Guitarist Nita Strauss talked to GC about her time with The Iron Maidens, an all-female Iron Maiden tribute band. During the talk she stressed her interest in one particular Iron Maiden’s album; 1992’s “Fear of the Dark.” In one moment of the conversation, Strauss reminds when she played with Iron Maiden’s guitarist Dave Murray. See what happened (as transcribed by Ultimate Guitar):

“That was the first one I heard where the song structure, the melody, the way that the song was laid out… it just grabbed me.”

Focusing on specific songs, Strauss added:

“Guitar tones on ‘Fear of the Dark’ are huge, massive, and I think that [title] song, in particular, has so much special meaning for me because when you listen to the Maiden live album, you hear this incredible performance and hear the audience singing along to the guitar tone.

“It’s not often that you hear a whole crowd sing a guitar melody, and when I used to play in The Iron Maidens, we would have crowds from 200 people, to 5,000 people, to 10,000 people singing that guitar line along.

“I think sonically ‘Fear of the Dark’ is one of those albums that just invites the audience to be a part of the album and invites crowd participation, including lines in your own playing that the audience can sing along to and not just making everything a million notes per second, but creating memorable melodies like that.”

The guitarist then focused on how she performed the guitar parts by Dave Murray, adding that her “personal gear setup at the time could not possibly have been more different from Dave’s.” Nita continued:

“Dave was always kind of using a Fender Strat. I actually did a charity event with Dave Murray, we played a song together, and he had the exact same Boss GT-100 that I had, so I did take a picture and posted it and said, ‘Look guys, everyone is complaining to me that I use different gear than Dave Murray, but here’s my pedal board next to Dave’s, they’re identical.'”

She concluded:

“Every guitar player has their own trick set, so as long as you’re taking those notes and incorporating them in an original way, I think it’s great to grab ideas from other people’s playing.”

Watch “Fear of the Dark” alive video here: