IRON MAIDEN drummer Nicko McBrain is featured in a new interview with AZCentral.com. An excerpt is available below:

Q: I know you've been doing a set list based on Maiden England, which was filmed on the tour in support of Seventh Son. Is the production also based on that tour?

A: "I say loosely based. It's a slightly different color, the stage set. There's a different look to it. But yes, we've got beautiful backdrops that we normally do for each song. We've got some wonderful spectacles with Eddie and, as I said, pyro and the flames. It is the Seventh Son visually. And we're really excited to be doing some songs that we haven't played in 25 years."

Q: Did that require much relearning of material?

A: "Oh yeah (laughs). We hadn't played for nine months, so you get in the rehearsal room and even the songs you've played every year for the last 30 years, it's like riding a bike. You never forget, but you get a little wobbly and the joints go rusty on the bike. So that's a couple days' rehearsal. But the songs you haven't played for 25 years ... We're doing 'Afraid to Shoot Strangers', which we haven't played since the mid-'90s. 'Seventh Son', the title track, was last aired in '88, and that's an epic piece of music. So we had to go over those songs with a fine-tooth comb."

Q: Having gone in and relearned those songs from Seventh Son, you obviously had to listen to the album. What did you think?

A: "Oh, it's a masterpiece. What I tended to do was listen to the Maiden England video. And I'd go 'Gosh, I can't believe we played that song that fast.' So what we've done is -- we still have a lot of energy, but as a player, I've realized that we couldn't play these songs at that speed today and make it work. We were younger, and it was a lot more crazy. We're a bit more refined with where we go with the tempos now. There are still nights where I get a bit quick, and me and Steve get going together and the rest of the band moan and groan at us because we think we're young kids again up there (laughs). But it was really nice listening back to the old stuff because I rarely revisit the older Maiden material when I'm listening in my car to music."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

According to Billboard.biz, IRON MAIDEN are third on Billboard's Hot Tours Chart list of top-grossing tours with $4.8 million in ticket sales revenue from seven performances on its 2012 tour through North America.

Following a June 21 launch in Charlotte, the veteran English band played amphitheater dates in Atlanta, Boston and New York's Long Island before the June 29 concert at Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, N.J., the first date included in this week's Hot Tours tally. Outdoor performances followed in the Washington D.C. market as well as in Milwaukee and Toronto. Although the majority of the group's tour dates this summer are outdoor shed performances, arenas are also included on the itinerary. Three of those indoor events are part of this week's recap. The Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. hosted the band on July 2, and two more arena shows were held in Canadian cities - Quebec City on July 8 and Montreal on July 11.

Check out a commercial for the Maiden England 2012 North American tour below: