Guitarist
Dave Murray is one of only two musicians who have performed on every album released by British heavy metal veterans
Iron Maiden, the other being the band's bassist, founder, and guiding force,
Steve Harris. Throughout that span,
Murray has gained fame as both a highly skilled guitar technician on-stage and a rather shy, self-effacing personality off-stage. And while his songwriting contributions to the group's lengthy canon have been modest at best, it's downright impossible to imagine
Iron Maiden existing without
Dave Murray.
David Michael Murray was born in London, on December 23, 1956, and grew up on the move, shuttling across the greater London area and studying in, by his count, over a dozen schools, while his disabled father and part-time cleaner mother tried to eke out a living as best they could. At age 15,
Murray heard
Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" on the radio and he gave up his original dreams of playing professional football or cricket (despite showing great athletic promise, his itinerant lifestyle had made it impossible for him to latch on to any particular team) to take up the guitar, leaving school behind permanently the following year in order to practice obsessively. There followed a succession of short-lived amateur bands, including Electric Gas, Legend, the Stuff, Evil Ways, and, most significantly, Stone Free, which was his first serious ensemble and featured another guitarist and close friend named
Adrian Smith, who would cross his path again soon enough. In mid-1976,
Murray was invited by another friend, vocalist Dennis Wilcock, to join a fledgling
Iron Maiden, which had been formed by singularly driven bassist
Steve Harris only months earlier, on Christmas Day, 1975. And, notwithstanding a brief sojourn in which he reunited with
Adrian Smith in his new band, Urchin,
Murray would remain at
Harris' side throughout
Maiden's dues-paying years, weathering numerous lineup changes all the way through to the group's well-deserved signing to major label
EMI.
From that point onwards, starting with the band's landmark eponymous debut of 1980,
Iron Maiden's rise could not be stopped, and
Murray inevitably became one of its most recognizable faces due to the continuing musician turnover that afflicted the band's early years (
Adrian Smith arrived in time for 1981's sophomore
Killers; definitive vocalist
Bruce Dickinson for 1982's
The Number of the Beast, etc.), not to mention his obvious six-string talents. In particular, the guitarist came to be recognized for the high-speed dexterity of his solos, fluid legato technique, and telepathic rhythm work in tandem with old friend
Smith, all while invariably armed with a trusty black-and-white Fender Stratocaster as his trademark axe. Furthermore, though he's been content to leave the bulk of
Maiden's songwriting duties in the capable hands of
Harris,
Smith, and
Dickinson,
Murray's dozen-plus credits with the group include notable fare like the band's "Charlotte the Harlot,"
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son's "Prophecy,"
Fear of the Dark's "Judas Be My Guide," and
The Final Frontier's "The Man Who Would Be King." ~ Eduardo Rivadavia