 Jimmy K here, Metal Voice. Look at this. The Metal Voice shirts are now on sale, just go to the video description to find out on how you can purchase one. Metal! Welcome to the Metal Voice today on the show. Wow! This big special guest, our remaining guitarist and author, shall we call him author, of the book Monsters of River and Rock. Mr. Adrian Smith, how you doing Adrian? Yeah, good. Thanks. I'm good. So like I said, I'm calling from Canada and I know there's a little bit of Canada in your book and I guess, you know, there's a little piece of you and your family from Canada, right from Quebec. Yeah, my wife's grew up in Quebec, she grew up on Nuns Island, right on the river there. So yeah, I know it quite well. I've spent a lot of time in Montreal. Love it. Beautiful, beautiful. Alright, I'm a layman here, so I'm going to be gentle with me in regards to fishing, okay? First question, as I'm reading your book and I really did enjoy it, you got a little piece of music there, you got some travel, you got some fishing. Yeah. For me, what's the difference between an angler and a fisherman, just for the layman out there? Well, I suppose, broadly speaking, they're the same thing. I think an angler is into the finer points of it. Maybe he does it more for sport and puts them back. I think, you know, maybe a fisherman will be more of a hunter-gatherer, you know, catching fish and maybe eating them. I don't know if there is a difference, maybe that. You know, it's certainly in England, anglers, from the group I grew up with, the coarse anglers, you know, we put the fish back, you know, it's for sport. I mean, fish were caught during the Second World War, probably the First World War and took for the table, coarse fish. We call coarse fish anything that's not salmon or trout, you know, like, so we took in pike, perch, you know, stuff like that carp. So that's what we fished for. But of course, after the war, people still went fishing and, you know, just did it for pleasure, you know. So, you had fishing clubs and competitions with weight of fish and then put them back, you know. So that's sort of environment I grew up in. All right, so explain to the common fan then about this book in like 30 seconds or in a minute, you know. What's a summary of what are you going to experience when you read this book? Well, it's primarily a fishing book, but it's not overly technical. A lot of these stories about, a lot of the fishing stories and what happened around the fishing, traveling to and from the fishing, sometimes the fishing and the music literally cross lines like when making, doing the power sleeve album in the Bahamas at Compass Point Studios. I always take my fishing roll wherever it goes. I had some time off, I was fishing outside the studio in the Caribbean. I cast out and I got tangled up with another line. It turned out to be Robert Palmer, you know, from Addicted to Love, that guy who came running out on his balcony and told me off, you know, the car. So, you know, literally stuff like that, you know, the book's full of stories like that. Later on, Robert Palmer turns up, but he was in the studio this time when I was recording the solo to Power Slave. This is a whole other story, you know. So all these, all these things happened, you know, on my travels. So, you know, when I actually got the book, the physical copy, I was surprised there was so much music content in there. You know, there's, I would say, you know, it's 30 percent, you know, private stuff about me, personal and music stories, stories how we wrote certain songs, situations we found ourselves in in the studio, you know, and stuff like that as well as fishing stories and travel, of course. Yeah. So that's it, really. I mean, I've got good feedback from people who actually aren't Anglers, but having said that, there are a couple of hardcore, for one of the better word chapters about fishing for the hardcore fishermen. Yes, yes. All right, so this is the first thing I was thinking about as I'm going through your book. I'm thinking, I wonder what songs he wrote from Iron Maiden during his fishing trips. Do you get inspired, you know, so you're in, you know, the tranquility or you're in the moment of fishing and then you go, you know, I got this idea because I find it very peaceful, right, when you're fishing. I guess it could be. Absolutely. So what songs? That's the whole idea. Yeah. What songs inspired you to write, you know, I don't know, maybe it was Wasted Years, maybe it was, were there any specific songs that you got inspired by and then wrote? I can't say there was. I honestly can't say because when I'm fishing, as I say in the beginning of the book, you know, it's a Billy Connolly quote, fishing is meditation. Yeah. You know, so in other words, you just concentrate so much on the fishing, you forget everything else. And that's the idea, that's why it's relaxing. That's why it empties your mind. But it's fishing, it's a meditation with a punchline. So, you know, you have the excitement of, you know, occasionally catching a good fish. So I can't say occasionally I'll have a riff and I, I, I hurry home to put it down, but I can't think of any for any specific song. No, you know, I do, I do fishing to kind of get away and clear my mind really from, from work. All right. I was talking to a friend of mine and I guess in your book, you talk more of the Western part of Canada. But is there, have you done fishing in Quebec, you know, sort of the Eastern Ontario, Quebec side of things? And have you ever caught a, is it a muskelange? How do you pronounce that muskelange? Musky, yeah. Muskelange, yeah. I would love to catch one. They are a mysterious beast. They're very like a pike, but not quiet. I've never seen one. That is something I really would like to see. I've done a lot of fishing in the Montreal area, in the St Lawrence, around, around Nons Island, actually, for, for the smallmouth bass there. It's very good. That's an incredible place. I've done a little bit of fishing in Toronto. Last time we played down in Toronto, at the, I think it's the Molson Center is right on the lake there. And I went down for a soundcheck and after the soundcheck, I took my rod and wandered along the bank. But of course there was fans everywhere, but I had a, I had a sort of a UV mask, which I pulled up and I just went fishing in among the fans and they didn't know who I was, you know. So, yeah, but this is a chapter in the book about finishing the power slave tour, which was over 12 months long. And then just chilling out in, in, um, Western Canada up in Kamloops, and I took a float plane up into the interior there and just chilled out for about a month. I didn't do anything. I just fished. It was great. Yeah. Can I ask you a few maiden questions as I tossed them in with the fishing? Is that okay? