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Iron Maiden Guitarist Adrian Smith Talks Heli-Fishing, Wasted Years And Bruce Dickinson Driving Him To Tears

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Since 1980, rock fans have known Adrian Smith as one of three guitarists in the genre-defining heavy metal band Iron Maiden.

For 30 of the last 40 years, Smith has stormed stages with the metal titans to crowds far-and-wide. The band’s most recent trek, The Legacy of the Beast World Tour, brought the veterans across European, throughout North America and down to South America. While COVID-19 forced the band to cancel its 2020 tour dates, the group still plans to hit the road on the tour’s final run through Europe in 2021

In the meantime, Iron Maiden fans are still getting their fix. Tomorrow, the band releases the live album Nights of the Dead, Legacy of the Beast: Live in Mexico City, which was recorded during the band’s three-night sold-out arena stint in 2019. 

And Adrian Smith’s new book, Monsters of River & Rock: My Life as Iron Maiden’s Compulsive Angler, out now, gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at life on the road, as well as the guitarist’s other greatest passion.

What may surprise fans is that the 63-year-old has led a fairly dualistic life. For every story of mayhem and excess that comes with performing in one of the greatest metal bands of all time, Smith has an equally beautiful—and often complex—tale of a fishing conquest. A childhood hobby that turned into a lifelong passion, he describes angling as “essential.” And judging by the rigor of his efforts, the craft has required a similar level of dedication as his musicianship.

While the memoir goes deep on fishing and is filled with jargon (don’t worry, there’s a glossary), the book isn’t only for fans of the sport. The guitarist’s writing also provides some broad-stroke insight into Iron Maiden’s world: Smith joining the band, the recklessness of touring with Mötley Crüe and hilarious anecdotes from inside the studio.

Between tales of carp and catfish, the guitarist transports you through time, like to 1984, when the band was recording its platinum record Powerslave in the Bahamans, partying all night and doing karate with famed producer Martin Birch.

You’ll also read first-hand accounts of Iron Maiden’s bloody Rock in Rio performance, recording Somewhere in Time on a remote island and casting through a Parisian blizzard during the recording of Brave New World.

Below, Smith discusses his life as a fisherman, the solace he seeks on the water and his greatest catch. He also reflects on his life in Iron Maiden, the madness of the Killers era and why vocalist Bruce Dickinson once drove him to tears after surviving cancer.

When you’re out on a fishing trip, are you seeking utter peacefulness? Or are you using it as a time to reflect on everything that’s happening in your life and the band?

Your mind is clear. It’s like meditation. I don’t think of outside things when I’m fishing. That’s the beauty. I don’t want to think about other things. I’m totally consumed. The punchline is the adrenaline rush of maybe catching a nice fish now and again.

Was your biggest catch ever when you reeled in a 100-pounder in Canada?

It’s certainly up there. I’ve caught catfish in Spain, they’re different to the North American catfish, these are called Wels Catfish and you get them in Europe. They grow up to incredible weights, over 200 pounds! I’ve caught them up to 60 or 70 pounds in Spain. 

But, the trip in Vancouver, I’d always wanted to do it and we just happened to be playing in Vancouver. We had a day-off afterwards, so I’d arranged to go on this trip to catch a sturgeon [catfish]. I’d never caught one before, so I met a guy in a place called Chilliwack. We fished on the beautiful Fraser River. 

I did manage to catch—I say I caught it, but when you go with a guide, it’s a bit of compromise because they do most of the work, know where the fish are, get you there, give you the rod and say “use this bait”—but it was still an experience. The sheer size of this thing, this 100-pound fish in this incredibly beautiful wild surrounding. It was well worth the effort. 

Your book details the moment you decided to join Iron Maiden. You had this chance encounter where you bumped into bassist Steve Harris and guitarist Dave Murray. They had already been touring the world with KISS. It all seemed very serendipitous. Do you think they would have called you to ask you to join if you hadn’t run into each other? Could you tell what a big moment it was at the time?

Oh yeah, definitely. My band, Urchin, was kinda breaking up. The punk wave was still going, but you had the New Wave of British Heavy Metal coming through, that was around 1979. Maiden were riding on the crest of the wave.

 A few months before that, before they’d actually recorded their first album, they’d asked me to join and I turned it down because my band was still going strong. So I was quite happy doing that.

