-
If I knew the answer to that I'd bottle and sell it.
Steve Harris Iron Maiden -
"We've had problems in the past where we've signed to a company where shortly after we got signed to them, the people who signed us immediately left or got sacked, or whatever, then they bring in new people who don't really give a shit about you. Whereas we're with Sony now, we've got people who really believe in us and who are really behind us--and it makes a big difference!
Steve Harris Iron Maiden
-
I think the thing is as well that in the rest of the world we've been picking up new young fans all the time, and most other countries it's like really young fans that varies into older people who have been into it for years there. I think over here we've tended to not really win the new younger fans. I think the trends over here have been very different the last few years and we've actually not been very trendy anyway, but I think its effected us here more than anywhere else. If you go to parts of Europe there are fans as young as twelve or thirteen years old ranging up to people in their forty's or whatever, but over here I think the audience is that much older. We haven't seemed to have got through to the younger fans and that is what we need to do. Maybe the CD game will help do that. I don't know. Obviously a PC game is something all ages will play but hopefully we might get across to some new people. It's very difficult for us to get across to new people because we don't get played on the radio hardly at all. Obviously it's the touring that does it but you can only go so far with it sometimes. To have a PC game we may actually get to break through to some new different people which would be nice.
Steve Harris Iron Maiden -
Some people do think the albums are like concept albums when they are not. That’s usually because of the artwork and the strong imagery that we use. What with the booklets and graphics and everything else and stuff like that. People get that impression. I say it with every album it’s the way it is, it’s a pretty simple approach and we try and get together the best collection of songs as best we can at any given time .... and you go with that. I mean you might look at it a year later and go back and think ‘Oh we could have done this or we could have done that’. You may think we could have second guessed this or that and we could have written a better song than that one. However at the time you’re enthusiastic about your stuff and you think that’s the best that you can come out with ..... at that time ...... you just HAVE to go with it. I don’t think you should look back over your shoulder at all, that’s always been our attitude. So that’s something that’s never changed in that respect. I mean that goes for with whatever the line up is, that’s always been the attitude. I hope that clears it up. We write the best collection of songs we can at the time and everything else fits around them .... not the other way around.
Steve Harris Iron Maiden -
We write a batch of songs and they come out as they come out. It’s not preconceived. It just turns out there are loads of epics on this album. We have high standards for what we want to achieve, but it’s not really well thought-out at all. We allow ourselves a six week writing period to give us enough pressure to bring it out.
Steve Harris Iron Maiden -
As soon as someone else said 'You're good but you should go more commercial' or 'You're good but you should cut your hair' we said 'Oh, all right', and walked out.
Steve Harris Iron Maiden -
I think that we are going to do various stuff like record live shows or put odd songs on the net so that people can download and say 'Oh I was there two nights ago, I was there'. I think technology's great if you can utilize it in the right way. It's good to be able to use all that stuff. I know I for one love all that stuff anyway. I love getting on the net and messing around. I think it's the way to go, its what people are into, its what we're into.
Steve Harris Iron Maiden