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You talk about Eddie, you know, sort of a reluctant at first with Eddie. And then later on, you said, you know what? I think this is a good idea, having this sort of character, so this way we don't have to be in the spotlight, right? Well, exactly. Yeah, I could see, I could see the, I could see the, you know, the good things about it. But I mean, at first it was, um, you know, we see if these monsters come and run in on stage and bang it into you, you know, when you're trying to play a manager used to take us around the radio stations in the early days in America and cat it up. And he used to wear like an Eddie mask and go in and growling at everybody. And we like, I'll be like, oh my God, you know, but people remembered it, you know, they remember you. No matter what you do, it always comes back to the music. If you can attract as much attention as you like, you know, but if your music's not good, then it's, then it's not going to happen. But you know, luckily people liked our music too, but Eddie has definitely attracted attention over the years. And that's what you got to have, you know, you got to have something that, well, because we're content to, we're just musicians, you know, we like to just get up, play our music, record, and then, you know, and then sort of stay out of the spotlight, you know. So Eddie and he was just to do that because, you know, he's on the album covers and, you know, people are interested in him. So that suits me fine these days. So which album cover would you say is your favorite, your favorite, you know, drawing of Eddie or situation of Eddie? Which album cover would you pick as that is, you know, my favorite cover? I don't know really. The graphic ones, I'm not too keen on like killers and all that. But probably something like, you know, Brave New World was called, you know, incorporated the imagery, but it was a little bit more as we get older, we incorporate it a bit more subtly, you know, I like that a bit more artistically rather than graphic kind of horror of the early days. And here's my fishing question now. Why is carp so loved by anglers? Why is it the fish? At least that was what I read about the carp, you know, carp? I think I know the answer to that. Speaking to Americans and having fished in America and in Britain, I know the difference. The difference is, I know in North America, they're regarded as vermin, you know, by a lot of people, although there is, you have the American carp society and there's a lot of people getting into carp fishing and recognizing them for the sort of strong, very game fish they are. But in England, when I was a kid, they were probably out of all the species. They were the most hard to catch and the rarest, you just didn't, they weren't widespread in those days. Whereas in America, in certain parts of Canada, they're everywhere. They tend to overbreed and they're not very difficult to catch because there's so many of them. And also, where you get too many fish, they are stunted, so they don't grow as big, you know, although I know they are some big carp in America. So over here, you have very few carp who are very big and very, very hard to catch and that's how they achieve their legendary status here. And they have it in North America, I think that's why. But you know, that's the only thing I can think of. What about your relationship with the Clive, you know, rest in peace, Clive, you know, you had that friendship with him, he used to come with you on your fishing trips, I guess, in the earlier days. And then he departs, I mean, care to comment about, was it tough departing with Clive, you know, him leaving the band and all? Yeah, well, Clive and I used to share a room together. He was a great guy. He was a very funny guy. He was, let's say, he embraced the rock and roll lifestyle, maybe a little too much. And that's why, you know, why he ended up leaving the band, because he was a great drummer, you know, and a great guy. But he just, you know, it just got a bit much for him. And so we had to make a change. So that was very sad. It was very sad. And I know Bruce has said, subsequently, and I think he said at the time, you know, I wish we had more time to take time off. So he could have sought himself out. But we just didn't have the time then, because, you know, we'd finish one tour and go straight into another one. That's just the way you have to do it then. Tour, tour, tour. And, you know, the same thing happened with Paul Diano, you know, it's tough, you know, and nearly happened to me. You know, it can get on top of you. You know, young guy and you're out there, you've got to go out and, you know, perform every night. And, you know, mentally, it can be quite tough, because you have a lot of downtime as well, sitting around, you know, thinking about stuff in your hotel room or, you know, of course, you end up drinking too much. And then that spirals. And, you know, this is what happens. It's a funny old life, you know. It doesn't suit everybody. Yeah. I never saw Paul, but I did see Clive on the Number of the Beast tour in Montreal. And yeah, he was excellent. You know, it was to me, it hurt me when he left, you know, sort of like a part, like the maiden family is gone. But Nico is a great too. So I won't, you know, get too much into that. Yeah. Yeah. You were quoted and I guess I'm not sure where about Eddie Van Halen like years ago, if you ever was an influence on your guitar playing. And since the sad passing at Eddie Van Halen, do you have any comments about his passing? Very sad. I mean, probably him and Jimmy Hendrix had certainly in my lifetime, the biggest effects on the electric guitar. I loved his playing. Although, you know, when he came out, I'd already been playing five or six years. So, you know, if I'd have been starting out when I heard him, I would have just copied him, you know, like 99% of the other guitarists did, you know. But yeah, he was fantastic. I love to have met him. I came closer a couple of times, but I never met him. And I love his guitar sounding. If I've got a guitar and an amp and I'm just trying to get a sound, I probably use him as a reference point, you know. Yeah, very cool. The biggest fish you ever caught and what kind of bait did you use? I think it was in probably in Spain and they have these catfish out there, the European catfish called a Welles catfish, and they grow to over 200 pounds in weight. And I think we had them up to over 100 pounds. And we were using squid as bait. And the things literally, when they take off, they just pull, they'll pull you in the lake. They're that strong. Incredible fish. Thank you so much. Thank you, Agent, for the interview. All right. Thanks. Nice to have you too.