FasterLouder.com.au caught up with IRON MAIDEN guitarist Adrian Smith while on the The Final Frontier World Tour recently.  Check out some of the conversation:

First off, congratulations to you and the rest of Iron Maiden for winning your first Grammy award (Best Metal Performance) for El Dorado from your new album, The Final Frontier. How does it feel to finally have that kind of recognition? Is that something that’s important to Iron Maiden?

I don’t know really. I kind of see us as having our own sort of niche. It’s a very simple connection with us and our fans and we’ve always kind of tried to bypass the business or corporate side of it. I don’t know that it’s that important to us, the Grammys, but it’s kind of nice to get that recognition. As a band, we just do what we do.

Did you and Bruce make the decision together to rejoin Iron Maiden?

“If only things were that black and white! It was quite complicated. I’m still not quite sure how it happened. It was just a kind of planets aligning – it just seemed like the right time. It’s just been great for me to do it second time around. Maybe do a few things differently than the first time. I certainly appreciate it more now.”

Upon your return to the band, how did you actually divide the guitar parts up with Janick Gers, who replaced you after you initially left the band? Did you flip a coin or play Scissors, Paper, Rock?

Not quite! We played Moonchild on the last tour, which is a bit of an uptempo number and not really my sort of forte – playing fast. Janick plays quite fast. So I said “Well you play that, that’s more your style”. So that’s how we work it out really. Quite often, if someone brings a song in and they’ve written the music already, they’ll take the main solo on it. Some of the songs have got three solos though but it’s about the song really. It’s not about individuals.

Read the entire interview here