LIFE LESSONS
ADRIAN SMITH
Iron Maiden’s legendary guitarist shares the lessons he’s learned from more than 40 years on the roads - and, er, rivers - around the world
WORDS: RICH HOBSON
IRON MAIDEN AXEMAN and songwriter since 1980 - aside from that brief break in the 90s - Adrian Smith has contributed more than a few chapters (and hits) to the band’s fourdecade-plus career. With their 2020 tour plans scuppered, he has found time to release his own book on fishing, with a few Maiden stories thrown in for good measure, of course. Hammer caught up with him for the angle.
“I TOLD DAVE MURRAY I WAS A SINGER”
I NEVER PLANNED ON WRITING A BOOK
“Somebody approached me to do it. They said, ‘We know you’re a keen fisherman and have lots of stories’, so they set up meetings with publishers. But I really enjoy writing and it was all done over a year and a half, mostly written on the road. It was a great project: diving into my past, my fishing experiences and things that had happened with the band.”
BEING SUCCESSFUL REQUIRES SOME SACRIFICE
“When I was about 15 I stopped going fishing for a while. I was having these conversations about what I was going to do with the rest of my life, around the same time as I got into music. I thought, ‘If I’m going to make it as a musician I need to be dedicated’, so stopped fishing and stopped following football; I’d also been a Man United fanatic. I remember saving up to get a Les Paul and thinking as soon as I’d got it I was going to sound like Gary Moore. But you’ve got to learn to play it first! I’ve still got that guitar, but I play it a bit better these days. Ironically, it wasn’t until I joined Iron Maiden in the early 80s that I came back to fishing, mostly because that’s one of the first things [ex-Maiden drummer] Clive Burr and I would talk about. We’d go out with [Maiden guitarist] Dave Murray while on tour, because by that point I figured I was on the way with music, it was time to revisit things I loved!”