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McBrain considers bassist Steve Harris' When The Wild Wind Blows one of the best songs he's ever written. © Scott D. Smith/Retna ./Retna Ltd./Corbis

Musically, what were your goals on this record? There's so many unexpected moments, and many of them are prog rock in nature.

"I would say my first and foremost goal was to finish the record without keeling over dead! [laughs] In all seriousness, though, we rehearsed seven tracks in Paris before we went to record them. Three of the other ones we had the sketches for, but we had to work them up once we got in the studio. For me, the big expectation was working on the three songs that we didn't rehearse; I wanted to get their vibe as quickly as I could and really nail them without taking a whole lot of time.

"In terms of figuring out the progressions on the album, it was very much like it was in the old days. It was us together in one room going, 'Okay, how are we going to get from this bit to that bit?' You know what I mean? It was natural, a band working as one. We were all looking at one another and communicating and feeling at home, if you like."

As I mentioned, there are definite progressive rock elements on the record. Do you listen to prog rock, whether it's new or old?

"Oh, without a doubt. I grew up with bands like Love Unlimited, Hawkwind, Golden Earring, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple - although Purple aren't really progressive; they were in their earlier days. And then, of course, there was Pink Floyd, one of my all-time favorite bands from that period - very progressive.

"With The Final Frontier, it wasn't as if we regressed. We took a lot of our history and revisited it in certain ways. Take our album A Matter Of Life And Death, for example: that's a very adventurous record that uses elements from late '60s and early '70s underground progressive rock. So now we kind of stepped back into that territory and carried if further, way beyond anything we've ever done before. The segues, the song structures, the time signatures - we placed no restrictions on ourselves."

What did you think when you got some of the demos, particularly the one for the song When The Wild Wind Blows? It's quite an epic.

"It sure is. That was one of the songs we did in the studio. When Steve [Harris] brought the song in, he showed it to us, gave the guitarists the chord progressions and everything. I could tell right off it was something special. Because of the kind of song it is, though, I looked at Harry [editor's note: the nickname for Steve Harris] and said, 'What do you want from the drums, busy or straight?' And he said, 'Let's have it straight. We need some real groove on this track.'

"That's all he needed to say. I told him, 'Let me have what you're playing on the bass,' and we worked that part out. Then we went for the second part, then we had the segue breakdown and it went from there. When we finished recording the song, I turned to Steven and said, 'Next to Hallowed Be Thy Name, I think this is the best song you've ever written.' And he went, 'Nahhh!' And I said, 'To me it is.' That's how I feel - I think it's just immense.

"The funny thing is, there wasn't a lot of preparation for that song or any of the other ones, really. It was just learn it, feel it and play it. That's what we did on this record. It was true to its form, without a lot of contrived pieces. And there's even a couple of mistakes on it, to boot, which I think is great."

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