In a recent chat with the Scars And Guitars podcast, Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris talked about his relationship with his bandmate and frontman Bruce Dickinson.
“Well, I’ve always encouraged whatever band I’ve been in or whatever I’ve done in the past, even before that, it’s always really the frontman that you wanna push as being the key focal figure, really,” Harris explained. “I mean, it was only because, say, Paul [Di’Anno, former Iron Maiden singer] wasn’t really that active on stage — he had a great stage presence, but he wasn’t really very active on stage. So, you kind of, I would not say compensate, but you just fill in for whatever.”
Since Dickinson is the one to court mainstream media in the band, Harris seems glad that the frontman is the face of the band. “When Bruce came along, he was a full-on frontman. And also Bruce does a lot of the interviews, and he’s out there speaking to mainstream media. I’m not so good with them,” the rocker added. “He’s a bit different with mainstream media — he’s good at doing the mainstream media — so we get him focused on that. And also with him being a pilot and all these other things, it gives him more of a profile when [it comes to dealing with the media] than the rest of us. I’m totally happy with that because I don’t really see the limelight anyway… I don’t court mainstream media.”
Last year, Harris talked about his side project British Lion, and during the chat, he said Dickinson has been singing ‘better than ever.’ “Yeah, I still enjoy playing, so, yeah, I play as much as I can,” the bassist said during a chat with Sweden Rock Festival. “I’ll be happy to play four or five nights a week, but you can’t do it — for singers, you can’t do it. It was tough for Bruce [Dickinson] back in the day, let alone now. I think he’s singing better than ever, but it’s quality, not quantity with Maiden now.”
Iron Maiden kicked off the Australian leg of their ‘The Future Past’ tour on September 1 at Perth’s RAC Arena.
The tour features songs from their latest album ‘Senjutsu’ and their 1986 classic ‘Somewhere In Time’ with other fan favorites. Last summer, they played over 30 sold-out shows across Europe, attracting over 750,000 fans. The band also performed in Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver, and had a great audience at California’s Power Trip festival last October.