Music

Our deep dive into Senjutsu continues, with discussion on specific tracks, the mix, Bruce’s voice, the different styles on the album, Paul’s alternate title for the record, lyrical content, which song(s) would improve the album by staying home, colonialism, Dave Murray’s excellence as a guitarist, the overwhelming gratitude for having a 17th studio album and the odds on studio album 18, what Senjutsu songs will likely be featured live, and of course, why these songs are too long.

We finally properly start tackling the songs in sequence. For a while anyway. Topics include the strength of Nicko’s drumming on this record, the sound of the synth samples, why Adrian doesn’t still use guitar synth, why the guitar is always doubling the vocal melody, Janick’s strengths and weaknesses, the middle channel traffic of the mix, and of course, why these songs are too long.

This episode audio starts without preamble, as we jump right into the middle of a conversation, as Paul relates first getting into Maiden and we talk a little bit about songs that are hard to listen to as they are so closely tied to our good friend. Finally after about 5 minutes I properly introduce Paul and what we’re doing.As far as the album goes, we discuss the title, Sun and Steel beer, Paul’s wonderfully over the top Maiden jeans vest (“battle jacket”), where Janick & Dave shop, why this album is far too long, and skip around a bit on discussing the songs, largely as pertains to song length.

In honor of my late friend John’s birthday, I share possibly the dorkiest story of our teenage years. How dorky? A CD changer is the main player (heh heh) in this story…

“Ah Ha! Ha! Ha! Haaaa! Maybe I can get out of here now! Oh, this is Nicko’s ‘not a lot of people know that, number ten’. When I finish this I can go home! Ahahaha! Ah oh, why do I want to go home? Oh I don’t know, I’ve been in here so long, oh I’m stuck to the chair and all that kind of good stuff. And I’ve had so much fun mumbling on to you guys and telling you jokes and all that stuff, and this is the last one! Well at least I can go and have a bath. Hmmmmm, it’s about that time of the year anyway. Hahahaha!”