# Iron Maiden’s Nicko McBrain Recalls Spinal Tap Moments Touring for ‘Somewhere in Time’

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/iron-maidens-nicko-mcbrain-recalls-spinal-tap-moments-touring-for-somewhere-in-time/
- Published: 2026-11-13T15:34:10+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-13T22:52:22+00:00
- Original publisher: Rolling Stone
- Original article: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/iron-maiden-nicko-mcbrain-hello-boys-girls-book-excerpt-1235655225/
- Topics: Music

## Key points

- McBrain recounts disagreements during *Somewhere in Time*.
- Adrian Smith supplied two of the album’s singles.
- The synthesizer-using record outsold *Powerslave*.

## Summary

Nicko McBrain recalls the making of Iron Maiden’s 1986 album *Somewhere in Time* and the tour that followed, describing creative disagreements and the band’s increasingly ambitious production. His account shows how the group balanced Steve Harris’s direction with new ideas, including guitar synthesizers, as it responded to changes in mid-Eighties rock.

McBrain says Bruce Dickinson brought acoustic songs to the Bahamas sessions, but Harris rejected them; Adrian Smith then contributed “Wasted Years” and “Stranger in a Strange Land”. The band recorded in the Netherlands and mixed the album in New York, while Harris drew on film and ancient history for inspiration. Though some fans objected to the synthesizers, the album outsold *Powerslave*; the book also covers McBrain’s life and his departure from touring in 2024 after a stroke.

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