IRON MAIDEN Drummer Nicko McBrain

IRON MAIDEN Drummer Nicko McBrain - "The Powerslave Tour Was Nearly The Death Of The Band"

www.KNAC.com's Gnarly Charlie spoke with IRON MAIDEN legends Steve Harris, Adrian Smith, and Nicko McBrain recently. An excerpt from the chat found here follows:

With the DVD release of Live After Death and the current Somewhere Back In Time world tour, Iron Maiden is celebrating the start of another banner year.

The “World Slavery Tour” of ‘84 and ‘85 was an outing of back to back shows, a tour in which the band had very few nights off. The exhaustion the band felt after completing all 193 shows was more of the mental kind than physical, as drummer Nicko McBrain recalls. Although the members of Iron Maiden had always regarded their band as being a touring machine since inception the overload nearly split the band.

When I sat down to talk to bassist/lyricist Steve Harris, guitarist Adrian Smith, and drummer Nicko McBrain they all admitted that even with their comparatively luxurious accommodations (compared to earlier tours) being on the road can be wearing.

"The Powerslave, it was a long tour,” says McBrain. “It was over 13 months long, which nearly was the death of the band, to be honest, only from the number of the shows we played; four in a row, three in a row, four in a row, day off, three in a row, day off, four in a row, day off, two in a row, day off. It was relentless. I think we toured America for like, five months. In those days, it was you’d go to play where anyone would have you, because we were breaking the band.”

“It was kind of a back up of years before that of solid album, tour, album, tour,” adds Harris of the experience. “Coming off one tour and having a week off and going straight into writing the next album and rehearse, and then going straight out into the next world tour. And we did that for the first four or five albums. It was pretty crazy, so by that time, after the Powerslave Tour, we were all burned out. We had to say to management, ‘Look, we want time off.’ And everybody was pretty fried after that. It just affected people in different ways. It was tough, but at that time we were invincible young lads and we were totally up for doing the tour. But, by the end of the tour we were fried. Five or six nights a week for 30 months, two hours a night, full on. Physically we were fit at the end of it—but mentally very unfit,” the bassist confesses candidly.

"The kind of touring Maiden did during that period of time, not to mention the kind of breakneck schedule they still take on today, would affect their singer’s voice adversely. Harris recounts this fact of his bandmate, friend, and trusted pilot of the band. “Bruce was so fried he couldn’t even write anything, really. Anything coherent, anyway (laughs), for the next album. Without a doubt, he was the one affected the most. When you’re singing…I can’t imagine what it’s like singing the way he does every night. It’s just incredibly taxing on him. It’s a lot to ask of someone. He’s got fantastic pipes, but to go out and ask him to do that every night for six nights a week for two hours a night for 13 months is a lot to ask of anybody, really. And I don’t think he realized before he went out on the tour—none of us did--what it was going to do to us, because we probably wouldn’t have done it (laughs). We probably would have said ‘Okay, let’s have a month break in the middle of it or something,’ and it probably would have recharged our batteries and we would have carried on fine. But to go months like that is just crazy, really. But you think you got to do these things to find out.”

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