If I hadn’t bumped into Steve and Davey, um, I don’t know if they would have. Because I’d turned them down once. Maybe actually meeting them convinced them to give me another shot. Maybe they thought it was fate, the fact that we literally bumped into each other on the street. 

Kind of in a parallel with fishing, sometimes meeting someone and talking, getting some information, or just bumping into someone by luck can put you on the path to some good fishing. But, meeting Steve and Dave that day was pretty life-changing. That led to me being in Iron Maiden for the ages.

Your life is quite intertwined with Dave Murray’s. You grew up a few blocks away from each other and you even met your wife through Dave, right?

Yeah, she was a bridesmaid at Dave’s wedding in Hawaii. When Dave got married it was actually during a tour. I did the same. It just shows you how much we were touring in those days. People used to get married, relatives would pass away and then somebody would go back on a day off and go to a funeral, then rejoin the tour. That’s the way it was in those days. 

It was just absolutely crazy, 24/7. But that’s what you had to do. It was all about the road. You didn’t even really earn any money on the road, you went to promote your album and if you broke even and sold a few albums, you were doing well.

You look back on the early 80s as a haze. During the Killers tour, you were playing at The Palladium in New York City with Judas Priest and described it as a Quaalude-induced blur. Many romanticize that era, but you explained that this became a really difficult time for you. Do you look back on that period with mixed emotions?

A little, yeah. That was a time in my life where I was in sort of an unusual situation, for anybody really. You find yourself traveling the world, the United States, playing in these huge stadiums and getting lots of attention, meeting a lot of different people, getting into a lot of crazy situations because of the lifestyle. It definitely got on top of me a little bit.

I think everyone handles it differently. We were all exposed to the same things, but, I was always a bit of a shy kid, so maybe it was a little more difficult for me. I’m certainly not complaining, that’s just the way it was.

When I left the band in the end of the 80s, I really got back into fishing. It was just a great contrast between the craziness and then settling down, buying a house, having a family and rediscovering simple pleasures.

It seems you had similar sensibilities to your father, who you described as a generally reserved guy, but would sing Perry Como for the bar after he had a few pints. That’s kinda like you in the 80s, only a little more cocaine and craziness… and arenas instead of a small pub in England.

[Laughs] Well, that’s it. I think different things motivate different people, maybe if you are more of a laid-back person and you pick up an instrument, and you find that you can express yourself through that better than words in everyday life, that’s a big motivation for people. That drives you on to think, “Well, I can say something here. I really get a lot of satisfaction out of this.” 

Maybe if I was an outgoing person I would’ve done something else. I just loved to get on stage. It was a thrill, even in the beginning, I only managed to get out on stage because I really wanted to do it. It can be a bit terrifying at first, you know? But, my dad was the same. I could see that. He was a laid-back guy but he loved to get up and sing. It was a big release for him.

You wrote, “Sometimes I wish someone had put an arm around my shoulder and got me some help. Instead, everyone just used to laugh at my pissed-up, coked-out antics.” Do you think you should have taken a step back and gotten sober? Were things too out of control?

I can see that now with hindsight. But of course, we were all kids then. You wouldn’t have been tuned into it. You’re all going along on the same runaway train ride and hanging on for dear life. And you really haven’t got the time or the mental capacity to think about other people. It’s really kind of a selfish existence, you’re just thinking about yourself. So, I’m not surprised that someone didn’t—it would’ve been nice. 

You’re away from your family, my parents never saw me. My older brother, on a couple of occasions, did say, “You’ve got to slow down a bit, I reckon, and take care of yourself.” Which, I remember to this day, because I kinda listened to him. But then again, it really was more the early ages.

Once we got to the middle ages, 1985, 1986, we started headlining all these massive shows, particularly in America. And you couldn’t really get away with not having any sleep and acting a fool. That helped anchor me a bit. 

I was gonna say, “When I met my wife,” but she was worse than I was! [Laughs] She loved to have a good time!

When I left the band and I came home, I changed my lifestyle completely. I started getting back into sports. I cut back on everything else. I packed up smoking and just thought, “I’m going to straighten myself out.” I’ve never looked back really. 

But I’m lucky, I can still have a drink. I don’t want to give people the wrong impression. I don’t think I was an alcoholic, it was just a way of overcoming my shyness really, the drinking. I think it’s the same for a lot of people, really. And then it becomes a habit. 

