Martin Birch, who produced nine consecutive Iron Maiden albums – including records from Deep Purple, Rainbow and Black Sabbath – has died at the age of 71.
The news was confirmed by David Coverdale; Birch produced the first six Whitesnake albums. “It is with a very heavy heart that I have just verified that my very friend and producer Martin Birch has passed away,” Coverdale tweeted. “Martin has been an enormous part of my life … helping me from the first time we met up to and including Slide It In. .. My thoughts and prayers to his family, friends and fans. “
Birch made a habit of working with bands for long periods of time. He produced every 1981 Iron Maiden album Killer to 1992s Afraid of the dark, and produced and produced about a dozen Deep Purple albums. He also brought Ronnie James Dio-fronted from Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell en Mob Rules, constructed five early Fleetwood Mac albums and produced Rainbow’s first three albums.
In a 1983 interview with Good magazine, Birch explained why he preferred to work with the same artists over and over again. “I think for sure you can only make the most out of a band if you know it really well, very deeply,” he said. “Some producers who make an album with one band, then move on to another, are busy doing something pretty shallow. The results are always brilliant, excellent at the moment, but you realize later that the true colors of the band band did not come out and the album quickly lost its prestige. “
In a 2016 interview with Classic Rock, he described the excitement he felt at working on his second project with Iron Maiden, 1982s The number of the animal. It was the group’s first album with Bruce Dickinson on vocals.
“When Bruce joined, it really opened up the possibilities for the new album,” Birch recalled. “I just did not think Paul [Di’Anno] was able to handle vowels in some of the rather complicated directions I knew [bassist and songwriter] Steve [Harris] wanted to explore. I remember saying to her when it was ready, ‘This is going to be a great, great album. This will transform your career. ‘It just had all the magical ingredients: feeling, ideas, energy, execution. And I think the answer I got was, ‘Oh, really?’ “
Birch was right. He produced a string of Iron Maiden albums, then sailed out of the industry Afraid of the dark.
The producer was humble about his technical skills, limiting much of his success to an ability to connect and communicate with artists. “I do not consider myself a super-technician. What I do is pretty simple to me, but the fact that I’m used to the bands I’ve worked with helps me immediately know what they want, or even what they can achieve. , even if they themselves do not realize it clearly, “he said Good. “Or maybe bands trust me over long periods of time just because they find me a particularly nice character!”
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