Μια απίστευτη ευχή μας έγινε πραγματικότητα. Σας παρουσιάζουμε περήφανα μια άκρως αναλυτική και πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα, αποκλειστική συνέντευξη του Denni Stratton, του κιθαρίστα των Iron Maiden στον ομώνυμο δίσκο, σε ερωτήσεις των μελών μας, του Iron Maiden the Greek FC.

Hi to everyone in Greece and all the fan of Iron Maiden and Denis Strutton, that’s who ‘s here, Denis Strutton to say hello toall the Greek people and the greek fans .I’m gonna try and answer some of your questions,I don’t know about all of them but let’s say we go on.

Dimitri: name your influences. Well Dimitri many many years ago in the early 70s I was influenced by a band called Wishbone sh, because I was very very influenced of the harmony guitar work and...

I basically copied that harmony guitar sound with one of my first bands,which was RDB,the band before that had keyboard players so it was pretty awkward with the keyboards a little bits of yes came in and long distance runaround, little harmony but the most important band in the 70s, the early 70s was RDB, Remus Down Boulevard, we followed Wishbone Ash capably around myself and ,which took the harmony guitars to the limit on RDB and that’s why I took it to Iron Maiden in 1979 as they only had one guitarist. The harmony guitar stuff did work I think you can tell by the way they are still using it now with  3 guitars but that was the idea of going into to make the beat with the Iron Maiden early songs.

Now my influences are ... from Steve Lucather,from Toto,there are so many good guitarists out there so there’s a lot to listen and as the internet gets better and bigger then you are gonna get more guitarists coming out from wood work so yeah there are basically my influences.

If I was in Iron Maiden today, I’d probably be dead Gianni, I’m not sure, it’s a hard question to answer, if I was in Iron Maiden today I don’t know it would be very hectic, I am a... by now, it’s calm down a lot, it was quite hectic in the early days so I can’t really imagine myself , I think I’d still be doing backing vocals, I’d still putting as many harmony guitar licks into the songs and I suppose by now I would try to be writing stuff, songs in Maiden which I think will approach a little bit later.

My favorite Iron Maiden album except  from the  1^st one, haha Gianni, it’s got to be, I think I’m not sure, it’s got to be the 3^rd of 4rth album, the one ,I don’t know what the title is, because I’ve been working so much with other bands and I don’t keep tracking things but I think their most commercial is the one Run to the Hills,666,the Trooper, you know they got so many tracks in it, so you know that’s all the stuff I like, not too heavy but still got catchy lick you know the Trooper.

I’m not sure if I announce the name, Elias, not sure, very sorry if it’s wrong, would like to be one of the three amgos today, well to be honest with you I went to the O2 Arena, Steve Harris called me last August and invited me down to the O2 Arena to catch up, cause I haven’t seen him for many years and we still are quite close, and my children grew up with Steve’s children, and my daughter Carly looked after his kids in America around 1992,o we are still quite close, we talk on the phone all the time about West Ham, whether we are winning  or losing, I went to the O2 Arena and I thought ,I wasn’t a lover of the new material I must admit, but I just thought that with Dave and Adrian on the one side and Janick on the other side it was a bit separate, it didn’t look like three amigos team, it looked like 2 in 1, and I’m not sure if I was one the three guitarists  today , I think I would be there with Dave or Adrian or whoever the ... Were but I would be closer to the way you see the old photographs in the early days of Dave, Steve and myself all three up in front and that’s the way I would like it because that puts a message across to the fans, there is a closeness in the line up. Now , I have not been asked back, I think they’ve moved on too far now, my daughter said to Steve at the O2 Arena ,are you gonna get the old man up to play and Steve said laughingly and very jokingly that there is enough old men on the stage at the moment and we don’t need another one which was quite funny.

If I was asked to return would I do it, Giorgos, George, is easier for me, of course because it would be silly to turned it down but I’ve just said in the last question if I was asked to return I would like to be closer I’d like to be more bonding rather than separation, and yeah I don’t see a problem because of a joke the other days,afew months ago that Adrian Smith was going to take a year off to concentrate on his solo album and I had some fans e-mailing me,and facebooking me and texting me saying am I going to get my red leather trousers out, I called Steve and I just told him about the messages and he texted me back and he said, if you are gonna take your red leather pants out,I better get my black and white stripped ones out too, so it was a bit of a joke, very funny but of course you couldn’t turn it down, they are a massive band

Niko,nikos, it’s not nikos mcbrain isn’t it? anyway do I like today’s sound and competitions, compositions, sorry, I’m not, I don’t got my glasses on, I do like the sound, they’ve gone very digital, very high tech, with the effects  that are using on the guitars which are quite like but the compositions are a little be limited and I think that’s because Steve is probably writing most of the stuff, most of the songs, I would like to see a few other people writing to give more of a wider selection of songs but yeah I do like it , it’s always a good sound and live is a good sound too.

Do I think that the band must return to the original sound? Nikos, I think if they are going to return to their original sound they have to write songs like Phantom of the Opera, and sort of Iron Maiden,Sanctuary, I’m not sure , the original sound was very analog, I think as time moves on old bands experiment with new equipment whether or not it won’t go back to the old analog sound the warmer sound apart from digital, I think they are doing quite well now, won’t you?

