15 The Final Frontier
with Jimmy Kay and Sean Kelly
1. Satellite 15 … The Final Frontier 8:40
(Smith, Harris)
2. El Dorado 6:49
(Smith, Harris, Dickinson)
3. Mother of Mercy 5:20
(Smith, Harris)
4. Coming Home 5:52
(Smith, Harris, Dickinson)
5. The Alchemist 4:29
(Gers, Harris, Dickinson)
6. Isle of Avalon 9:06
(Smith, Harris)
7. Starblind 7:48
(Smith, Harris, Dickinson)
8. The Talisman 9:03
(Gers, Harris)
9. The Man Who Would be King 8:28
(Murray, Harris)
10. When the Wild Wind Blows 10:59
(Harris)
Personnel: Bruce Dickinson—vocals; Dave Murray—guitars; Adrian Smith—guitars; Janick Gers—guitars; Steve Harris—bass, keyboards; Nicko McBrain—drums
Produced by Kevin Shirley; co-produced by Steve Harris
Recorded at Compass Point Studios, Nassau, Bahamas; The Cave Studios, Malibu, California
Released August 13, 2010
Following the methodology of A Matter of Life and Death, The Final Frontier finds Steve involved in every track, in collaboration with others on all but one, adding music, lyrics, and arranging the work of others, as Adrian has indicated in interviews. The band also continues with the familiar by working with Kevin Shirley and going in with very little writing done.
As a twist, the band returned to Compass Point in the Bahamas, recording locale of classic Maiden albums long past, as well as legendary albums by AC/DC and Judas Priest. But after a month in the Bahamas, production moved to The Cave in Malibu, California, Kevin’s lair, where most of the vocals were tracked; Bruce then left to Shirley and Harris the task of assembling what would be the band’s longest record to date (only to be eclipsed by the follow-up).
The first that fans heard from the album was quasi-single “El Dorado,” issued two months in advance of the album. Disseminated as a free download, “El Dorado” was arguably the most inspired and classic Maiden single since “Flight of Icarus,” groovy beyond words as Nicko slinks down into the pocket and drives home the grinding riff and Steve’s noisy gallop, punctuating often with his signature short bar-ending fills.
The first fans saw of the album was Maiden’s best album cover since Live After Death (although there have been some incredible singles sleeves), with Melvyn Grant pulling out all the stops and setting the stage for the Somewhere in Time–like vibe of the two-pronged opener “Satellite 15 … The Final Frontier.”
Elsewhere, “Coming Home” might just be the greatest ballad Maiden ever conjured, balancing heavy and light with the sturdiest of melodic shifts as well as its most Lizzy-esque, and yet proggy, twin lead. Later, the journey that is “Starblind” supports the lightly applied aerospace theme as well as the record’s novel rhythms and high-quality riffs, while “The Talisman” finds the band utilizing its gallop in a comfortable, dependable manner, further demonstrating that the transitions between verse, pre-chorus, and chorus all over this record are logical and seamless in serving some of the band’s easiest-drinking long excursions.
“El Dorado,” the first single taken from The Final Frontier, released June 2010.
However, “When the Wild Wind Blows,” rated highly by fans, to my mind, is overrated, rehashing ideas from the Blaze-era albums and Brave New World, albeit improving substantially with the shift to what is almost a new song—texturally sophisticated and melodically new for Maiden—at the halfway point.
Whether it’s the heavy contribution of Adrian Smith, Maiden’s most civilized use of keyboards, or Nicko McBrain, relentless, on fire, and doing what he does best and captured live by Shirley, The Final Frontier is a further step beyond the two preceding albums. And those records already quietly bettered Brave New World, which still gets all the press due as the album on which Bruce returned after an eight-year absence.
Performed live at various points were “When the Wild Wind Blows,” “El Dorado,” “Satellite 15 … The Final Frontier,” “The Talisman,” and “Coming Home.” Reinforcing the idea these were the songs of which the band was most proud, “When the Wild Wind Blows,” “El Dorado” (Grammy winner for Best Metal Performance!), and “Coming Home” would earn spots on the twenty-three-track From Fear to Eternity compilation issued the following year. Over time, it has clearly come to pass that “Coming Home” is the gift that keeps giving, the emotionally connecting gem from this record, although “El Dorado” takes care of business on the other end, headbanging band and fan alike back to the magic of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
A poster advertising one of the first Final Frontier shows at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Woodlands, Texas, June 11, 2010.
Portraits of Gers, Smith, and Harris at the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest, July 6, 2010.
MARTIN POPOFF: Let’s start with the sequencing of this record, because an interesting thing takes place there, correct?
SEAN KELLY: For sure, there’s a clear division between the front half and the back half. The first half, aside from the kind of weird intro with “Satellite 15,” you’ve got “Final Frontier,” “El Dorado,” “Mother of Mercy,” “Coming Home,” and “The Alchemist,” which all are kind of digestible, short, punchy tunes. And then the back end is where you have to put in the commitment [laughs]. My favorites are definitely the front-half songs. I know people really enjoy the more progressive stuff, and I do, too, but I come from a punchier, early hard-rock background.
JIMMY KAY: Yes, and in that respect, it strikes me as a combination of Brave New World and A Matter of Life and Death, where Matter of Life and Death was more the epic nine-, ten-minute songs, where everything would start slow and go into a mid-pace groove, and then go faster, and then slow again. But Brave New World is more straightforward, or at least it makes more of an impression with the shorter songs, and so the first half of this record reminds me more of Brave New World. Also, there are a lot fewer guitar harmonies than on most Iron Maiden albums.
A poster for the 2010 Sonisphere Festival, with Maiden—as ever—at the top of the bill.
Two further singles were taken from The Final Frontier: “Satellite 15 … The Final Frontier” and “Coming Home,” released August and October 2010, respectively.
POPOFF: The album cover is quite striking.
KAY: Being a science fiction fan, I love it. This is Melvyn Grant and not Derek Riggs, and he gives the thing a Predator/Alien feel. And I feel it ties in with what is, at least, a loose concept of the album, which is journeys, and the journey to the New World, being lost in space, and even what happens in the second-to-last song, “The Man Who Would be King,” where he’s on a donkey going through the desert. There are all these journeys that tie in. I don’t know if they did it consciously, but there’s a theme there.
Maiden’s own jet, Ed Force One, comes in to land at Domodedovo International Airport, Moscow, Russia, February 10, 2011.
POPOFF: I suppose it ties in most with the intro situation, “Satellite 15 … The Final Frontier.” Were you surprised how this record begins?
KELLY: Yes, “Satellite 15” is a weird one. It’s not Nicko playing at the top—that’s an Adrian Smith demo they just kind of lifted off his computer. The beginning is four and a half minutes of this mechanical thing, which is so not Maiden. And Bruce is singing way back in the production—which goes with the lyrics, right? The whole “lost in space” motif. But it’s such a relief when you get to Nicko’s playing, his sense of time, and the straightforwardness of the chording. I love it; it’s so powerful. It makes me appreciate the front half because it sounds so good when they kick into the straight-ahead groove.
KAY: The first song is called “Satellite 15” because it’s their fifteenth album, but beyond that, yes, it ties in with the cover and the title track. I think it would have been better to separate the tracks. Because you always have to fast-forward like four minutes to get to “The Final Frontier.” There are just so many intros that people can listen to. But it’s a cool intro. It’s basically about an astronaut—he’s off course, he’s lost, he’s heading toward the sun, he’s lived a great life, and he’s reflecting, wishing he could say goodbye to his family. That’s pretty much it. The music really captures that feeling of dizziness and confusion, what the guy’s feeling as his little ship is knocked off course. That’s the feeling you’re supposed to get, and they achieve that. Everything is planned.
By the way, lot of people thought that The Final Frontier would be the final album by Iron Maiden. Bruce was kind of feeding everyone that info. And everyone panicked. But it turned out to be more like feeding the media, creating controversy. “The Final Frontier” is Iron Maiden at their best—straightforward, melodic, verse-chorus-verse. I love it because it’s similar to Killers, where you have “The Ides of March” going into “Wrathchild.” And, oddly, there are no guitar harmonics. It’s just straightforward rock ’n’ roll, more like stacked chords than a riff.
POPOFF: Following “The Final Frontier” is the album’s one and only single, “El Dorado.” Pretty heavy for a single, but, then again, they used to go with some pretty fast songs.
KELLY: For sure, but this one’s really thick in terms of tones too. There’s a classic kind of Maiden gallop, but it’s framed differently. You’re right, it comes off heavier than most of this type, sort of Montrose-meets-Maiden or something. And you can tell when Bruce gets in on the lyrics. There’s a commitment. He sings with a different attitude than when he’s singing the kind of Harris epics. It’s almost like a Shakespearean actor taking it on. But when he sings the stuff I know he had a hand in, or I believe he had a hand in, he’s completely and utterly believable. He’s one of those guys you can just see needling politicians or priests, kind of digging at people.
Russian fans get ready to rock at the Olympiyskiy Sports Complex, Moscow, February 11, 2011.
