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Steve Harris (musician)

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File:Iron Maiden Steve Harris.jpg
Iron Maiden founder and bassist Steve Harris

Stephen Percy Harris or 'Arry to his fans (born March 12, 1957 in Leytonstone, London, England) is the bassist and primary songwriter of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. He founded the band as a teenager in 1975. He and Dave Murray are the only original members of the band that still remain, thirty years on.

He used to work as an architectural draftsman in the East End of London but gave up his job upon forming Iron Maiden. During the mid 1970s he was a youth team footballer for West Ham United. He is an exceptional football player, and his bandmates say that if he did not play bass he would definitely have had a career in professional football.

A self-taught bass player, Harris' first bass was a copy of a Fender Precision Bass that cost him about £40 when he was 17 years old. He went on to use a signature Lado "Unicorn" model and a late 1950s Fender Precision with RotoSound strings. He now uses his own signature RotoSound flatwound bass strings. This is surprising because flatwound strings do not sound clanky and bright. In fact, Steve's signature clanky bass tone comes from the metallic noise of the strings hitting the frets.

Harris has been influenced by other bass players such as Chris Squire of Yes, John Deacon of Queen, Mike Rutherford of Genesis, Geddy Lee of Rush, Andy Fraser of Free and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Martin Turner of Wishbone Ash, Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, and John Entwistle of The Who. One of his all-time favourites also was Pete Way from UFO, who influenced Harris' playing style.

Harris' first band was named Influence, later renamed to Gypsy's Kiss. He later joined Smiler, of which all the band members were several years older than he was. He ended up leaving, as the members of the band made it clear that they did not care for a bassist who leapt around the stage and wrote songs. After Smiler, Harris went on to create Iron Maiden. Steve Harris got the name from seeing an iron maiden (the torture instrument) in the movie The Man in the Iron Mask.

Steve Harris is often considered among the best and most influential heavy metal bassists. He frequently writes songs with a 'gallop', a pattern consisting of three rapid notes - one eighth and two sixteenths - which he plays with his first two fingers on his right hand. Before playing, Harris often greases his fingers, to make such 'gallops' easier to play, as shown on the bonus DVD for the A Matter of Life and Death album. Besides this he is very adventuresome on the bass and and plays intricate accompaniment in many of Maiden's songs. He also uses power chords, which are relatively unheard of on bass, on several songs. Some songs that Harris uses power chords on are "Fear of the Dark", "Futureal", "The Evil That Men Do", "Rainmaker", and many more. Harris also says that he never uses a pick and he never warms up before a show. More importantly, Steve Harris is Maiden's principal composer and lyricist. Harris' songwriting has been noted for, besides the aforementioned gallop pattern, his long, epic songs that feature many different tempo changes and movements. He frequently writes lyrics about mythology, history or topics gleaned from books and movies as opposed to the more mundane metal lyrics. The use of such lyrics in heavy metal was influential in the advent of progressive metal.

He plays a specially-painted bass guitar which has featured on every Iron Maiden album recorded. It is currently sporting the West Ham United F.C. logo. The guitar has gone through three colour changes since construction: originally being white, it was then changed to black, then blue, and is currently cream with the rim done in West Ham's light-blue, and the club's logo on the body. The pickguard is metallic.

It is widely reported that, while Harris does like to drink, he never uses drugs.

Trivia

  • In The Early Days documentary he revealed that he originally wanted to be a drummer, but as he lived with his grandmother he didn't have enough room for a drum-set.
  • Harris designed Iron Maiden's first logo which used the current Maiden Font, seen in all of their album-releases.
  • Given that Harris had been the centre of attention in Maiden's early gigs the addition of Bruce Dickinson to the bands line-up originally caused small scuffles between the two as they wanted to both be at the centre of the stage. Bruce mentioned in The Early Days documentary that Harris occasionally elbowed him away, he returned the favour by causing Harris to trip on his extra-long microphone stand.
  • The darker tone of the album The X Factor has often been attributed due to problems in Harris' personal life while making the album. He had recently divorced and his father had also died recently.
  • His oldest daughter, Lauren, is also a singer and due to release her debut album soon.

Albums with Iron Maiden

References

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