadar. “And it's probably something a guitar player wouldn't write, some of the melodies and the time changes. That’s great because it pushes you, and stretches you as a player.”
As a result of Harris' songwriting leadership, the roles in the Maiden camp are a little against the usual grain. Though Murray does have several co-writing credits across the band's back catalog – the likes of Still Life, The Prophecy, and Judas Be My Guide spring to mind – he's happy to take a back seat. The big decisions, then, are deliberated over by Harris, vocalist Bruce Dickinson, and longtime manager Ron Smallwood.
“You do need someone upfront, and Steve's had that from the very beginning,” he explains. “Personally, I prefer to just be part of the team. I’m fine being laid back. It takes a lot to annoy me, because to me it's a waste of time. I don’t need to have that anger.
“And a lot of this stuff you can kind of channel through playing,” he expands. “Playing is like a form of self-therapy. So I don’t need anger management. I just enjoy playing the music.”
The songs Harris presents him with, he ascertains, keep his fingers busy enough. “We're not just a twelve-bar blues band playing four chords,” he laughs.
He's one of the few Maiden men not to have said fingers in other pies. Harris has kept the momentum with British Lion since they started in 2012, Bruce Dickinson is going through a solo career purple patch, and Adrian Smith has a fruitful guitar tandem with Richie Kotzen.
Murray? Well, he knows “when to push the ‘off’ button.”
“It’s all-encompassing when I’m doing Maiden,” he details. “I don't really feel I need to go out and play in clubs and travel in the back of a tour bus – I think I've done that!”
In more Iron Maiden news, Murray's bandmate Adrian Smith has recently explained how he became a Jackson Guitars convert, blaming one fundamental flaw for ditching his Gibson Les Paul.
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