“I was terrified when I first went on stage – but I thought, ‘You’d better get your arse up there’”: Adrian Smith recounts joining his first band with Dave Murray
Rockstars face plenty of challenges on their path to success. After mastering your instrument, there’s touring, chart battles, keeping fans satisfied… but none of it is possible if you clam up on stage. Stage fright can be the toughest battle of all – and it’s something Adrian Smith is still working to overcome.
Nowadays, the Iron Maiden guitarist regularly riffs in front of thousands. However, in a new interview with Classic Rock, Smith recalls the butterflies he felt before his very first live performance, fronting the band Urchin.
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“I was terrified when I first went on stage, but I thought: ‘If this is what you want to do, mate, you’d better get your arse up there,’” he says.
The band also featured Adrian Smith’s future Iron Maiden bandmate, Dave Murray. At the time, Smith was keen to impress Murray at any cost. “I wanted to get in with Dave, so I said: ‘I’ll sing,’” he says. “I had no idea if I could sing or not, but I did it, and I learned to play guitar as I went along.”
While Smith is now a bona fide rockstar, he admits the nerves never fully went away. When he joined Iron Maiden in 1980, he still felt anxious before performing. The nerves were particularly strong when considering his competition. “I found it intimidating,” he says. “Guys like Richie Kotzen and Tony MacAlpine and Blues Saraceno, they’re way beyond you technically. But I’ve always been like that.”
“I remember Maiden’s manager sitting down with us in the mid-’80s and saying: ‘We’re going to tour Europe this year, and Michael Schenker’s opening for us,’” he recalls. “I was like: [alarmed] ‘Jesus. Really? I’ve got to go on after Michael Schenker?!’ That caused me a few sleepless nights.”
The sleepless nights can also return if you go cold-turkey for a few years. In 2022, over 50 years since his live debut, Smith was worried about getting up on stage. The year would see the Smith/Kotzen band embarking on their first tour – and Smith was scared.
“I had anxiety,” he says. “I hadn’t sung on stage for twenty years, since I had my solo projects in the 1990s. But I just had to get up there and do it. And at least I had someone to share vocals with. Carrying a whole show on your own is hard!”
Hopefully Smith isn’t feeling too nervous about Iron Maiden’s Run For Your Lives world tour, as there’s still plenty of dates to check off. He’s also got another Smith/Kotzen album out on Friday which could see him embarking on tour with Kotzen again soon.
Smith/Kotzen’s Black Light, White Noise will be released on 4 April, with singles Black Light and White Noise respectively already available.
The post “I was terrified when I first went on stage – but I thought, ‘You’d better get your arse up there’”: Adrian Smith recounts joining his first band with Dave Murray appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