Unfortunately Clive is not too good , it’s a sad sad situation,elias I’m not so sure, I went to see Clive a couple of months ago with Dave Lights and Pete my old roadie, and it was sad because Clive ,is in a very bad wire in the moment, he can’t move very much, he moves his eyes and it’s a sad sad loss because we’ve been mates since I got in the Iron Maiden, so it’s sad to see one of your long term friends sitting in a chair, not being able to move, because of of the MS (multiple sclerosis)

The albums I am currently listening to, well funny enough I’ve been listening not so many big bands, some outlined coming bands I like, I think what you are saying is mainly the bands I like listening to, is definitely Journey, as everyone knows, is definitely Foreigner, Toto, Whitesnake, it’s all the original my old mates and people I love listening to, I’ve been listening to Luca from Clairvoyants, I’ve been listening to his solo album which is absolutely mindblowing, it’s all instrumentals, but after playing with him for 6 years in Italy, I didn’t realize what a fantastic guitarist is and I love listening  as you know Joe Satriani, all the clever bastards, but yeah any new album from Journey, anything comes out, I’m listening to all rock stations here all the time, so you got to listen the new releases.

What are my future music plans, well a couple of people in Italy got me round and been asking me to do a solo album but I’m not sure whether or not I would do that, I’m doing quite a lot of festivals now, in Italy, Germany, France, Holland, doing one in Holland with my mate at Praying Mantis, I’ll be getting on playing with them, a couple songs that we wrote together, a few years ago, I’m not sure, I’m still working so hard with some other bands in England and we are working all the time as you know , you can see on facebook so I’m no sure whether I’ll do this album or not cause sometimes is more hard work and more trouble than people realize so we’ll see about that,anyway…

How does it feel to play 30year old songs, I must admit when we went to see Iron Maiden in O2 Arena last August, the biggest cheer they got from the crowd in O2 Arena ,were the old songs so I think they stand out themselves, we still do this Iron Maiden conventions around Europe, and playing the old songs ,when you are playing with good musicians it’s just like playing with the real band ,you know, It still gives you a buzz when up there and there is a new generation of fans come around to see you.

And how important do I think the NWBHM was..it was very important wasn’t it?because you can see for yourself, the bands were really struggling, they were really trying to break through, that gave them the chance to break through , you know, with us, with RDB,we were touring even before we heard of Iron Maiden we were touring in 1975/76 and what happened in England, when the punk scene came on, just couldn’t get look in, because the punk bands seem to take over and it was easier to market them because everyone was into it, so yeah the NWBHM brought young bands such as Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, you can still see Saxon still going, so yeah very very important.

Tell me everything about the Clairvoyants…ok 6 years ago I was asked to go over and do an Iron Maiden convention in Milan and I met these guys, The Clairvoyants ,fantastic band and they were working on their first album six years ago, so yeah I got on the stage and then we go through a 50 minutes set of most of their first album and a couple of their second album, so basically they go on stage and do one hour, they can to whether their own material and then I go on as their guest, special guest, and I do the last 45-50 minutes absolutely brilliant , great musicians and so they are still going there, and it’s a great scene in Italy.

I left school in 15, well basically I left school in 14.5, it was the youngest age you could leave school, It was Easter and I went straight into the docks, my father, grandfather and uncle all worked in the docks, in engineering, and went on the docks working on ships at 15. I started play the guitar when I was mid 16 so I was in one year in apprenticeship in engineering and I was learning to play the guitar from the age of 16 to 20, I carried on working in the docks on the ships, I thoroughly enjoyed it, great great job, marine engineering, and learned a lot, met a lot of nice people, lived good experiences but the guitar took over, I left the docks when I reached 20 and it was then when I got involved with Dave Edwards, johny Richardson and lined up RDB an off we went, I imagine I must have been 22-23 years old and off we went all over Europe and Scandinavia, with Quo, which was a lot of experience learned in a very short time, so yeah that was good.

The management of Iron Maiden, Basically me and Rod didn’t see eye to eye, Rod didn’t like the music I listened to and when I wasn’t with the band he didn’t like the music I listened to in my hotel room,or when I was travelling in the bus or a car, he had the impression that I wasn’t into the band , I wasn’t heavy metal as 100% as everybody else, but what he didn’t  realize is that I still had a little bit more experience than him, by working with quo 2 or 3 years, so I knew how to switch off I knew what music to listen to, to relax, so basically he said to me we cant’s criticize your work , you are absolutely brilliant on what you do, but it’s your free time that you listen to this kind of music, is very worrying him, we didn’t see eye to eye and we end up to disagreement, and that was the end of it, so unfortunately it was sad , you know, he did apologize in 1994, in Los Angeles, when he said to me, he then understood why you had to switch off when you weren’t working, so…

Please give a message to IM Greek FC

All I can say is I’ve been to Greece at least 6 times , all the islands , I love it, is of my favorite places to visit for holiday, I would love to come over and make some festivals there, I never actually got the chance with Praying Mantis ,I think once , I’m not sure but I would love to come over and play , do the Iron Maiden set with different bands and what can I say it’s such a lovely country to visit an please sell out euro?? Because it’s a shame all that is going through, financial state, we need to get everything working and rock n roll , so any promoters out there would love to get me over there to play, you got my e-mail address, you’ve got my name and number and you’ve got this message

Lot’s of love to all you fans in Greece the IM Greek FC, keep rocking and keep faithfull and I’ll speak to you soon. Love you.

Listen to the exclusive interview here:

and listen to the personal message of Dennis Stratton to all the members of the Greek Iron Maiden FC:

ironmaidenfc.gr