When you played Rock in Rio in 1985, you passed by Queen’s dressing room and heard them rehearsing “Bohemian Rhapsody” acapella. Did you just freeze in your tracks?

I’ll never forget that. Just them sitting in a room, apparently, it’s something they did before a lot of shows. I saw a documentary about Freddie Mercury. They did it before Live Aid, just to warm their voices up a bit. It was a real privilege to hear that. 

The Rock in Rio thing, it was crazy. I think that was in the New York chapter, because we were touring in New York state in the winter and it was 10 foot of snow everywhere. Then we went down to Rio and it was hot and we were partying— we came back and all got sick immediately. But Rock in Rio, that was a very exciting time.

Your trip to New Zealand seemed really special. Is that the most remote place you’ve ever gone fishing? Who would’ve thought that both playing in Iron Maiden and fishing would put you into helicopters?

It was one of the best trips of my life. It was such a beautiful place. We did something called heli-fishing, where you get in a helicopter and you get flown to a pristine unspoiled location to spend a day with a guy just fishing in the wilderness. A helicopter picks you up at the end of the day. It was just a fantasy. 

Then I come back from a day’s fishing, get off the helicopter. We go to the bar for a beer. There are some older American couples that were also fishing. They were waiting for us because they heard that I was in the band Iron Maiden and were excited to meet me. These are people probably in their 70s!

I walked into the bar, it was only a little place. They were all staring at me. When you meet older couples on holiday, they can be so nice it’s almost overpowering. You don’t want to be rude, so you let them go. They managed to get ahold of the Somewhere in Time album and they were reading through it.

They’d all had a couple of drinks by this time, as well. So I couldn’t escape. [Laughs]  This lady insisted on telling everyone to be quiet while she read out the lyrics to “Stranger in a Strange Land,” which I’d written, while I’m sort of cringing in the corner. [Laughs]

You were also quite uncomfortable when you and guitarist Janick Gers met Liam Gallagher from Oasis. You said that Janick was cornering him and telling him, “You gotta look at our studio!”

That’s all 100% true. It was funny meeting Liam Gallagher, he was such a character. But he did shrink a little bit when we brought him into the studio. He was obviously slightly intimidated. I’d be the same. If someone dragged me into another band’s working space—I don’t like it. You feel like an outsider.

A band is such an insular thing, especially in the studio where you’ve got all those vibes where these guys are working together in a very under-the-microscope environment. Things are very sensitive. You can almost feel it when you go into someone else’s workplace. I wouldn’t want to be there. But Janick insisted. It was funny.

Iron Maiden’s singer, Bruce Dickinson, recently survived a battle with throat cancer, announcing he was cancer free in 2015. When you first found out about his diagnosis, were you horrified? Did you think it could mean the end of Iron Maiden?

Nothing can prepare you for something like that. It was an incredibly dark time. I suppose my immediate thought was that he’d probably beat it because he’s that kind of person. 

Plus, the first thing we do is find out the facts of his cancer: what stage is it? That’s very important. We found out it was treatable and in a relatively early stage. Although I think he’d had it when we were doing the album The Final Frontier (2010). I was there when he was doing vocals. I could hear it in his voice sometimes, he didn’t sound quite right. But, we found out it was treatable. We tried to give him a bit of support, but really, what can you do? He had to go through it.

He did and he beat it. It was quite incredible. He’s got such a strength of character. He’s never negative about anything. He’s always a very positive person. “If I can put my mind to it, I can do anything,” sort of person. And he usually does.

But we didn’t know about the band. Who knows about these things? But I thought he’d probably recover and thank God he did.

You described the first show of The Book of Souls tour in 2016, when you watched Bruce take stage for the first time after overcoming cancer and recalled getting really emotional. What did that moment feel like?

I didn’t expect it at all. That is such a great intro to the show, the way he sings the intro to the song “If Eternity Should Fail.” When he did it live, the first time, I was actually in tears. I was completely choked up.

I don’t know where that came from. But there he was. He finished and we were back on stage. It didn’t happen again. It only happened that once.

To be quite honest with you, I had the same reaction when I saw Maiden after I’d left and I went to Donnington (1992). I was standing at the side of the stage, Steve [Harris] said, “Come down and see us and get up and play with us.” I thought it was a nice olive branch to keep things cool. But as I was watching them, the same thing happened. I was actually overcome with emotion. I had a couple of whiskeys. Then I got on stage and I was alright.

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