Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris on touring, retirement & why they ‘never take anything for granted’
Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris says that 42 years into the band’s legendary career they're never complacent.
Speaking to Planet Rock’s Paul Anthony backstage at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena last night ahead of the opening date of their UK tour, Steve explained that Maiden maintain a consummate professionalism in order to stay “match fit.”
Steve told Paul: "When we ask Rod (Smallwood) for a warm-up gig he gives us a gig in Antwerp to 12,000 people so it’s not really a warm-up gig is it? You’ve still got that pressure there, y’know I think we work well under pressure anyway – it doesn’t really matter where we do a gig.
He continued: “We still rehearse, we don’t take anything for granted, we’re not complacent, we’re professional and make sure everything is comfortable for ourselves and we’re confident when we go out there.
“The last thing you wanna do is go on a tour and not be confident. It’s a bit like football where they use the match fit thing, it’s the same sort of thing – you can prepare, you can go running you can do whatever, you can rehearse and everything else but you’ve still got to go out there and physically do the business.
“To do that you have to go out there and do it with a crowd. We could rehearse until the cows come home but it’s not the same as playing in front of an audience.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Steve once again reiterated his stance that Iron Maiden have absolutely no plans of retiring.
“I think we’re all in pretty good shape so we’ll do it as long as we can really,” Steve said. “He (points at security guard) is looking at me over there ‘cos he wants a job for the next few years as well. Don’t we all?!”
Explaining why Maiden added ‘Wrathchild’ and ‘The Great Unknown’ to the 15-song setlist in place of ‘Tears of a Clown’ and ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’, Steve said: “We just wanted to mix it up a little bit, (add) a couple of fresh things in there, move it around a little just to shake things up a bit… it’s just nice to do a few different things.”
You can watch Paul’s full interview with Steve below where he also talks about the difference between playing smaller shows with British Lion to gargantuan shows with Iron Maiden, why he prefers arena gigs to festivals and giving some ex-professional footballers a trouncing at Aston Villa’s training ground this week.
Iron Maiden’s first UK arena show in six years last night in Nottingham was nothing short of a triumph featuring a blistering 15-song set that was packed with trademark theatrics.
Read the full gig report including photos, live video footage, the setlist and details of Planet Rock’s journey on The Bus of Souls right here.
PHOTO GALLERY: 18 stunning photos of Iron Maiden's opening UK show in Nottingham
The metal gods continue their European tour at Dublin 3Arena on Saturday night before playing Manchester Arena on Monday.
Tickets to most shows are completely sold out but there are tickets to certain dates from Planet Rock Tickets now. The UK tour touches down at the following venues:
MAY 2017
Manchester Arena – Mon 8th
Sheffield Arena – Wed 10th
Leeds First Direct Arena – Thu 11th
Newcastle Metro Radio Arena – Sun 14th
Glasgow SSE Hydro – Tue 16th - SOLD OUT
Aberdeen GE Arena – Wed 17th
Liverpool Echo Arena – Sat 20th - SOLD OUT
Birmingham Barclaycard Arena – Sun 21st - SOLD OUT
Cardiff Motorpoint Arena – Wed 24th - SOLD OUT
London O2 Arena – Sat 27th - SOLD OUT
London O2 Arena – Sun 28th - SOLD OUT