POPOFF: This lyric was inspired by the late-2008 market crash and 2009 recession, the collapse of the housing bubble, and a pretty big drop in the stock market.
KELLY: Yes, but as usual, he rounds it off and makes it universal. He’s taking on Wall Street swindlers and snake oil salesmen. I just love the sneer he has when he has a bone to pick [laughs]. “You’ll be wanting a contract/You’ll be waiting a while” [laughs], and all that stuff about the illusion, the greed, lust, envy, pride, the smoke and mirrors. It’s the illusion of the ship is sailing, get on quick; you’ve got to buy into this thing I’m selling you or you’re going to miss out on the opportunity. Which is very telling of that time, economically. People were investing in these dreams without any kind of research, just kind of hoping for something, even though maybe it goes against their better judgment.
KAY: I think it’s kind of genius, the way Dickinson tells the story, using the mythical city of gold. He’s taking the perspective of the con man trying to recruit people on this boat to the city of gold that doesn’t exist. It’s a metaphor of today, how financial advisors try to take us down this path of gold that doesn’t exist, this fantasy, or of politicians trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. So, from a lyrical standpoint, Dickinson does a great job of telling the tale, and that’s what Dickinson does best.
People miss this, but there’s a nice nod to Marillion, a line that says, “I’m the jester with no tears/And I’m playing on your fears.” Dickinson—I don’t know if he’s a huge Marillion fan—but I definitely think it was a deliberate reference.
“El Dorado” is my favorite song of the album. It starts off like the beginning of a concert, and it ends with the same huge bashing windup, like the very end of a concert. And the middle is just incredible. You have the ending of the song, as it were, kicking things off and then into the track itself, into the thumping bass, into a nice sort of “Evil That Men Do” kind of vibe, and then a big chorus. I love the guitar work. If you listen to it on headphones, the guitars are in different places, all three of them.
Captain Bruce Dickinson disembarks in Bali, February 18, 2011.
KELLY: Yeah, agreed, killer track, but my favorite is “Coming Home.” To me, they just nail it, that heart-on-sleeve thing that Maiden does really well, often on the reunion albums. Amazing riff, this kind of harmonized, descending classic rock riff, along with the huge drive-home chorus. “Coming home” … I can’t figure out if it’s just about him flying a plane or if it has a loose connection to the space concept. But I can see Bruce as a pilot, that feeling of coming home and seeing the runway lights.
It’s a stadium anthem. You can feel everybody singing along. The best versions of these songs, by the way, are on that En Vivo! live album. I went back just to watch who did the solos, and I realized as I’m listening, oh man, these are the ultimate recordings of this stuff. I even find it sonically heftier than the album.
KAY: Here you have the great lyrics of Dickinson, the melody of Smith, and, of course, the strong songwriting of Harris. The beauty of this song is that it sort of summarizes that whole Flight 666 experience, as they were flying Ed Force One from country to country, all together on this plane. And this is how brilliant Dickinson is. He doesn’t use the word “airplane”—he uses the word “thunderbird,” a native word, and the lyrics touch down on the idea that, from the sky, everything is unified and ancient, almost. He doesn’t say England, he says “Albion’s land.” But beyond that philosophical contemplation throughout the song, it just conjures all these images of this wonderful flight experience.
Eddie and Janick trade blows at the Soundwave Music Festival at Olympic Park, Sydney, February 27, 2011.
POPOFF: Sean, as a guitarist and instructor, and having examined the En Vivo! video, what did you notice in terms of the distinction between these three guitarists?
KELLY: It’s kind of like dog owners and their dogs: eventually it’s hard to demarcate one from the other. I think that happened as time went on. But going back, the clear distinction between Adrian Smith and Dave Murray was that Adrian is a little more lyrical, composed, kind of played more to the chord changes. Some would say more melodic. I might argue against that, but he definitely plays more of an “inside” style.
Dave Murray has this really bluesy sound—very fast, very agile. And then Janick is just completely off the chain. I doubt very much that guy can play the same thing twice if you paid him. But he obviously has got a great vocabulary and a lot of facility. But it just sounds reckless. Which is exciting—I mean that in the best way.
During the time you had Dave and Janick playing together, but no Adrian, they’re both playing Strats. It got a little hard to separate, but really you could still tell. Because Dave took on a little more of Adrian’s role, more of the melodic thing. I hate to do those generalizations, because it’s not that Janick isn’t melodic, but he’s more on the edge. A little more like Jeff Beck than Clapton, to draw a parallel.
POPOFF: Did you notice anything interesting in terms of who was doing the solos?
