Adrian Smith
Pull a thread
The Two Songs Nicko McBrain Would Come Back For Are Both Adrian Smith's
Iron Maiden’s drummer says he’d record again, but only for “something more simple.” The two tracks he names are from Somewhere in Time*, released 29 September 1986, and both were written by the guy covering for a bandmate who had nothing left.*
The quote, and what everybody stopped reading after
In September 2026, Metal Hammer’s Matt Mills asked Nicko McBrain whether he’d ever record with Iron Maiden again. The answer ran in the magazine’s own site on 13 September, and the headline half of it travelled everywhere: “If Iron Maiden went into the studio, I’d be delighted to get back on with them. But it’d have to be something more simple really.”
Two Blank Credit Lines: Why Bruce Dickinson Wrote Nothing on Somewhere in Time
Iron Maiden’s sixth album turned 40 on 29 September 2026. The singer’s name appears on none of its eight songs, and the reason has nothing to do with the reason his name was missing four years earlier.
The album with a hole where the singer should be
Open the sleeve of Somewhere in Time and count the writing credits. Steve Harris takes four: “Caught Somewhere in Time”, “Heaven Can Wait”, “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” and “Alexander the Great”. Adrian Smith takes three, including the one everybody knows. Dave Murray and Harris share “Deja-Vu”. Bruce Dickinson takes none. That is the whole album: eight songs, and the man singing every word on it wrote none of them.