ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JULY 22, 2012
By Steve Newton
Countless old-school rockers, when asked what inspired them to take up music in the first place, point to seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show back in 1964. But the transcendent sight of the Fab Four invading America wasn’t what got Iron Maiden guitarist David Murray to devote himself to a life in the earbusting arts.
As the 55-year-old picker explained from Detroit the other day–when he called to promote his band’s July 29 Vancouver show–it was a much heavier sound that caught his ear as a kid and refused to let go. As a troubled teenager in London, England, he heard Jimi Hendrix’ “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” on the radio and everything changed.
“I heard that in the car way back,” he recalls, “and it was an inspiration, really. You know you hear something–an instrument–and you can’t quite figure out what it is. And so it was the wah pedal that really got me.”
After that life-altering experience Murray started delving into the music of Hendrix, and a year later, at 16, he started his first band. A few years after that he auditioned for Iron Maiden, and the rest is metal history.
For more from Murray–including his choices for fave Maiden guitar solo and album–see my full interview here.
To hear the full audio of my 2012 interview with Iron Maiden guitarist Dave Murray subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with the legends of rock.