Steve Harris Quotes

Maybe that’s what makes my stuff different, ’cause I write it all on the bass. I can’t play but a few chords on the guitar, so the bass works just fine for me.

I respect religion and all people’s ideas of it. I think everyone should be able to do whatever they want to do with their own life. I just don’t particularly like it when people try and force their ideas on others.

I may not expect every single show to sell out and I never take everything for granted, but you still know you’re going to get a certain amount of people.

The negative reactions to ‘The Number of the Beast’ were strange. When we wrote it, we never expected anything like that.

People get into metal and they don’t drift away from it. They might have families and move away a little, but they certainly don’t forget about it.

I still do get a little bit nervous at the beginning of Maiden tours but that’s mainly because of the new material.

Whenever we play new material, eventually some of the songs become classics themselves. They can’t become that unless you play them. Any new song is not going to go down as well as some of the old stuff, because obviously the old stuff the fans know inside out.

I tend not to look too much back; I tend to look forward. So, I suppose, I know, I’ve had probably most of my life, and there’s less going forwards than there is going back, but I prefer to look in the future.

I have respect for anybody that has to go and do whatever they have to do to protect their country.

As you get older it gets doubly hard to keep yourself fit and in shape.

I feel like I’ve had a fantastic life and career with music, and I’ve worked very hard, but maybe I’ve had a bit of luck along the way.

The Fender Precision is my instrument, my beloved Precisions.

The only thing I don’t write is the guitar solos, but even then I might suggest one or two things.

If you see a credit with just my name on it, that means I write absolutely everything: rhythm guitar parts, guitar melodies, vocal melodies… absolutely everything, really.

Some of the newer bands I like include Queensryche and Marillion, and I was glad when Yes reformed. Also, Kingdom Come; I was laughing when I first heard it and going ‘This is outrageous,’ but it’s a really album. I went to see them play and enjoyed it.

If you take care of the music first, and then add elements of a good show, then it makes for a good combination.

We built up a hardcore following, but we were really still semipro, gigging over long weekends and the like. So after EMI signed us, we packed in the day jobs because we had to make an album.

When we started off, we weren’t even thinking of being a global band. We just ended up becoming that.

I’ve tried lots of different guitars, including some Lados, and they felt great and were really well made, but the sound just seemed to lack richness in the bottom end. My main Precision is a ’71, and I also have a ’59 that I don’t use very often.