KELLY: No, it just kind of highlighted the stylistic differences. But the one thing I did notice on Final Frontier is that Adrian seems to be incorporating more old-school influences. I think he went back and revisited, like, Stevie Ray Vaughan and maybe some Gary Moore; there seems to be more classic rock in his playing.
Also, because there are three guitars, it gets a little cloudy in terms of frequency. In the frequency spectrum, you kind of have to carve out your sonic identity. I noticed he was playing a Les Paul, which kind of separated him from the two Strat players. And even Dave Murray’s Strat is equipped with humbuckers in the neck and the bridge position, whereas I think Janick was more of a single-coil pickup player. So I just notice the sonic differences. That’s how they were able to distinguish and find their places in a very dense mix. Three guitars, man, that’s a tough thing to mix. There’s a lot of harmonics.
I did read that Adrian actually came up with new parts to play. So Janick kept Adrian’s old parts, and Adrian learned new parts to complement. That was on the older material when played live. But then what happens with Maiden is, whoever brings in the composition tends to take the lion’s share of the main riff and will even overdub themselves. So even though there are three guitar players, if there’s any overdubbing, the same player will overdub on the part they wrote. And that makes sense because it just tightens things up. Otherwise you can get a little loosey-goosey with articulation.
Dickinson climbs the stage at the Soundwave Music Festival, February 27, 2011.
POPOFF: Interesting. Back to The Final Frontier, anyone want to venture an opinion on some of the longer and more progressive songs here, songs toward the back half?
KAY: “The Talisman” is a great song. If I were to put a time stamp on it, I’d say it takes place between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. It’s a story of persecution, most probably religious persecution, as these refugees head west. You’re not quite sure who this group is, but you know they’re leaving in many ships, which Bruce oddly just numbers as “tenfold.”
But it’s a large group of people leaving their country for a better world, families sailing to the new world, escaping persecution. I get goosebumps when I read his lyrics because it hits home for a lot of us immigrants. I’m the son of immigrants; my parents came on a boat from Greece. But this is more primitive, because people are dying from scurvy and harsh conditions and Mother Nature in the form of storms. And the main character, strangely enough, probably dies as they near their destination, and yet the wording is subtle enough there’s a chance he’s survived, but just barely.
In terms of music, it’s another great song because, really, Steve Harris always creates a musical vibe. The beginning of the song has that acoustic guitar. As they’re boarding the ships, it has that folky, acoustic intro, and the vocals sort of follow the rhythm of the acoustic guitar. Then as the song progresses, it gets rougher and rougher as the seas get harsher. The reality of being in those harsh environmental conditions hits, and the music plays on the atmosphere of what’s happening on the stormy ocean.
KELLY: Even though I prefer the front end, the more compact kind of things, I love “Isle of Avalon.” It has this beautiful Adrian Smith guitar figure that reminds me very much of classical guitar. It’s simple but just very melodic, very thematic. And each of these components builds on the other. It’s an element Maiden has, because they don’t use a lot of different devices. It’s kind of like an acoustic arpeggiated intro that is either Steve Harris playing it on the bass or a clean guitar and/or an acoustic guitar.
And then there’s usually a heavier element brought in, like a heavy kind of straight-ahead stomp or gallop, and usually when that gallop happens, there’s a kind of Celtic motif. Honestly, when I was listening, I would go back and forth, and say, yeah, it’s variations on a theme. But all it does is drive home the narrative. They’re just ways of getting from part to part. And here they did that beautifully.
KAY: For sure, that’s another one—brilliant song. The song is about the Celtic myth of the island of Avalon, a magical place where immortals dwell and the departed spirits prepared to go to the other world. It’s the myth that tells that Avalon is a place where the magic sword of Excalibur was forged and where King Arthur went to recover from his mortal wounds. And it’s another journey, right? Steve’s lyrics are pretty oblique. Maybe it’s just a description of that area or that mythical place. Listen to the middle section carefully. At 5:18 to 5:37, it sounds like Rush, like something jazzy from Grace Under Pressure. The guitar tone is so Alex Lifeson in the Signals and Grace Under Pressure era, with the flanger effect on it. And it’s sort of a Geddy Lee bass too.
From Fear to Eternity, Maiden’s latest “best of” compilation, released in June 2011 following the conclusion of The Final Frontier World Tour.
POPOFF: There’s one late on the album that’s hard to figure out, but it’s a pretty cool, up-tempo rocker once it gets going, and that’s “The Man Who Would be King.”
