Iron Maiden’s guitarist Adrian Smith recently spoke about the band’s new album ‘Senjutsu’ and analyzed the album track by track alongside his bandmate Janick Gers. Adrian stated that it was challenging to work with the band’s bassist Steve Harris.
As you may know, Iron Maiden released ‘Senjutsu’ on September 3, 2021, six years after their last album ‘Book of Souls.’ This was the band’s longest break in between albums during their entire career. Therefore, the fans were excited to hear the band’s new music after a long break.
The album consists of ten tracks, six on one side and four on the other. The tracks were all commented upon by Adrian Smith and Janick Gers in their recent interview with Guitar World. Adrian admitted that working with Steve Harris while creating this album was difficult because he would come up with challenging things to do.
Here is what Adrian revealed about Steve when speaking to Guitar World:
“It’s funny – Steve will have these ideas and then look at me, Dave or Janick. The ideas are usually quite complicated, so sometimes you might see guitarists hiding away behind their amps, waiting for the others to take up the gauntlet and learn these super-complicated parts! But we all do our bit. It takes a lot of concentration to play Steve’s stuff. Honestly, it can be quite a challenge.”
Janice continued to talk about how Steve affected the process of the album:
“We made this album very differently. Normally, we get a studio to rehearse in and then get seven or eight songs ready as a live band first before we record. But this time, it was all done in the studio. We went in and actually learned things there, putting them down soon after and then moving on to the next. So it got quite confusing, especially with the longer songs.
There were so many melodies and riffs floating around in the studio. Songs like “Death Of The Celts” were done in parts. Sometimes we’d be playing three-part harmonies together. And there were a lot of tempo changes. Steve would have a riff and melody for us to memorize, then there would be a tempo change, then we’d be back to the melody, but a different tempo! It wasn’t an easy album to make.“
Because of Steve’s strive for something challenging, the album’s creation was hard for the band members. However, they have no bad blood because ‘Senjutsu’ turned out to be a great album and satisfied the long awaiting fans.
