Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) shares his endless love for live performances

In a recent interview with Charlie Bahama, Steve Harris, the bassist and founder of Iron Maiden, discussed his longstanding side project, British Lion, as per Blabbermouth. This project also features vocalist Richard Taylor, guitarists David Hawkins and Grahame Leslie, and drummer Simon Dawson. When questioned about the formation of British Lion, Steve shared his insights.

Well, back in the day I couldn’t have done it because we were so busy with Maiden. But then we started touring a little bit less frequently and the tours were a little less longer, so we had a bit of few gaps in between. So I thought I’m just gonna get together with the guys that I knew from way back anyway. I helped write some stuff with them. I was managing them and doing all kinds of stuff back in the ’90s with them. And some of the stuff that we wrote together I thought, ‘You know what? It’s gotta see the light of day.’ And I thought the only way to really grab it by the scruff of the neck and do something with it is actually being in a band myself. So that’s what I did. And it’s been great.

It’s been 14 years now [since we started British Lion]. We’ve only made two albums, ’cause we… The problem is I’m still really busy with Maiden, touring and recording with Maiden, so I just have to fit it in when I can.

Bahama commented that Steve must have “a lot of songs” in his mind to manage performing with both Maiden and British Lion.

When you’re doing a tour with one band or the other, you just rehearse those songs, and then you’re kind of in that mode, and you don’t really think about the other thing. So although a couple of tours ago I did do… We had a lot of days off on the Maiden tours, and so I ended up doing British Lion shows in between. ‘Cause I get bored on days off, so it was an opportunity for British Lion lads to come out and do some shows. But now that Simon, the British Lion drummer, has joined Maiden, then we’re not really gonna do that now because I don’t want anyone having the excuse to say, ‘Oh, he’s tired,’ or whatever. So we probably won’t do that again. But whenever Maiden gets any time off, then I’m usually playing with British Lion.

Replying to Charlie’s remark that Steve “doesn’t rest,” Harris offered some clarification.

Well, I do. I do rest, but, yeah, there’s a time and place for resting. But I love playing — I just love playing live. I mean, if people come along to [see British Lion perform], they’ll see that. It’s very evident that we all love to do what we do.