Iron Maiden have been headbanging away since 1979, anchored by bassist Steve Harris, who told Bass Player: “We’re still pretty fit and we can still run around the stage. I’ve got more grey hairs, but we’re not at the zimmer-frame level yet!”
Born in Leytonstone in London, Harris originally wanted to be a footballer – and to this day, he's just as happy to chat about West Ham as debate the finer points of a bass guitar's tonality.
Football aside, the young Harris also harbored ambitions as a drummer – but didn't have anywhere to practice. “I thought the next best thing would be to play bass and play along with the drums. So I bought myself a cheap bass, but I managed to get a half-decent one. It was a Fender copy – a Shaftsbury, I think.”
“Then I started trying to learn songs by Free, Wishbone Ash, all different kinds of stuff. I bought a few songbooks too, but most of them didn't have any bass parts and the ones that did were all wrong! So I just used to play by ear.”
His second bass was a Hayman. Harris then tried a Fender Jazz and Telecaster before falling in love with the Precision, which has been his instrument of choice ever since.
“My main one is a ’71 and the other is a ’73. I've got others of various ages and they all sound different. That's not a Spinal Tap thing – they just do!
“I'm not one of those people who thinks because it's older it's got to be better, but the density of the wood they use seems to make a hell of a lot of difference to the sound. The denser the wood the heavier or harder the sound. Suffice to say that the ones I have hanging around my neck are so heavy that after a couple of weeks on tour I feel like my neck's hanging off.”
In his quest for perfection, Harris has tried virtually every make of bass, but always come back to the Precision.
“I tried a Gibson Thunderbird and I didn't like it at all, which is weird because some of my favorite bassists played them: Martin Turner from Wishbone Ash and John Entwistle from The Who.
“For a start, they're top-heavy and the top hangs away from you, so you're constantly fighting to hold the damn thing up. More importantly, the sound I got with the Thunderbird was just... horrible!”
Harris also tried a couple of Canadian Lado basses.
“The craftsmanship was unbelievable, but for me they just didn't have the bottom end that I wanted. I like a really tight bottom end rather than something that's just wallowing around. I like a lot of treble as well so I can cut through the noisy guitar players! That's what I was trying to achieve in the early days – to be heard!"
Harris is the only surviving founder-member of Iron Maiden, who made their noisy debut at the Cart & Horses pub in East London. Although different members have come and gone, the band have remained successful despite a distinct lack of radio support.
“Iron Maiden has been more than half my lifetime, and when I look at it like that, it's incredible. I can't believe it.”
One reason for Maiden's longevity, however, may be their staunch refusal to bow to outside pressure.
“What's most satisfying is that we've had success on our own terms. We've kept outside the music business a lot of the time. We've been stubborn and not let record company people bully us about.
“As far back as the third album we banned the record company people from the studio. They were freaking out because the single was so different to the last one, which had been a success. We just told them to get out!”
“You've just got to be strong in your convictions and don't do what you don't want to do. We've been lucky in that we've got a very good manager. We tell him what we want to do and he goes and does it. He's a bullet shield for us against the flak we might get from record company people.”
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