KELLY: I’m not sure what’s going on there either [laughs], but musically that one has an amazing example of how Maiden would throw these sonic energizers into these epics. Because Steve obviously has a story to tell. And some time over the course of the story, you have to extend sections of the same musical progression. But, man, this one has almost a Jesus Christ Superstar feel that kicks in. And, actually, that’s the one Dave Murray credit on the album. It’s got this beautiful kind of melodic midsection and stuff like that; it’s like going to a musical or a play, where there’s this moment of levity or magic that makes all the stuff that came before it worthwhile and make sense. And that’s not easy listening. You then go back to appreciate the music that came before it because of this one thing that just brightens and brings light.
KAY: I agree—the lyrics there, I really don’t know what’s happening [laughs]. It’s about a man—he’s riding on a donkey; he killed somebody. This is an eye for an eye, so it’s either self-defense or payback. He had no choice. Why would he be king? I don’t know. It doesn’t really tell us much. Again, this is a track that would’ve fit well on A Matter of Life and Death. To my ears, it’s maybe the weakest track on the album—it kind of lost me.
Also a bit cryptic, come to think of it, is “Mother of Mercy.” It’s similar to “Afraid to Shoot Strangers,” speaking from the perspective of a soldier questioning war and everything he’s done. The mother of mercy is probably the Madonna or Mother Mary. Yet he goes back and forth from the mother of mercy to the angel of death. We don’t really know who the mother of mercy is, right?
POPOFF: Any thoughts on the last song on the record? “When the Wild Wind Blows,” to my mind, is incredibly Blaze era.
KELLY: Sure, I buy that. “When the Wild Wind Blows” is my favorite of the epics because it sounds like folk music, like true Celtic folk music. Which I think they did a lot of. They’re coming from a British folk tradition, really.
KAY: “When the Wild Wind Blows” is a Harris composition based on a pretty celebrated British animated film from 1986, but with a major plot difference at the end. An aging couple, they’re watching the news, and the news is saying the apocalypse is coming. And, as old people, you panic and you’re very dogmatic, right? And it’s in their heads, so for two weeks, they’re preparing a bomb shelter and they’re getting their food together. And then the news comes back on and says, “Well, it’s not as bad as we thought; it was just an earthquake.” But they manage to have had their poisoned tea and commit suicide because they believed the first reports. It’s just a bizarre story. The nuclear attack doesn’t materialize, but they kill themselves because the TV was telling them the end is near.
POPOFF: Yes, that film seems to have had a powerful effect on British people, in particular. Any closing thoughts? We didn’t really talk about the production.
KELLY: A lot of people bash Kevin Shirley—at least a lot of people I know. I’m a fan, because I think what he does is, he tries to capture the energy of the moment, the performance energy. When you go for that intention, things like sonic isolation and technically perfect vocals become secondary concerns. Because you’re trying to get something early on, right? You can hear that in the guitar parts, you can hear that in the vocal parts, and, yeah, it’s weird. It’s a bit of a noisy album—but good noisy. It’s not superclean. But these records have an energy I think produces a timelessness. It just takes a little bit of adjusting.
POPOFF: How significant is it that they went back to Compass Point in the Bahamas?
KELLY: Apparently everything was exactly the same as it was when they were there thirty years past—same carpet, same broken door. But I’m not sure it matters much. Technically, when you have a room that is somewhat sonically treated, because of the nature of how you record, which is on digital audio workstations, like, say, Pro Tools, fidelity can be universally pretty good. So I think that was more of an inspiration thing.
And I do know they never recorded with a click track. I would never, ever want to hear Nicko McBrain on a click track. It’s just not the way he plays. And it’s also not the way they arrange parts. Because these guys don’t demo their tunes. They’re going in and Steve Harris is there with a bass guitar, going, “Alright, I wrote this song, here’s the first part.” In total it’s eleven minutes, and he’s got it all in his head. But if he went through and tried to show that all at once, you’d forget what you did at the beginning. They would record chunks, which I think Kevin Shirley was saying provided a challenge, because with no click track, you have to punch in with the same type of feel and the same tempo.
But what’s cool about Maiden, you hear and watch something like “The Trooper,” when they count themselves in … most bands count in to set the tempo of the song—“One, two, three, four.” With Maiden, counting is just a way to start [laughs]. It has nothing to do with the tempo of the tune. I remember seeing them do “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and there’s like this fifteen-second pause, and then suddenly all the guitars come in on a pitch-black stage. How do you do that?! You do that by being a band for years and years [laughs].
Iron Maiden on stage at the Estadio Nacional in Santiago, Chile, on October 2, 2013, midway through the band’s lengthy—and lucrative—Maiden England tour, which ran from 2012 to 2014.