Dani Arcos, guitarist with Spanish melodic death metal band Bloodhunter, told us about his love for a Maiden lick...
Dani Arcos: If I had to choose one riff that really blew my mind, I’d probably go with the instrumental section in “Phantom of the Opera” by Iron Maiden, when the bass comes in and the twin guitars start building that melody on top. It’s simple on paper, but the atmosphere it creates is something special.
The funny thing is that I don’t even remember the first time I heard it. I must have been three or four years old. My uncle used to blast Live After Death at my grandmother’s house, usually in a dark room with the lights low. When that part of the song came on, it felt like being transported somewhere else — somewhere dark and mysterious. As a kid, it honestly felt like traveling to hell.
For years I had that melody stuck in my head without even knowing what song it came from. Then one day, when I was already a teenager, a friend bought that Iron Maiden album and suddenly I heard it again and thought, “That’s it!” From that moment on I was obsessed with learning how to play it.
Technically it’s not a complicated part, but to make it sound right you need to play it very clean. When I first tried to learn it on guitar, it forced me to focus on muting the strings properly, playing legato lines smoothly and keeping everything precise. In that sense it was actually a great early lesson for me as a guitarist.
For me, that section still feels like walking down a rainy street in a cold city at night.
And of course, the twin-guitar harmonies that Iron Maiden perfected shaped the way I think about music. You can hear that influence in many BLOODHUNTER songs (e.g. at The Outspoken chorus). I’ve always loved the sound of two guitars interacting, building melodies and trading solos, something you rarely get with just one guitarist.
In the version that lives in my head, it’s Dave Murray and Adrian Smith playing those lines together, and that sound probably helped me discover the music I would end up loving for the rest of my life.
Bloodhunter's "The Outspoken" is out now.
Photo by @javierbragado
