Thin Lizzy guitarist, Scott Gorham, told Eonmusic in a recent interview that guitarist Adrian Smith could have replaced Blaze Bayley as frontman after he departed from Iron Maiden in 1997.
Asked about working with Adrian Smith, Gorham said:
“I’m a big Adrian Smith fan. He showed me the demos of that album he was going to record and I listened to his voice. I said; ‘Adrian, why aren’t you singing in Iron Maiden? Be the singer!’ He’s got a great voice, you know?
”Forget about being a great guitar player, which he is, this guy can sing! And he said to me, he said; ‘No, that’s way too much pressure, way too much being the frontman, having to talk (to) everybody every single night. No, no no, I’m good with just playing guitar. […]
“And I kind of got that because watching Phil every night, the way he could shrink the audience, no matter how big the arena was, he could shrink it down and include everybody into it, and that’s a real art form to be able to do something like that.
”It takes a long time for most frontmen to learn how to do that, so I got what Adrian was saying, but I still think Adrian Smith ought to get out there and do a little more recording and do more singing.”