NICKO MCBRAIN Opens Up About Decision To Retire From Touring With IRON MAIDEN: ‘I Wish I Could Still Play With The Guys’

In a new interview with Finland’s Chaoszine, IRON MAIDEN’s longtime drummer Nicko McBrain opened up about his recent announcement that he was retiring from touring with the band, calling it “the best decision” he could have made.The 72-year-old British musician, whose real name is Michael Henry McBrain, announced his retirement on December 7, 2024 in a statement on MAIDEN’s web site and social media. He also said that night’s concert at Allianz Parque in São Paulo, Brazil would mark his final show with the legendary rock band.Regarding how he is feeling, less than two months after playing his final gig with MAIDEN, Nicko told Chaoszine (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Mixed emotions, obviously. Making the decision to step back from touring has been — it was easy at the time, going towards the end of the tour. I kind of made my mind up when we got to North America and talked to the boys about it, mainly Steve [Harris, MAIDEN bassist] and then the management. And everybody went, ‘Okay. If that’s what you wanna do, we understand,’ having my handicap, since my stroke and stuff like that. So having said that, I get up some days and I’m, like, ‘I’m gonna miss the next tour and I’m not gonna be able to go out on the road.'”It was an easy decision, but I wish I could still play with the guys,” he added. “I wish I had my full fitness.”Asked if MAIDEN’s “The Future Past” tour was a rough tour for him to do overall, Nicko said: “It was. This one, we kept the kind of same schedule, like gig, travel day, gig, travel day, gig, two days off or a day off, travel day, that sort of thing. And it was just — it just got to me.”It was good the year before last, in ’23. And it was still good [in 2024], but I felt that I couldn’t give it a hundred percent, certainly on ‘Trooper’ and other songs. And we made do, we got through it okay, but I felt that I was not being able to drive the band like I wanted to, although I had a personal trainer out on the road towards the end of the North American tour… We didn’t have any rest days. If we did two shows in a row, we’d have a travel day and then a full day off. It was working out nice for me. I was enjoying getting that physical side of training. I wasn’t doing so much weight; it was a lot of kind of yoga stretches, a lot of things like that, trying to get my mental agility back with coordinating. There were a lot of things that we did together to improve the synapses in the brain to get working again. And it was coming on nice, but it was just a struggle for me. And I thought, ‘You know, at my age, I’m gonna step back and let somebody else take a the reins.'”Asked if it was difficult for him to get through the tour because of that, Nicko, who converted to Christianity in 1999, said: “No, not at all. Well, just from the point — when you get used to being able to do something for, like, 50 years of your career, and then God gave me a stroke, but I’m still here. I’m still standing two years later. But I was very fortunate in the fact that I had great therapists that helped me through this in the beginning. I basically felt that… The feeling I had was I was frustrated because I know I could do stuff, but I couldn’t actually do it physically or mentally, ’cause there’s a lot of mental stuff going on.”Elaborating on when he exactly made the decision to retire from touring with MAIDEN, Nicko said: “It was something that I had thought of in ’23. I was thinking after the end of that tour, I was going, ‘Well, should I announce it to the band then?’ But I thought, ‘No, I’ll get through ‘The Future Past’ tour and then we’ll see. And let’s get that one out of the way first.’ And as we got to the North American tour, I thought, ‘It’s time to hang it up, Nick.'”It wasn’t an easy decision by any means, but it was the best one — it was the best decision at the end of the day,” McBrain explained. “Admittedly, I get good days and bad days, and the bad days are when I feel, ‘Oh, I’m not gonna be out on those stages anymore looking at these wonderful fans of ours for all these years,’ but at the end of the day, that’s why I’m not doing it. That’s not why I’m doing it, actually — I’m not doing it because it was just too much for me.”McBrain also confirmed that there are tentative plans for him to write an autobiography which will delve more deeply into his life, including his retirement from MAIDEN. “Yeah, we’re on the cusp of that,” he said. “Yeah, it’s been talked about. Yeah. Watch this space.”In his statement announcing his retirement, McBrain said: “After much consideration, it is with both sorrow and joy, I announce my decision to take a step back from the grind of the extensive touring lifestyle. I wish the band much success moving forward.””What can I say? Touring with MAIDEN the last 42 years has been an incredible journey! To my devoted fan base, you made it all worthwhile and I love you!” McBrain added.Despite the fact that he is stepping away from touring, McBrain said that he will remain closely connected to IRON MAIDEN and continue to be involved in “a variety of projects” with the band, while also focusing on personal ventures and his existing businesses.”I look into the future with much excitement and great hope! I’ll be seeing you soon, may God bless you all, and, of course, ‘Up the Irons!'” he wrote.MAIDEN’s longtime manager Rod Smallwood of Phantom Music Management expressed his gratitude to McBrain, writing in a separate statement: “Thank you for being an irrepressible force behind the drum kit for MAIDEN for 42 years and my friend for even longer. I speak on behalf of all the band when I say we will miss you immensely!”Smallwood also referenced MAIDEN’s deep connection with Brazil, where they have been performing to massive crowds since appearing at the 1985 edition of the Rock In Rio festival. “To bow out of touring in front of 90,000 fans here in São Paulo over two nights is poetic,” Rod continued. “Nicko is and will always be part of the MAIDEN family.”On December 8, 2024, IRON MAIDEN announced Simon Dawson as its new touring drummer. Dawson is a former session drummer and MAIDEN bassist Steve Harris’s longtime bandmate in BRITISH LION.The December 7, 2024 performance marked the the final show of IRON MAIDEN’s “The Future Past” world tour, which began in May 2023.MAIDEN will return to the road in 2025 for the “Run For Your Lives” world tour, which is scheduled to launch in May.In January 2023, Nicko was at his home in Boca Raton when he suffered a stroke with partial paralysis.When Nicko first went public with his stroke in August 2023, the drummer said in a statement that the episode left him “paralyzed” down one side of his body and “worried” that his career with the band was over.FIve years ago, McBrain was diagnosed with stage 1 laryngeal cancer and opened up about it in a single interview in 2021 but otherwise kept it mostly under wraps. The musician received his cancer diagnosis after undergoing an endoscopy at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University Of Miami Health System and the Miller School of Medicine. Within a week, McBrain’s cancer was surgically removed and he now gets check-ups every few months to make sure the cancer hasn’t returned.Tapped to replace Clive Burr in 1982 after touring activities for “Number Of The Beast” concluded, McBrain brought a degree of finesse and technicality that was largely missing from IRON MAIDEN’s early output. Whereas Burr was often lauded for his heavy-handed, punk-oriented style, McBrain was largely the opposite, playing with a degree of dexterity and flair that helped primary songwriter Steve Harris take MAIDEN down more adventurous paths. He eventually became the third longest-tenured member of MAIDEN, behind Harris and guitarist Dave Murray.McBrain spent his early drumming years playing for the likes of Pat Travers and French rockers TRUST, eventually falling onto the radar of Harris and MAIDEN during the group’s initial European tour.[embedded content]