Ele deixou a escola aos 15 anos para seguir seu sonho. Começou a tocar guitarra aos 16, através de uma sugestão de seu amigo Dave Murray. Os primeiros esboços de banda começaram no porão de sua casa. Adrian formou sua primeira banda chamada 'Evil Ways', junto com Dave Murray. O shows eram geralmente tocando
covers dos
Stones,
Pink Floyd e
Beatles. Cinco anos depois a banda assinou com a
DJM Records, esta sociedade rendeu dois singles. Nesta época a banda havia mudado seu nome para
Urchin. Quando as gravadoras começaram a investir no
Punk, a banda se separou da gravadora. A banda também mudou sua formação com a entrada do jovem guitarrista
Andy Barnet. A banda Urchin acabou em
1979.
Porém a grande oportunidade nasceu em
1980, quando foi chamado para substituir
Dennis Straton no
Iron Maiden, banda na qual pertencia seu antigo amigo
Dave Murray, com o Iron em 1981 lançou
Killers. Em
1982, aconteceu uma das principais mudanças do Iron Maiden, o vocalista
Paul Di'Anno abandonou a banda e foi substituído por
Bruce Dickinson, que comandou o Iron Maiden durante sua melhor fase e se tornaria seu parceiro no futuro. Nesse mesmo ano, essa formação lançou
The Number of the Beast, um dos mairores clássicos da história do
Heavy metal, além da faixa título, viraram sucessos "
Run to the Hills", "Hallowed Be Thy Name", entre outras…
Logo após sua saída do Iron, Adrian formou o The Untouchables, que mais tarde passou a se chamar
Psycho Motel. O primeiro disco com a nova banda só veio em
1995, com o lançamento de "State of Mind". O disco foi bastante aclamado por público e crítica, apesar de ser bem diferente do som do Iron Maiden. No ano seguinte Adrian participou do disco solo de
Michael Kiske (ex-
Helloween), juntamente com
Kai Hansen (
Gamma Ray, também ex-Helloween), o disco chama-se "Instant Clarity". Em
1997 veio o novo do Psycho Motel, "Welcome to the World".
No mesmo ano, Adrian Smith volta definitivamente aos
media, após ser convidado para ingressar na banda solo de Bruce Dickinson, que também havia saído do Iron Maiden. Com o Bruce Dickinson, Adrian lançou o excelente disco "Accident Of Birth". No ano seguinte veio o que se tornaria o melhor disco de Bruce Dickinson, "The Chemical Wedding". A turnê deste disco chegou a passar pelo
Brasil, onde foi gravado o disco ao vivo de Bruce Dickinson, "Scream For Me Brazil" (
1999). Mas ainda em
1998 foi anunciada a volta de Bruce Dickinson e Adrian Smith aos Iron Maiden, que passaria a contar com três guitarras.
Durante a sua carreira na banda Smith foi um guitarrista diferente dos demais, pois sempre deu preferência ao
feeling do que a técnica, conseguindo inclusive dois prémios de melhor guitarrista na
década de 1980.
Iron Maiden - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Hear the rime of the ancient mariner
See his eye as he stops one of three
Mesmerises one of the wedding guests
Stay here and listen to the nightmares of the sea.
And the music plays on, as the bride passes by
Caught by his spell and the mariner tells his tale.
Driven south to the land of the snow and ice
To a place where nobody's been
Through the snow fog flies on the albatross
Hailed in God's name, hoping good luck it brings.
And the ship sails on, back to the North
Through the fog and ice and the albatross follows on.
The mariner kills the bird of good omen
His shipmates cry against what he's done
But when the fog clears, they justify him
And make themselves a part of the crime.
Sailing on and on and north across the sea
Sailing on and on and north 'til all is calm.
The albatross begins with its vengeance
A terrible curse a thirst has begun
His shipmates blame bad luck on the mariner
About his neck, the dead bird is hung.
And the curse goes on and on at sea
And the thirst goes on and on for them and me.
"Day after day, day after day,
we stuck nor breath nor motion
as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean
Water, water everywhere and
all the boards did shrink
Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink."
There calls the mariner
There comes a ship over the line
But how can she sail with no wind in her sails and no tide.
See...onward she comes
Onward she nears out of the sun
See, she has no crew
She has no life, wait but there's two.
Death and she Life in Death,
They throw their dice for the crew
She wins the mariner and he belongs to her now.
Then...crew one by one
they drop down dead, two hundred men
She...she, Life in Death.
She lets him live, her chosen one.
"One after one by the star dogged moon,
too quick for groan or sigh
each turned his face with a ghastly pang
and cursed me with his eye
four times fifty living men
(and I heard nor sigh nor groan)
with heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
they dropped down one by one."
The curse it lives on in their eyes
The mariner he wished he'd die
Along with the sea creatures
But they lived on, so did he.
And by the light of the moon
He prays for their beauty not doom
With heart he blesses them
God's creatures all of them too.
Then the spell starts to break
The albatross falls from his neck
Sinks down like lead into the sea
Then down in falls comes the rain.
Hear the groans of the long dead seamen
See them stir and they start to rise
Bodies lifted by good spirits
None of them speak and they're lifeless in their eyes
And revenge is still sought, penance starts again
Cast into a trance and the nightmare carries on.
Now the curse is finally lifted
And the mariner sights his home
spirits go from the long dead bodies
Form their own light and the mariner's left alone.
And then a boat came sailing towards him
It was a joy he could not believe
The pilot's boat, his son and the hermit,
Penance of life will fall onto him.
And the ship it sinks like lead into the sea
And the hermit shrieves the mariner of his sins.
The mariner's bound to tell of his story
To tell this tale wherever he goes
To teach God's word by his own example
That we must love all things that God made.
And the wedding guest's a sad and wiser man
And the tale goes on and on and on.
