Steve Harris recently chatted with the Sweden Rock Festival’s YouTube channel and revealed why Bruce Dickinson was behind Iron Maiden’s touring scale-down.

Harris is currently touring with both his solo band, British Lion, and Iron Maiden, so when the host asked how he found the time and energy to do so, the bassist revealed:

“I started [British Lion] 11 years ago; I’ve been playing with them [for] 11 years. But before that, I wouldn’t have been able to do it, ’cause Maiden was too busy. In the last 10 years, Maiden’s not been so busy; we’ve not been touring as long. So, basically, it enabled me to have a bit of time to do something else.”

Then, Steve discussed why Maiden had scaled down their touring dates when the host asked whether he wanted to play live more:

“Yeah, I still enjoy playing, so, yeah, I play as much as I can. 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 back in the day, let alone now. I think he’s singing better than ever, but it’s quality, not quantity, with Maiden now.”

Harris’ band, British Lion, just finished up a 15-date-tour all across Europe, and the bassist continues to hit the road with Iron Maiden as their ‘scaled down’ tour dates carry on with several dates in Canada starting on September 28.

You can watch the interview below.

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Iron Maiden’s vocalist Bruce Dickinson recently spoke with Manchester Evening News about his wish to collaborate with a brewery and the process of finding one.

Being born in the East Midlands and raised in Sheffield, Bruce said that he went through auditions with breweries:

“I was brought up on the wrong side of the Pennines for you guys, but I’m not a stranger to the north. I had to audition and drink beer because they wanted to know if we were serious.”

Dickinson talked further about the miscommunication he had with the brewery owners:

“We approached several other breweries and probably 50 per cent of the time their response was ‘oh, p***s off’. Because they thought we were trying to take mickey – that we would just go and exploit their reputation, then just walk away. But we were serious about it.”

The vocalist also explained the process that led him to team up with family-run brewery Robinsons:

“Some breweries, funnily enough, were interested – but then when they realised we wanted a long-term partnership, they weren’t interested. Robinsons were the only ones who said ‘Okay if you’re serious about this, let’s go and drink some beer’.”

He continued:

“Basically, I just did sort of a taste test with them where I wrote my opinion on the beers. And obviously, I did alright because they said ‘Alright, let’s have a go at making a beer’.”

The first product of this partnership was ‘Trooper’, about which Bruce said:

“The first brew, the signature brew, ‘Trooper’, we just got it right straight out of the box. Everything we aimed to brew, we actually did. The reactions to it were exactly what we hoped for.”

Business owner John Robinson explained why did they interview the vocalist:

“We properly interviewed him, because we knew this would only work if he knew his stuff.”

You can read the whole article here

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