Iron Maiden Share Official Live Video For ‘Stratego’
British heavy metal legends Iron Maiden have released the official live video for their song Stratego. The track, which was written by guitarist Janick Gers and founding bassist Steve Harris, is taken from the band’s 17th studio album, Senjutsu, which came out in September 2021.
Iron Maiden say: “The U.S. & Canadian leg of the ‘Legacy Of The Beast’ world tour is now underway! Here is Stratego (Live) — dedicated to you, our incredible fans across the world!”
Senjutsu was recorded in 2019 in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by Harris.
For Senjutsu — loosely translated as “tactics and strategy” — the band once again enlisted the services of Mark Wilkinson to create the spectacular Samurai-themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Harris.
Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson told France’s La Claque FNAC about the LP: “It’s always a big thrill when you get a new Iron Maiden album and it comes out. We thought it was a great album when we made it. But it was three years ago now. So we just have to pinch ourselves and go, ‘Let’s just check.’ It’s one of my favorite albums. And after 17 albums, it’s pretty cool.”
Regarding the writing and recording process for Senjutsu, Bruce said: “I would like to say that everything was very organized, but actually, we’re not. We turn up and we sort of go, ‘Oh, has anybody got a couple of ideas?’ And Steve said, ‘I’ve got one idea. I’ve got this track Senjutsu. What do we think about having a Samurai Eddie?’ And we were, like, ‘Oh, yeah. Cool. Why haven’t we done that before?’ Because we had an Egyptian Eddie and we had a sci-fi Eddie and we had a Mayan Eddie. The album is like the picture that’s in the frame. But just because the frame is Japanese doesn’t mean every song is organized to be about Japanese themes.”
Senjutsu bowed at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, charting higher than even the band’s early classics like Powerslave and The Number Of The Beast. Nearly 90 percent of the LP’s 64,000 equivalent album units earned came from pure album sales. The critically acclaimed double album debuted one place higher than 2015’s The Book Of Souls and 2010’s The Final Frontier, which both peaked at No. 4.