Dave Murray (musician)

Dave Murray 2008

David "Dave" Michael Murray (born December 23, 1956 in Edmonton , London ) is a British musician. He is one of three guitarists of heavy metal - band Iron Maiden .

Life

youth

Murray grew up in the London borough of Hackney and comes from a poor background: his father was a painter and mostly unemployed, his mother worked part-time as a cleaning lady. In his youth he was a passionate soccer player and fan of Tottenham Hotspur . However, since the family often moved, he was never able to establish himself in one of the football teams in which he played in the various schools that he left at the age of sixteen.

He got into the guitar at 14 when he heard Jimi Hendrix ' Voodoo Child on the radio. Other musical influences were Jeff Beck , Carlos Santana and Robin Trower . A little later he founded his first band, Stone Free , a power trio in which he already played with his school friend Adrian Smith . With Smith he then played in a formation called Evil Ways and in between in his band Urchin . With this collaboration, an important cornerstone for the success story of Iron Maiden was laid, as Murray brought Smith into the band in 1980 for the retired Dennis Stratton . Before he became a professional musician with Iron Maiden, he worked as a car mechanic, as a worker in a branch of the Guinness brewery and as a warehouse worker. When he earned more money through his music career, the first thing he did was buy his parents a house where his mother still lives today.

Career with Iron Maiden

Murray joined one of the first band memberships a few months after their formation and was then kicked out by the then singer Dennis Wilcock - like many other band members at the time. In mid-1977, however, he rejoined Iron Maiden at the request of Steve Harris . In the months that followed, Murray and Harris put together a new line-up. In this respect, Dave Murray, like Steve Harris, is to be regarded as a founding member of Iron Maiden.

Murray is self-taught and claims to play what he feels. Especially in live performances he likes to improvise on his guitar solos and draws the attraction from the fact that it sometimes works and sometimes less. His style is characterized by very fast, fluid, melodic and idiosyncratic legato playing , which makes his solo playing in connection with the neck pickup he often uses unmistakable and has significantly shaped the sound of Iron Maiden. Murray is not one of the lead composers, but he still enriches the band with numerous melodies, riffs and technically demanding solos. Over the years, with a few exceptions ( ESP , Jackson , Ibanez Destroyer , Dean) he only played Fender Stratocaster models from the American Series or modified Squier with humbuckers in the bridge and neck position (so-called Double Fat Strats ) and Floyd- Rose vibrato systems . A few years ago, however, he switched to three mini humbuckers (Seymour Duncan Hotrail).

Murray now lives in Hawaii with his wife Tamar, who was married in 1985, and their daughter Tasha, who was born in 1995 . In addition to football, golf is now one of his hobbies.

literature

• Run To The Hills - The official biography of Iron Maiden by Mick Wall, translated by Klaas Ilse, 2005, ISBN 3-931624-29-3

Web links

Commons : Dave Murray  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Dave Murray in the Internet Movie Database (English)