County Star Reveals Surprising Musical Past

2024-09-27

Iron Maiden. A country star is revealing that he was once a big fan of metal music and even in a heavy metal band.

A country star is revealing that he was once a big fan of metal music, especially Iron Maiden, pictured above. – Author: Charles Ken, photo via John Mcmurtrie

It’s not unheard of in the music business to do some genre hopping, and you might be surprised to hear that certain musicians in one genre used to play music in a very different one. Such is the case with a country star, who is revealing that he was once a big fan of metal music and even in a heavy metal band.

Keith Urban Was a Big Iron Maiden Fan

Country star Keith Urban has revealed the surprising news that he was once in a metal band, and the group was named after an Ace Frehley song. Urban chatted about his early music life during an interview on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.” During the chat, he talked about his experience mastering the guitar and entering a bunch of singing competitions that his mom entered him in. He won some of those contests and lost others, but either way, it likely helped him get comfortably in front of an audience.

Urban also briefly talked about being in a metal band called Fractured Mirror. The song “Fractured Mirror” is the final instrumental track on Ace Frehley’s debut self-titled album, which dropped in 1978 when he was still a member of KISS.

That’s when Urban talked about first hearing heavy metal band Iron Maiden when he was 15 or 16 years old. He was a massive fan of metal music as a teenager, even though he grew up listening to country music. He became a member of Fractured Mirror as a guitarist, but he also loved bluegrass musician Ricky Skaggs and his “chicken picking.” So, Urban’s guitar playing was influenced by that “chicken picking” style.

“I’m suddenly into that, and I’m in this band, and we’re doing this full-on Saxon song,” Urban said on the show. “They throw me a solo and I’m chicken picking it. The lead singer looks around like, ‘What the’…they fired me.”

So, Urban didn’t last long in the metal world, but that’s okay, because now, he’s one of the biggest country music stars in the world.

Another Surprising Musical Swap

Another musician who has experienced some very different sounds over the years is Jason Hook of Flat Black and formerly Five Finger Death Punch. Before joining Five Finger Death Punch, he was in Alice Cooper‘s band, but before that, he was actually pop star Hilary Duff’s touring guitarist. So, that’s quite a different live show than he does with his metal and rock bands.

Speaking with Audio Ink Radio earlier this year, Hook talked about his new band, Flat Black. The band’s debut album came out last summer.

When interviewer Anne Erickson said she enjoyed the advance of his new album, Hook replied, “I’ve been siting on this record for a while, and no one’s heard it except for you and a handful of other people, so it’s really cool to hear that you have heard the whole thing and that you like it. Putting the band together, I wanted to be patient and take my time. I’m super picky. I knew what I was looking for, and I just thought however long it takes is however long it takes.”

 

 

Charles Ken
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Posted by Charles Ken | Metal, Music, Rock News