Iron Maiden are on the back end of their ambitious world tour in support of one of 2015's best metal albumsThe Book of Souls. The British legends are currently making their way through the second North American leg of the tour and while rumors have persisted that Eddie and the boys may be hanging it up, axeman Dave Murray has confirmed this is far from the truth.

"We're not stopping after this tour; this isn't the last tour by any means. We're going to finish this one out, which we're having a lot of fun [doing] and then we're going to take some time off and next year there's going to be some surprises," he told The Press-Enterprise in a recent interview. Despite Maiden's numerous treks around the world, Murray insists that there's still highlights to be had, adding, “When you’re doing something you love doing, it’s been fantastic even after all this time; but obviously seeing the kids’ reaction, that gives it a big lift. They’re singing along to the new songs and the old songs as well."

The band's set list is littered with songs beyond the 10 minute mark and others that hover quite close, which can sometimes be a challenge when maintaining the attention of a world that "wants everything yesterday" because of the Internet. Maiden buck the trend per usual as Murray explained, "I think we’ve been able to step aside of that and been able to absorb and do what we want. We’ve never sold out to what we thought; we just played to our hearts and what we liked playing and the fans come along and join us as opposed to the other way around. I think in the car we’ve got traffic now and driving everywhere takes hours, right? A lot of people listen to music in their car, so you’ve got enough time to absorb a 14-minute song, definitely. That’s like two traffic lights.”

Hypothetically, if Maiden's career were to end following the conclusion of this run, Murray expressed he would be content, thankful for being able to see the world on tour. “That in itself has been a great experience and also playing music and being able to express ourselves in a melodic form, an aggressive form and just have fun with that. The future, there’s still things to do so you just keep inventing new things all the time, try to create new things every day," the guitarist commented.

It's hard to imagine what "surprises" are left in store as the band famously recreated some of their most successful tours throughout the '80s and brought them to the new millennium by way of the 'Eddie Rips Up the World' trek which found Maiden playing material strictly from their first four albums. 'Somewhere Back in Time' focused on the Powerslave and Somewhere in Time records while 'Maiden England' prominently featured material from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

It's an exciting summer for Iron Maiden with July serving as the final month of touring behind The Book of Souls (dates here) and a new comic book based off their role-playing mobile video game The Legacy of the Beast set to arrive soon.

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