Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith may be a member of one of the biggest metal bands in history, but he’s also got a quietly experimental streak – something proved by Primal Rock Rebellion, his 2012 collaboration with Mikee Goodman, frontman of British tech-metal pioneers SiKth. We sat down with the two of them ahead of their first – and to date – last album to find out how this odd couple came together.
In an era where Metallica can hook up with the frontman of The Velvet Underground to record an album so cataclysmically ridiculous that it’ll be talked about under cautious facepalms for decades to come, there isn’t much cause to be surprised when it comes to unlikely collaborations these days.
And yet here we are, sitting in a cafeteria in North London as Hammer scratches its head and stares, slack-jawed and confused at the two men sat opposite. One is best known as the frontman in SiKth, one of the most influential metal bands of the last decade, and a musical force of nature that, perhaps – more than any other UK band – can be held responsible for the meteoric rise of the so-called ‘djent’ movement in 2011. The other person sitting with us has influenced a few bands too, apparently. He plays guitar in Iron fucking Maiden. Wait, what?
“We’ve actually been writing songs together for about six years,” reveals legend Adrian Smith, who wrapped up the latest chapter in Maiden’s career with the culmination of the Final Frontier tour in 2011. “Obviously, I’ve been touring and there’s always been one thing or another happening, but in the downtime between touring we’ve been writing!”
Alright, hold up. Two unlikely artists that happen to have a mutual admiration for each other’s work is one thing, but it’s difficult to imagine two worlds further apart than the ones inhabited by Adrian and Mikee Goodman. Maiden certainly can’t be accused of being out of touch with modern metal (there’s their own musical evolution, and the huge variation of their support acts), but it’s still unexpected to find a guitarist of Adrian’s stature and reputation crossing paths with Mikee, whose profile has been under the radar since SiKth ceased to be in 2008. And no, you’re not the only one wondering how this weird pairing came about.
“Adrian rang me up and asked me if I fancied jamming with him,” explains Mikee, still draped in his trademark dreads. “I said ‘yes’, and we basically took it from there.”
Call us presumptuous, but that sounds pretty straightforward. As easy at that?
“Yeah, it’s probably pretty forward for me,” agrees Adrian with a shrug. “I’m pretty laid back, and at the time it was never supposed to turn into an album or anything like that. I actually had some ideas in rough form and thought I’d see what Mikee could come up with, and it turned out to be very interesting! What he came back with is fresh, something different.”
Different is definitely the word. From the sinister, neo-industrial opening seconds of No Friendly Neighbour, it’s pretty damn clear that the pair’s debut album, Awoken Broken, isn’t going to be The Wicker Man rehashed 10 times over with some token gnarly growls sprinkled over the top for laughs. While Adrian’s unmistakable tones are still present and correct, and disciples of Mikee’s work will find his voice as deranged and delightfully wretched as ever – with some cheeky backing vocals from Adrian thrown in on occasion for good measure as it happens – Awoken Broken is very much its own beast.
And in all honesty, it takes a few concerted listens to gauge exactly what kind of beast it is. From the thrashy, galloping No Place Like Home to the brooding, viola-led Tortured Tone and the chunky, scatterbrain riff-off of I See Lights, Adrian weaves in and out of styles and moods that many wouldn’t immediately associate with his style. And yet – and perhaps this is where Primal’s success will ultimately lie – it’s never alienating or forcefully ‘quirky’. Despite this, it’s still a fair shout that Awoken Broken sounds unlike anything else you’re likely to hear this year and, as Mikee explains, the album’s impressive versatility is a reflection of the unusually lengthy period afforded the duo to bring everything together.
“We actually took a year out,” continues the singer. “I was still doing SiKth and Adrian was still doing his thing – obviously – and it just kept coming and going. We had a little period where we wrote six songs. That was quite intense, but it’s been cool, because we’ve been able to hone stuff in a different way, and lyrically I’ve been able to develop over six years. These songs all have a real meaning to them, and I’ve been writing in quite a universal way, so that metaphorically you can go to a lot of different places within them. I can still sing them with as much passion and emotion as I could six years ago.”
