With a new release coming from Iron Maiden, the band is on the trendmill as of late.
MSN's heavy metal staffer Phil Freeman conducted a recent interview with trifecta guitarist Janick Gers. Who knew MSN had a
heavy metal section. Here are a couple of excerpts:
Headbang: The band's been doing these themed tours recently - playing the first four albums, then the next four, and now the four most
recent albums. Now that you're completely caught up, what's the next move?
Gers: Well, the next move is, we've got a new album out. So the minute we go out on tour, it'll be based on the new album. It won't be
the full album like we did with "A Matter of Life and Death", because that was just a point in time where we felt we needed to do that. I
think to do that was a great move. Because we went out and kind of put our feet down and said, this is where we are now. And we played a
set that sold out nearly everywhere in the world. That album went gold in about fifteen different countries. Which for a band like us,
we're an underground band, we don't get radio play, we don't get TV, we don't get a lot of media, we get a bit of media, so we kind of
rely on our live show. We go out and play good gigs; we're a good live band. So we went out and played our new album in its entirety,
and sure, a lot of kids wanted to hear "The Trooper", wanted to hear this, wanted to hear that, well, you know what? You can't, you're
gonna have to come next time. What we're playing now is "A Matter of Life and Death", and that's the way it has to be. Otherwise you
turn into one of these cabaret bands that go around every year playing their favorite album. And that's not what we're about.
Headbang: Some people have been worried about this being it for the band, with the title "The Final Frontier", and the lyrics to that
song, with Bruce (Dickinson) singing about how he's accomplished everything he ever wanted to... what's the deal? This isn't the band's
last hurrah or anything, is it?
Gers: Well, I don't know. I hope not. I'm enjoying it, I think everybody else is enjoying it, and I wouldn't like to think this is the
end, but you never know. You just never know when your last gig's gonna be. It's like a heavyweight boxer, he's at the peak of his game
and he goes out and he gets knocked out. You believe you can go on forever. I believe we're a really good band, and as long as it's
fun, and as long as we're cutting it, and as long as we're valid, I wanna go out and play. But I don't wanna end up doing a cabaret
set with a load of other bands playing the greatest hits album all the time. That's part of it, having the hunger for what we do, and
I think everybody in the band does. And as long as we're cutting it, and bringing great songs in, trying to go down different paths
and further ourselves musically, then I think we carry on.
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