For a man who fronted a band as recklessly forward-thinking and influential as SiKth, the suggestion that Primal Rock Rebellion has provided a whole new kind of venture for Mikee shouldn’t be taken lightly. Lest we forget, SiKth were a band whose blend of progressive songwriting, immense technical prowess and earth-shatteringly heavy grooves has emerged as a driving influence for everyone from Tesseract and Periphery to Textures and Xerath. Frankly, there are genuinely few bands around today that have contributed as much to the direction of metal over the past 10 years as the Watford crew, and it’s perhaps credit to Adrian’s own awareness and willingness to experiment that he took a risk and decided to make that phone call.
“I saw right away that he wrote a lot about urban culture, youth culture and violence,” says Adrian of Mikee’s unique approach to songwriting and urbanised lyrical standpoint. “That inspired me to create moodier songs like No Friendly Neighbour, which has an ominous intro and stuff. Then I might come up with a piece of music that would inspire Mikee lyrically.”
“Yeah, definitely,” agrees his partner. “Lyrics come about in a few different ways. Adrian could give me something and I’d be like, ‘Ah, that reminds me of this thing I’ve been thinking about.’ I found it really productive.
“There was a period where we really got stuck in and wrote four songs and thought, ‘Right, we’ve really got to get an album out, now,” remembers the guitarist. “We were going to do an EP, but no one really does EPs any more, so we went for a full-length!”
As Mikee keenly notes, he’s certainly learned some new tricks of his own through working with a seasoned pro like Adrian, and he’s come to realise how important it is to occasionally take a back seat and make room for constructive criticism when the time calls. That’s something that – perhaps surprisingly given his humble nature – Mikee openly admits he wasn’t used to dealing with.
“No one’s ever sat down with me and gone, ‘Why don’t you try doing this?’” he muses. “Maybe I just wouldn’t listen to them. When I was in SiKth I was always like, ‘I know what I’m doing. Just give me the music and I’ll do it.’ I think that’s why it worked in SiKth, because there was such friction that everyone was really intensely into what they were doing. With Adrian, he might say, ‘Maybe try this key or work your voice like that.’ That worked both ways in the way I was with Adrian as well – when we got a viola in there I went bleedin’ mental!”
While Mikee is evidently extremely enthusiastic about getting stuck into a project like this – and interestingly, Adrian is keen to assert that Primal Rock Rebellion is definitely designed to be seen as a project, stating firmly right off the bat that this is “not a band” – it becomes increasingly clear through talking to the Maiden guitarist that Awoken Broken serves as a real release for him. It’s a chance for Adrian to flex his creative muscles far harder and more freely than we’re used to seeing from him and a chance to venture beyond the boundaries that working a day job with two other brilliant guitarists and the tireless machine that is Steve Harris will inevitably impose.
“I’m knocked out with it,” Adrian beams. “I think it’s great; it’s an aggressive, melodic style of new metal, and people think it’s fresh and something different. I enjoy the process of writing, I love playing, and Mikee’s even shown me a lot about Pro Tools and stuff like that, so it’s been a lot of fun. I don’t see why we couldn’t do something else down the line.”
Without wanting to dip toes too far into the age-old ‘old dog/new tricks’ cliché, it’s nonetheless refreshing to see that Adrian is just as open as Mikee to learning a few new techniques and taking on a couple of different perspectives from his partner. Perhaps unsurprisingly, neither man is keen to commit to anything beyond the immediate future, either within Primal – “we’ll do another video if someone can give us some more money!” jokes Mikee – or in their individual careers. But with Mikee’s return to the spotlight coming hot on the heels of the explosion of djent and its new tech metal cousins, we can’t help but ask what he makes of his band’s many descendents and imitators…
“We had our own thing going on in SiKth,” he answers, rather diplomatically. “Our own vibe. It’s good that’s carried on. I’m glad people still want to hear it and are still talking about it today – it means we did something right.”
Fair comment. And how about Maiden, Adrian? Any news other than this summer’s US tour?
“Ahhhhhh, I can’t say!” he replies with a smirk. “There’s nothing finalised yet, put it like that.”
Spoilsport. We guess we’ll have to make do with what is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating and unanticipated collaborations in recent memory. There’s no dubstep, no dance remixes and no crabby old bloke moaning over the top, but damn, it’s still got us scratching our heads.
Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 229, March 2012
